Text and Context; Studies in the American New Testament: Papers Presented to the Conference on the Armenian New Testament, May 22-28, 1992.

• Author: Greppin, John A.

This slight volume, the product of a conference held in South field, Michigan, under the patronage of the Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum, contains the contributions of ten Armenologists who study the Armenian biblical tradition. The papers are largely epexigetical, though there is some variation: Jos J. S. Weitenberg writes on the biblical use of the deictic particles, /-s/ ("my, this") and /-d/ ("thine, that"), and Dikran Kouymjian discusses gospel illuminations. As a whole, the scholarship is superb and this work of 124 pages can be considered a valuable and important publication. I comment on two articles that interested me particularly.

Robert W. Thomson discusses the homilies attributed to Yeghishe, an Armenian author of the fifth and sixth century. There are ten,(1) and all but one are rather short, some of a length suitable for reading to an audience, or as sermons. Thomson raises the question of the true origin of these homilies, wondering if they can all be attributed to Yeghishe. He answers that it is not possible to answer that question until there is both a proper study of the manuscript tradition and a complete study of these homilies in the context of early Armenian literature. This response might be viewed by many as a touch shy, since it was only twelve years ago that Thomson did a thorough translation and commentary of Yeghishe's History of Vardan and the Armenian War, thus establishing himself as a specialist on Yeghishe. Thomson does relent sufficiently to say that all but one of these homilies are considered to be by the same person who wrote the History of Vardan. Thomson's present piece focuses specifically on the homily On the Passion of Christ. Yeghishe begins by briefly summarizing Jesus' achievements on earth, deriving his data from all four Gospels, not just that of John, nor leaving out Luke, as did Ephrem; here he unfolds the hidden mysteries, but it is also a platform from which he will produce soliloquies. A certain emphasis is given to number symbolism, comparing the mere six days it...