Introduction to the Masorah | Editing the Masorah of the Manuscript BH MSS1 (Madrid, Complutensian Library)

EDITING THE MASORAH[1] OF THE MANUSCRIPT BH MSS1 (MADRID, COMPLUTENSIAN LIBRARY)

A text cannot be edited without a proper description of the manuscript that contains it. Therefore, before explaining the criteria followed in the current edition of the Masorah of the manuscript BH Mss1 (M1), I would like to introduce to you briefly this exceptional manuscript.

1. Manuscript description

The manuscript M1 consists of 340 unpaginated folios and contains the whole Hebrew Bible except for the folios which contained Exod. IX 33b- XXIV 7b.[2] It is written in a Sephardi hand and according to the note of purchase found on f. 334v (fig. 1)[3], it was bought by R. Yishaq and R. Abraham, both doctors, in the year five thousand and forty of the creation of the world, 1280, in Toledo. 

Fig. 1, BH Mss1, f. 334v

This manuscript is also known to be the one used extensively as a basis for the Hebrew text of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible edited by Ximenez de Cisneros in the 16th century (1514).

Each folio has three columns and each full column has 32 lines (fig. 2), except for the poetical portions of the Pentateuch (Exod. 15:1-19; Deut. 32:1-43; fig. 3), Judges (5:1-31), and Samuel, which are written in specially prescribed lines, as well as the poetical books (Psalms, Job and Proverbs), which are distinguished by an hemistichal division.

Fig. 2, BH Mss1, f. 3r

Fig. 3, BH Mss1, f. 80r

The text is provided with vowels and the accents. Most of the fifty four pericopes into which the Pentateuch is divided and the triennial pericopes, or sedarim, are respectively indicated in the margin by the word פרש and the letter samech, and are sometimes enclosed in an illuminated parallelogram. The division of the text into open and closed sections is exhibited by the prescribed vacant lines, indented lines and spaces in the middle of the lines.

     The Masorah parva (Mp) annotations occupy the outer margins and the margins between the columns. The Masora Magna (Mm) annotations are given in three lines in the upper margin and in four lines in the lower margin of each folio. The manuscript has a huge number of Masoretic annotations in figured patterns. These annotations have been located in the Mp, the Mm and the sekum, –a short summary with general information that was usually placed at the end of each biblical book. The forms of the figured Masorah are mainly simple geometric shapes, such as triangles, semicircles, zigzags, circles or a combination. Vegetal motifs and, exceptionally, other forms (e.g., a six-pointed star, a house shape, etc.) also appear.

Mm and Mp notations

 The thirty-seven cases of the big outer lower Mm are an exception in the context of the manuscript. Their designs, elaboration and complexity contrast with the simplicity of the other types (see outer margins fig. 2 and 3).[4]

     Besides the Mp and Mm annotations, a number of lengthy Masoretic rubrics are given at the end of the Pentateuch (appendix I), Latter Prophets (appendix III) and Chronicles (appendix IV).[5] They are written in three columns of 32 lines each (fig. 4), as the folios containing biblical text.

Fig. 4, BH Mss1, f. 337r

Appendix I contains a) the Summaries to each of the fifty-four pericopes giving the sedarim, pesaqim, the number of words, letters, the variations (hillufim) between the Easterns and Westerns, the ketiv-qere and the chronology of the parasha, and b) the summaries to each of the five books of the Pentateuch giving the total occurrences of the information contained in the pericopes.

The so-called appendix III contains seventeen rubrics considered by some scholars as part of the Dikduke ha-Teamim.

Appendix IV is composed of three parts very different from each other when taking into account the contents. The first part is the repetition of the end of Appendix III and the continuation of the unfinished list. The second part is formed by three lists with midrashic explanations. The third part collects lists of Sefer Oklah we-Oklah type.

