«Magnalia Dei». Biblical History in Epic Verse by Grigor Magistros (The First Literary Epic in Medieval Armenian)
Critical Text, with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary
By (author) A. Terian
Paperback (Published)
(October 2012)
ISBN: 9789042925076
Price: $62.00
On back order
Composed by Grigor Magistros, an 11th-century Armenian princely savant and friend of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus (reigned 1042-55), the Magnalia Dei is a summation of the Bible in epic verse. Written on one of the author’s visits to Constantinople, it resulted from an encounter there with a Moslem intellectual by the name of Manazi – none other than Abu Nasr al-Manazi, vizier and emissary of the Abbasid Caliphate, theologian and poet, who frequently visited Constantinople in quest of Greek scientific manuscripts. During their discussion on the Bible and the Qur’an, a stock Islamic argument emerged: that the Qur’an is superior to the Christian Scriptures on account of its beautiful, inimitable verse. The epic is Magistros’s response. The Magnalia Dei is the earliest literary epic in medieval Armenian, and one of the most informative compositions within the genre of biblically inspired verse narratives in Christian literature.
- By (author) A. Terian
"The name of Grigor (Pahlavuni) Magistros (ca. 990-1059) is not much known outside of the circles of Armenian studies...and perhaps less so this poem of his, which appears here for the first time in a critical edition and with a translation. [...] We can be very grateful to Terian for his work on the text and translation of Grigor's poem, the earliest such poem to focus on biblical history..." --Adam Carter McCollum, Review of Biblical Literature
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