Dr. Robert R. Phenix
Curriculum Vitae, Publications, and Scientific Communications
Summary
I hold a PhD from the University of Tübingen, Germany, in Languages and Cultures of the Christian Orient, with language specializations in Syriac/Aramaic, Ethiopic, Christian Arabic, Armenian, and Georgian. I have strong language competencies in Biblical Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
I have published and forthcoming eight (8) academic and edited volumes, as well as 15 academic articles in the field of Eastern and Oriental Christian Studies.
I have designed and been a contributor to Digital Humanities projects for Prof. Cornelia Horn at MLU, in roles as inventor, engineer, coder, research assistant, and grant writer. Projects include quantitative text tagging in motif analysis of Christian apocrypha; an open-access, Web-based system serving recorded performances of threatened recitation traditions of religious texts, allowing the user to visualize oral performance with music notation in the browser, and the adaptation of software to study the historical development of traditions of textual interpretation and oral performance across Oriental Christianity, Islam, and Mandaeism; the development of a browser-based expert system for the analysis of texts across multiple languages and scripts, driven by a unique approach to data structuring and the representation of texts and user-oriented visualization tools; and the online Oriental Christian bibliography project which will be hosted at the University of Halle.
I teach:
the writing systems, grammar, translation, literature, history, and philology of Syriac, Classical Georgian, Classical Armenian, Christian Arabic, Ethiopic/Gəʕəz, Pre-Modern Greek, and Coptic. Thematic instruction includes: liturgy, monasticism, hagiography, apocrypha, history, transmission of ideas and literary themes and exegesis across Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, history of Christianity, history of the Roman Empire including Byzantium, archaeology, and art history.
Education
Ph.D., Orientalisches Seminar, Eberhard-Karl Universität Tübingen, Languages and Literatures of the Christian Orient
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Stephen Gerö
Ph. D. Thesis: “Twelve Syriac Sermons on Joseph (Genesis 37 and 39-50) Attributed to Balai: A Historical-Critical, Rhetorical-Critical, and Literary-Critical Study of Poetry from the Golden Age of Syriac Literature.”
Degree Awarded: Tübingen, July 12th, 2005
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 1991-1995. B.A. Linguistics, B.A. Philosophy.
Digital Humanities
Digital Christian Orient (DCO) 2015 - present
An open-source, web-accessible expert system for text representation and data visualization across the languages of the Christian Orient
Primary components: a graph database which contains morphemes, lexemes, and other units of of ancient and modern languages which are tagged for linguistic and semantic information and associated by meaning across languages, encoding morphological and orthographical variants, translation equivalents, writing systems, and other information; a citation index of works in Oriental Christianity, and a means to query information, display texts and textual variants across multiple languages; Qhomi, an online, interactive learning platform for structured acquisition of Oriental Christian languages incorporating aural and visual tools
Roles: inventor, designer, grant writer, engineer, coder, data tech
Quantitative Tagging for Motif Analysis in Christian Apocrypha 2017 - present
An open-source, web-accessible tool to store Christian Apocrypha in digital format enabling users to visualize narrative information and support analysis of narrative structure and aid in the identification of motifs, primarily employing a vector array of binary features to tag texts for motifs and employ techniques from linear algebra to create algorithms to discover, compare, analyze, and visualize data
Application submitted to the Volkswagen Stiftung, 2017
EUR10 000 grant to create a presentation for consideration in the second round.
Roles: inventor, designer, grant writer
Music and Exegesis in Oriental Christianity, Islam, and Mandaeism 2022 - present
An open-source, web-accessible archive of endangered styles of recitation from sacred texts and hymnography, a database of digitized texts and musical notation and Western musical transcription of recordings, with digital tools to analyze textual exegesis both in the respective commentary and text notational traditions and in oral performance of these texts
Applications pending, 2023
Roles: co-lead researcher with Dr. Rebekka Nieten, Oriental Christian music and text interpretation; grant writer
Books
The Sermons on Joseph of Balai of Qenneshrin. Rhetoric and Interpretation in Fifth-Century Syriac Literature. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity (STAC) 50. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008. ISBN 978-3-16-149676-9 (paperback).
Reviews:
J. F. Coakley, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61 (2010), 166-167.
Ch. Mulard, Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 90 (2010), 82-83.
John J. Watt, Journal of Semitic Studies 55.2 (2010), 614-616.
Peter Bruns, Zeitschrift für Antike und Christentum 16 (2012), 175-178.
Angela Standhartinger, “Recent Scholarship on Joseph and Aseneth (1988-2013),” Currents in Biblical Research 12.3 (2014), 353-406, here 357-358.
John Rufus: The Lives of Peter the Iberian, Theodosius of Jerusalem, and the Monk Romanus. Edited and Translated with an Introduction and Notes. Co-authored with Cornelia Horn. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 24. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature and E. J. Brill Publishers, 2008. Pp. xcii + 370. ISBN: 9004146865 (cloth; Brill Academic); 978-1-58983-200-8 (paperback; SBL).
Reviews:
Pauline Allen, Review of Biblical Literature (April, 2009), http://www.bookreviews.org .
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Review of Biblical Literature (May, 2009), http://www.bookreviews.org .
Paul Parvis, The Expository Times 120 (2009), 617.
Kathleen Gibbons, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.05.20.