2. The current edition

The edition of the marginal annotations of one text is a long and painstaking work. Due to the way that those annotations work and how they are normally expressed, much labor must be done prior to the realization of the edition. The analysis of the marginal annotations has been done following these five steps: 1. Find the words with a circellus in the folio and the Mp annotation attached to each word; 2. Locate the Mm annotations and the words to which they are attached; 3. Identify the simanîm or catchwords; 4. Confirm if the information given in the annotations is true; 5. Understand the annotations.

In order to fulfill step 4, the marginal annotations of the principal Tiberian biblical manuscripts (Cairo Codex of the Prophets, Or 4445, Aleppo codex, and Leningrad codex) and the major Masoretic lists and treatises[6] have been consulted to check whether they contain any information similar to the annotation.

2.1. Editorial criteria  

The major innovation of this edition is that only the Masorah and not the biblical text with which it appears in the manuscript is edited. The team in charge of the edition made this decision arguing that the attested differences between the various Masoretic annotations and the biblical text with which they appear proved that the Masorah is important enough to stand on its own and be edited by itself.[7]       

Another important decision made by the editorial team is to transcribe the marginal annotations without any alteration or emendation, resulting in a faithful reproduction of the manuscript. So, when the catchwords are not written exactly the same that the biblical text in the manuscript, they are reproduced as they appear followed by the word sic. The defective and plene spellings have not been taken into account unless they have a direct effect on the Masoretic information.

Those Masoretic annotations which are unclear or impossible to read completely by break or wear of the manuscript are in square brackets in the edited text. The complete information according to one of the main biblical manuscripts and traditional Masoretic compilations is given in one note.

If one Masoretic annotation contains some incorrect information, it is indicated in the explanatory notes. When the information given in one Masoretic annotation does not have a parallel in any other source, this lack is registered in the corresponding explanatory notes.

2.2. Description of the edition

2.2.1. Edition of the marginal annotations

Six volumes containing the marginal annotations from the five books of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua have been published so far.[8]

Each volume consists of an introduction, transcription and study of the marginal annotations, and two indexes.

The corpus is arranged in entries, each separated by three asterisks.

Each entry may consist of: 1) lemma (to the right) and the chapter and verse number (to the left), 2) the transcription of the Mp and Mm annotations with the identification of the simanim or catchwords when they are given, and 3) the explanatory notes.

1) The lemma refers to each word or group of words in the text which carries a Masoretic annotation, and which is, in nearly every case, marked by a circellus, i.e., a graphic symbol – a small circle – often placed over one word or between two or more words of the biblical text.

In absence of the circellus, this is mentioned in the explanatory notes.

The lemma is reproduced as it appears in the biblical text of the manuscript but without vowels signs and accentuation. Vowel signs have only been used to differentiate similar consonantal spellings which could lead into error. The lemma is provided with accentuation in cases where the annotation is concerned with accented words.

2) This is followed by the transcription of the Masoretic annotations.

On the right-hand side is an indication that the annotation is either Mp or Mm. This indication is followed by the Masoretic annotation as it appears in the manuscript.

The identification of the catchwords, both Hebrew and Aramaic, are given in parentheses. Letters in superscript (Mm and Mp) show whether the word has a Masoretic annotation elsewhere in the manuscript.

The liturgical sections which are marked with the letters, samek, peh or the word parasha in the manuscript are also indicated.

3) The explanatory notes placed at the end of each entry are one of the most helpful tools of this edition. They cover various things: information relative to how the text appears in the manuscript (different hands, lack of the circellus, etc.); information resulting from the process of studying and editing each annotation (if one siman has been repeated or omitted, when an annotation is incomplete, when the information is incorrect, the parallel occurrences in other manuscripts and Masoretic works, etc.); any other necessary information to fully understand each annotation.       

Each volume has two indexes at its end: the first one of lemmas in alphabetic order with the exceptions of particles and pronouns; the proper names are listed in the second part of this index. The second index presents a table with the Biblical quotations referred to in the Masoretic annotations of that book.

