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Books > Christianity > Orthodox Churches
John Bushnell's analysis of previously unstudied church records and
provincial archives reveals surprising marriage patterns in Russian
peasant villages in the 18th and 19th centuries. For some villages
the rate of unmarried women reached as high as 70 percent. The
religious group most closely identified with female peasant
marriage aversion was the Old Believer Spasovite covenant, and
Bushnell argues that some of these women might have had more agency
in the decision to marry than more common peasant tradition
ordinarily allowed. Bushnell explores the cataclysmic social and
economic impacts these decisions had on the villages, sometimes
dragging entire households into poverty and ultimate dissolution.
In this act of defiance, this group of socially, politically, and
economically subordinated peasants went beyond traditional acts of
resistance and reaction.
The first critical editions and English translations of the two
Syriac recensions of a fascinating text which narrates the story of
a young Jewish child, Asher. After converting to Christianity and
taking the name 'Abda da-Msiha ('slave of Christ'), he is martyred
by his father. In a detailed introduction, Butts and Gross
challenge the use of this text by previous scholars as evidence for
historical interactions between Jews and Christians, reevaluating
its purpose and situating the story in its Late Antique Babylonian
context.
This Introduction aims to provide basic guidance to important areas
of Syriac studies. The relevance of Syriac studies to a variety of
other fields is explored. A brief orientation to the history of
Syriac literature is offered, and Syriac is set within the context
of the other Aramaic dialects. A thorough discussion on important
tools (Instrumenta Studiorum) is presented; topics include
grammars, dictionaries, the Bible in Syriac, histories of Syriac
literature, bibliographical aids and relevant series, periodicals,
and encyclopedias. This Introduction should prove useful both for
the student beginning Syriac studies and for scholars working in
adjacent fields.
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