2.2.3. Edition of the Masoretic Rubrics

For the first time, this kind of Masoretic material has been edited and studied.[9]

The norms followed in the edition of these appendices are, in general, similar to those described for the volumes on the marginal annotations. The corpus is arranged in entries, but because of their varied form and content, the edition of each appendix has its own peculiarities and layout to facilitate its comprehension and consultation.

Appendix I   

The text is arranged in three columns: the lemma of the information (sedarim, parasiyot, etc) followed by the corresponding number, when it appears in shortened form, is placed in the first column. But if the number is not given in shortened form, it is placed in the second column. The simanim are placed in the second column. And their identification appears in the third column.

Appendix 1

The parasiyot are referred to in the manuscript by the mnemonic siman instead of by their names. In the edition, the name of the parasha and the verses it comprises have been added into square brackets.  

  Appendix III

The text of this appendix continues apart from the simanim and their identification which are arranged in two columns.

The comparison of the content of this appendix with the most significant sources has shown that the text of M1 is original in its final form, with elements of the four sources consulted as well as others of its own. Thus, to appreciate better these differences and similarities, the complete text of the sources is offered in an attachment placed immediately after the appendix.

Both texts, the appendix and the attachment, appear underlined: a) the text of the appendix when it is not corroborated by any source, and b) the text of the sources when it is not similar to the M1’s text. A number in square brackets is placed at the beginning of each list in the text of the appendix. In the attachment, the sources used to check each list have the same number.  

Appendix III

 Appendix IV

The three parts that form up this appendix have each own layout.

For the first part, which is the repetition of the end of Appendix III and the continuation of the unfinished list, the layout for Appendix III is followed: the text is continuous, apart from the simanim and their identification which are arranged in two columns.

Appendix IV

For the second part, that is the three lists with midrashic explanations, the heading is separated from the rest of the text.

Appendix IV

For the third part, with lists of the Sefer Oklah we-Oklah type, the heading is separated from the information which is arranged in three columns. The first column has the word which relates to the information or, in some cases, one word representative of the siman. The simanim are placed in the second column and their identification in the third one.

Appendix IV

 The translation of the headings into Spanish is given in square brackets at the beginning of each list.     

The words related to the phenomenon ketiv-qere are usually written in the manuscript according to the ketiv. If those words are written according to the qere this is registered in the corresponding explanatory note. 

Two indexes are placed at the end of this volume: the first one of lemmas and the second one with the biblical quotations. The index of lemmas is formed by three different lists, one to each appendix. In the index of Appendix I the names of the parasiyot and the summary of the books of the Pentateuch are pointed out. In the two other indexes the headings of the lists are pointed out, arranged in alphabetical order.  

 Dr. Elvira Martín-Contreras is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Languages (CSIC).           

[1] The technical term refers to the annotations that appear next to the consonant text of the Hebrew Bible in the margins of the so-called Masoretic codices. See A. Dotan, “Masorah”. In Encyclopaedia Judaica. Second Edition, vol. XIII, 614.

[2] Digitized version: http://dioscorides.ucm.es/proyecto_digitalizacion/index.php?doc=5309439296&y=2011&p=1

[3] All the images of the article belong to BH Mss1 at the Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla. Reproduced with the permission of the Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla. 

[4] E. Martín-Contreras, “The Image at the Service of the Text: Figured Masorah in the Biblical Hebrew Manuscript BH Mss1” Sefarad 76 (2016) 55-74.

[5] For a complete description of these material cf. E. Martín Contreras, “M1’s Masoretic Appendices: A New Description,” JNSL 32 (2006), 65-81.

[6] F. Díaz Esteban, Sefer Oklah we Oklah (Madrid: CSIC, 1975); A. Dotan, The Diqduqé hatteamim of Aharon ben Moshe ben Asher, with a Critical Edition of the Original Text from New Manuscripts (Jerusalem, 1967); S. Frensdorff, Das Buch Ochlah W’Ochlah (Hannover, 1864); C. D. Ginsburg, The Massorah Compiled from Manuscripts Alphabetically and Lexically Arranged, With an Analytical Table of Contents and Lists of Identified Sources and Parallels by A. Dotan, 4 vols. (New York: Ktav, 1975); B. Ognibeni, La seconda parte del Sefer Oklah weOklah (Madrid: CSIC; Fribourg: University of Fribourg, 1995). 

[7]  A. Dotan, “The Contribution of the Modern Spanish School to Masoretic Studies,” Estudios Bíblicos LXVIII (2010), 411-418: 416.

[8] E. Fernández Tejero, Las masoras del libro de Génesis. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2004); M.ª T. Ortega Monasterio, Las masoras del libro de Éxodo. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2002); M.ª J. Azcárraga Servert, Las masoras del libro de Levítico. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2004); M.ª J. Azcárraga Servert, Las masoras del libro de Números. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2001); G. Seijas de los Ríos, Las masoras del libro de Deuteronomio. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2002); E. Fernández Tejero, Las masoras del libro de Josué. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid: CSIC, 2009).

[9]  E. Martín-Contreras, Apéndices Masoréticos. Códice M1 de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Textos y Estudios “Cardenal Cisneros,” 72; Madrid: CSIC, 2004)

Introduction to the Masorah | The Masorah of the Leningrad Codex in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) Edition

Ancient Jew Review is pleased to host this panel, first presented at SBL 2019 in San Diego as “ A Beginner's Guide to the Masorahs of Four Great Early Manuscripts as Represented in Recent Printed Editions.”

The Masorah of the Leningrad Codex in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) Edition

The objective of this article is to give an overview of how the Masorah of BHS works.  I will assume that the reader is generally familiar with the Masorah.  For example, in the sample from BHS below, there is one Masoretic note on the third line.  The word יִדְאֶ֖ה has a circule over it.  That tells the reader it should be matched with a Masoretic note.  In this case, it is the note ב̇ , “occurs two times.”

For a full treatment of how the mechanics of the Masorah works, see Kelley, Mynatt and Crawford, 46-69. 

Image 1 below is the first page of text in the Leningrad Codex:  Genesis 1:1-26.  The Leningrad Codex is the basis for BHS, and thus its Masorah is the starting point of the Masorah of BHS.  The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, dating from around 1008.  Its colophon claims that the manuscript was copied from exemplars that were written by the esteemed Masorete Aaron ben Asher.  For more information on the Leningrad Codex, see Wurthwein, 36-7.

Image 1

Masorah Parva (Mp) notes generally count word or phrase occurrences.  These notes are the brief markings that are in the side margins of the columns.  In Image 2, several examples of Mp notes are circled in red.  These notes are in Aramaic shorthand or abbreviations.  For example, the Mp noteלׄ   means that the word occurs only one time; it is unique.  The note ד̇ means that the word occurs four times.  The note may give additional information, such as how it is spelled, whether the word occurs at the beginning of a verse, or occurs primarily in a specific book of the Bible.  For a glossary of Masoretic terms, with examples, see Kelley, Mynatt and Crawford, 69-193.

Image 2

The Masorah Magna notes generally give the location of the occurrences by citing “snippets” from the verses where they occur.  We are accustomed to chapter and verse citations, like “Jeremiah 13:2.”  The Masoretes lived in the days before concordances and chapter/verse divisions.  They identified specific verses by giving short quotations from the verses.  Thus, the Mm notes give these short verse “snippets” for each verse, identifying for the reader the location of each verse.  These notes are naturally lengthier, and they are in the upper and lower margins.  Image 3 shows an example.  The fact that a reader could identify the location of a verse by a short quotation from it demonstrates a familiarity with the Hebrew text that surpasses most of us today who rely on concordances.

Image 3

Image 4 gives approximately the same section in BHS that is represented in Image 1 for the Leningrad Codex.  Notice that BHS is set up in roughly the same way, with the Mp notes along the side margins.  We will return to the Mm notes below.

Image 4

BHS made two big innovations, when compared to previous editions of the Hebrew Bible with the Masorah. 

Innovation #1:  BHS “Completed” the Masorah Parva Notes

Although there should be a Mp note for each occurrence of a text feature, that rarely happens.  Typically, the Mp notes appear with only a few of the occurrences.  The editor of the Masorah of BHS (Gerard E. Weil) “completed” the Mp notes so that a note is matched with each occurrence. 

For example, the Mp of עִמְּךָ֖  in Genesis 26:3 is י̇ב̇ בתו̇ר  (occurs twelve times in the Torah).  One would expect that this Mp note would occur with each of the twelve occurrences.  In fact, the note actually occurs with only four of the twelve references in the Leningrad:  Gen. 21:22, 26:3, Deut. 20:20, 22:2.  In the Masorah of BHS, all 12 of the occurrences will have the Mp note because the editor “completed” all of the references.

The same word or text feature can be the subject of more than one Mp note.  Thus, one might wonder what would happen if one word was an occurrence in two or more Masoretic rubrics.  In other words, if Weil “completed” every Mp note in the Leningrad Codex, and if words might be the subject of more than one note, then how did he put two or more Mp notes on the same word?

The answer is that Weil had to edit multiple notes into one cohesive note.  Sometimes, the results are a bit messy.  For example, in the Leningrad Codex in Genesis 49:11, the note for the word   עִירֹה is “The Qere is עִירוֺ.”  See Image 5.

Image 5

In BHS, this simple note has been combined with another so that it looks much more complicated.  See image 6.

Image 6

The note now says: “The Qere is עִירוֺ̇.  This is one of 16 occurrences written ה in the Torah, and it is unique in this form.”  The combination of “completed” Mp notes produces some complicated and occasionally awkward marginal notations.

Innovation #2:  The Masorah Magna Notes Are in a Separate Volume

Recall that in the Leningrad Codex, the Masorah Magna (Mm) notes are in the top and bottom margins.  See Image 7 for some examples in the codex.

Image 7

In BHS, all of the Mm notes have been exported to another book.  This is best illustrated by way of an example.  In Deut. 28:55, the word יֹאכֵ֔ל, has the Mp note 53 י̇ג̇ (occurs 13 times).  See Image 8.

Image 8

The superscript number 53 tells you to look for a note in the Masorah apparatus at the bottom of the page.  See Image 9.

Image 9

The note in the Masoretic Apparatus tells you to go find the entry for Mm 784 in this book:  Weil, Gerard E. Massorah Gedolah. Vol. 1. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971.  This volume contains all of the Mm lists in the Leningrad Codex. Instead of printing them in BHS, they were all exported to this supplementary volume.  See Image 10.

Image 10

Inside this book, you will look for list 784, which happens to be on page 95.  Image 11 shows you what page 95 looks like.

Image 11

Image 12 is a close-up of only list 784.  It gives the location of the 13 occurrences. 

Image 12

These lists are also heavily edited.  Image 13 shows what this Mm list looks like in the Leningrad Codex.  The area in highlight is the actual note and the snippets for the individual occurrences.

Image 13

The changes in Massorah Gedolah are not simply a matter of putting the Hebrew into a nice typeface.  Weil has added a number of editorial changes to make the book easier to use for the reader.  For example, the book abbreviations and the chapter/verse locations are now included.  See Image 14.

Image 14

Additionally, Weil made emendations, like adding a missing snippet.  In this list in the Leningrad Codex, the snippet for Number 6:3 is absent (the brackets indicate this for the reader).  Weil added it so that the occurrences can be complete.  See Image 15.

Image 15

The Masorah of BHS has plenty of other quirky notations that are nowhere to be found in the Leningrad Codex, for example, notes marked “sub loco” or “contra textum” in the Masoretic apparatus.  These relatively rare notations should not distract a new user from learning how to use the Masorah of BHS.  Kelley, Mynatt and Crawford, 54-57, discusses these and other unusual notations.

Works Cited

Kelley, Page H, Daniel S. Mynatt and Timoghty G. Crawford. Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Weil, Gerard E. Massorah Gedolah. Vol. 1. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971.

Wurthwein, Ernst. The Text of the Old Testament. 2d ed. Translated by Erroll Rhodes.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Daniel Mynatt is the Vice Provost for Institutional Effectiveness at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor.

Pandemic Pedagogy: Pamphlet Final Projects and Laughter

Teaching during global pandemic means improvisation. This short article shares my experience of an improvised assignment that worked, how it worked, and what good came out of it: museum-style pamphlets. Take it if you like, adapt it as you will, and let me know what works better when you do.

The Backstory

The origin story of these pamphlets begins with a simple observation: poster sessions are cool. At the small liberal art college at which I taught this year, disciplines with a lot of majors – Economics, Biochemistry, Business Administration, and so on – pack the library at the end of each semester with glossy student posters and enthusiastic presentations. There is a bit of buzz and excitement, and it releases students and faculty alike from the cycle of paper research and editing.

So, I decided that for my seminar course this term – “The Rise of Religion and the Fall of Rome”; put the fall of Rome in your title, and they will come – I would move away from the final paper model and take the course into display space. Two reasons: first, I avoid compulsory formal research papers for undergraduates. They can be exceptional, even life-shaping, experiences for the right people, especially those of us temperamentally invested in long-form research writing, but they are also very time-consuming. In American academic existence, students and instructors – especially contingent and non-tenure track instructors – have so many competing demands on their time. For a lot of students, an extended research task is a gift. For a lot of students – and, for the instructor – it can become a chore. Second, visibility. The Religion department at Washington and Lee has very few majors, and it struggles to fill even the classes of established faculty. I figured raising the profile of the department, as visiting faculty, was a mitzvah.

Of course, neat as poster sessions might be, they become more difficult if adverse circumstances intervene. Like many teachers, the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and resultant state of pandemic meant I reinvented courses on the fly, including their final assignments. The library was closed, students were scattered to the winds, and as a small teaching-intensive college – even one with a disproportionately large endowment – the online resources available for research were limited.

In my survey courses, an alternative was simpler: a portfolio based final with miniature writing assignments. Students still get to develop writing expertise, while everyone saves the time it takes to write, read, and edit more extended research pieces. It takes just as much skill to write with concision. In my seminar course, however, I wanted three things.First, I wanted students to come away with the ability to communicate knowledge about their material with a degree of critical selectivity. Second, I wanted an assignment that combined knowledge management with visual display. Third, I wanted the final to be less work for everyone. Suddenly, faculty were juggling converted online-only courses and students were dealing all at once with the fallout from several faculty juggling converted online-only courses. So, what assignment ticked all the boxes?

My students pointed to a solution when they began to push for sources beyond the hyper-elite material that dominated much of the first half of our course. Our week on Ḥimyar and Aksum proved the crunch point. Students found the privileged position of much of the literary and epigraphic evidence, as well as the political and economic historical focus of modern scholarship, a tad frustrating. Say, for example, that we know from his Mārib inscription that the sixth-century Aksumite king Kālēb justified his pious militancy partly through repurposed psalms. Sure – but what did your average Ḥimyarite on the street think of Kālēb’s invasion? To respond to this student desire, I wanted to find a way to make this social-historical, even micro-historical, approach play into the final.

A possibility sprang to mind: what if students designed pamphlets? Visually appealing, they package up concise information, and are easy to read and share. The only one of my three assignment stipulations in question was the third: would they be less work? Pamphlets take more time than you might think – effective design was a second-order issue, but as anyone who has even ever “whipped up a poster quickly” for an event will tell you, even basic design is a skill. But it is a different type of labour: students were writing a lot, in the form of discussions forums and final papers, so visual design is good time spent. In a sense, to return to the beginning of the story, they are portable posters. Plus, pamphlets are one of my favourite things about museums, especially when they come with little maps, and even when (speaking purely hypothetically) they get deposited in a kitchen drawer only to be excavated when we need that drawer for cat food.

The Assignment

Having said a little about how the assignment came together (in effect, it improvised itself into existence), I want to spend a little time giving a short how-to, and then some practical critique on what needs future tweaks. I had the opportunity to discuss with students extensively, so a lot of this was possible because of close communication with a dedicated group. It was important to answer student questions early. I also provided a short rubric. The main things to note: first, I provided a concrete example of the format (thank you: internet). Second, I stipulated that this was “research-lite.” Third, I made sure to give them a list of starter resources. Students did use images from various sites, as well as going out and finding their own. Stars of the show included museum collections, especially Penn’s collection of Aramaic incantation bowls.

Students, as you can see from the examples, rose to the occasion. The assignment proved flexible. The students split half-and-half into folks keen to examine a particular type of object – amulets, magic bowls, graffiti, and so on – and those interested in telling a specific story – about the legacy of Paul, the legend of Frumentius in Ethiopia, and so on. Most students subdivided a Word document into three columns per landscape page; at least one student made use of the trial version of Canva, a handy design tool with lots of templates and (at time of writing) a flexible free plan.

There is no escape from Zoom.

The Debrief

No first attempt is perfect, and there are a couple of things I noticed for tweaking in future. First, I would stipulate more explicitly that students think about a pamphlet that might belong in a museum space. In general, students who engaged specific objects more easily adapted to the format. A couple of students chose topics better suited to research papers and ended up with something more like a paper compressed into six panels. Second, if planning to move towards a pamphlet assignment, I think I’ll encourage students themselves to find real-world examples of the sort of thing we’re talking about. Finally, I made very few tech suggestions: the student design was at their initiative, mostly to make this low-stakes in the current high-stress, high-pressure situation. I do think, in retrospect, more direction in terms of recommended method might have helped those who struggled a little with the format to engage with more confidence.

You heard it here first: resurrecting fish just doesn’t make the headlines like it did back in the way.

Perhaps the most valuable thing to come out of all of this was an opportunity to share a collective sense of humour. The shift towards a more visual presentation format seems to have helped students relax a little. This is also an issue with academic writing more broadly. With a few noble exceptions, academic literature is often not very funny. Student papers even less so. For some reason, especially odd given the hilarity threaded through much of our late antique material, we tend not to laugh at our sources – or ourselves – nearly often enough in writing. When scholars get together, the ability to crack a joke at John Chrysostom’s expense or to quip about the oven of Akhnai marks you as a good egg. In the classroom, nobody regrets a giggle at the apostle Peter’s resurrection of a smoked fish. So, why deprive us of that in writing?

In any case, the lack of levity common in academic writing was nowhere to be found with these pamphlets. Perhaps the form shifted the assignment into a genre less alienated from the ability to crack a joke. Maybe the emphasis on display meant students paid more attention to the rhetoric and style of presentation – a lesson for reading ancient sources if there ever was one. Possibly, the fact the assignment was fun meant it offered a little relief from their other final assignments. In any case, the payoff of the assignment for me was a light-hearted grading session. There might be no stronger a recommendation for a pedagogical choice than this: if it makes you and your students laugh even as you understand something better together, especially right now, it might well be worth doing.

I endorse no museum that lacks adorable demonic stuffed animals.

Matthew Chalmers is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Washington and Lee University and Deputy Editor of Late Antiquity at Ancient Jew Review (Twitter: @Matt_J_Chalmers).