Analecta Bollandiana Dec. 2009, pp. 441f.
Eric D. Reymond, Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.4 (2009), 692-693.
B. Dehandschutter, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 86.1 (2010), 238-240.
The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor: Church and War in Late Antiquity. Edited by Geoffrey Greatrex. Translated from Syriac and Arabic sources by Robert R. Phenix and Cornelia B. Horn. With contributions to the introduction by Sebastian Brock and Witold Witakowski. Translated Texts for Historians 55. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011. Pp. 562. ISBN: 9781846314933 (cloth); 9781846314940 (paperback).
Reviews:
Ian Hughes, UNRV History at http://www.unrv.com/book-review/chronicle-pseudo-zachariah-rhetor.php [seen October 27, 2011].
Edward Watts, Journal of Late Antiquity 4.2 (2011), 369-371.
Timothy D. Barnes, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62 (2011), 796-797.
Charles Pazdernik, The Medieval Review 12.09.32 (2012) at https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/17656/23774 [seen May 8, 2016].
Strategius of Mar Saba, On the Captivity of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614 CE: The First Full English Translation of the Georgian Witness with Selected Greek, Arabic, and Armenian Parallels. Co-authored with Cornelia Horn. Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 4. Georgian Texts and Studies 1. Chesterfield, Missouri: Abelian Academic, An Imprint of the Abelian Group, 2022. Pp. 348.
Rabbula, Monk and Bishop of Edessa: His Prose and Poetic Works including the Account of his Life. Edition of the Syriac and Latin texts, English translation, and Introduction with notes to the Corpus Rabbulae. Co-authored with Cornelia B. Horn. Writings from the Greco-Roman World. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature; and Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2017.
Books in Press:
The Armenian Antiphons of Ephraem the Syrian. A critical English translation. Edited by Cornelia Horn. Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 5. Armenian Texts and Studies 1. Chesterfield, Missouri: Abelian Academic, An Imprint of the Abelian Group. December 2023.
The Acts of Thekla. An Edition and English Translation of an Arabic Witness. Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 6. Christian Arabic Texts and Studies 1. Chesterfield, Missouri: Abelian Academic, An Imprint of the Abelian Group. Winter 2024.
Articles, Conference Proceedings, Book Chapters
“The Death of Aaron in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Sources: Towards a New Evaluation,” in Biblical and Qur’ānic Traditions in the Middle East, edited Cornelia Horn and Sidney H. Griffith, Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 2 (Warwick, R.I.: Abelian Academic, an imprint of The Abelian Group, 2016), 69-84.
“King David and the Building of the Temple: Interpretive Competition between Early Jewish and Christian Traditions,” co-authored with Cornelia Horn, in Biblical and Qur’ānic Traditions in the Middle East, edited Cornelia Horn and Sidney H. Griffith, Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 2 (Warwick, R.I.: Abelian Academic, an imprint of The Abelian Group, 2016), 85-108.
“Perspectives on Women in Early Christian Apocryphal Texts,” co-authored with Cornelia Horn, in Festschrift in Honor of Professor Paul Nadim Tarazi. Volume 3: Studies in Intertestamental, Extra-Canonical, and Early Christian Literature, ed. Tom Dykstra, Bible in the Christian Orthodox Tradition 5 (New York, Bern, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Vienna: Peter Lang, 2015), 115-132.
“Beyond the Eastern Frontier.” Co-authored with Robert R. Phenix Jr. and Samuel N. C. Lieu. In Early Christianity in Contexts. An Exploration across Cultures and Continents. Ed. William Tabbernee. Pp. 63-109. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2014.
“Adam’s Offspring, Male and Female: Comparative Perspectives on a Trajectory in Jewish, Syriac Christian, and Early Islamic Literature,” in The Bible, the Qur’ān, and Their Interpretation: Syriac Perspectives, ed. Cornelia Horn, Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts 1 (Warwick, R.I.: Abelian Academic, 2013), 1-14.
“Approaching Penitential Poetry: Rhetoric and Exegesis in the Liturgical Hymns Attributed to Balai of Qenneshrin and the Supplications Attributed to Rabbula of Edessa.” In Bibel, Byzanz und Christlicher Orient. Festschrift für Stephen Gerö zum 65. Geburtstag. Ed. Dimitrij Bumazhnov, Emmanouela Grypeou, Timothy B. Sailors, and Alexander Toepel. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 187. Pp. 315-328. Louvain: Peeters, 2011.
“Apocryphal Gospels in Syriac and Related Texts Offering Traditions about Jesus,” co-authored with Cornelia Horn, in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, ed. Jörg Frey and Jens Schröter, with the collaboration of Jakob Spaeth, WUNT 254 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2010), 527-555.
“Der Wert des Genesis-Kommentars Ephräms als Quelle für die Joseph-Memren Balais.“ In Akten des 5. Symposiums zur Sprache, Geschichte, Theologie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen (V. Deutsche Syrologentagung) (Berlin 14.-15. Juli 2006). Ed. Rainer Voigt. Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinensia 9. Pp. 211-224. Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2010.
“The Contribution of Social Science Research to the Study of Children and Childhood in Pre-Modern Ethiopia.” In Children in Late Ancient Christianity. Ed. Cornelia Horn and Robert R. Phenix Jr. STAC 58. Pp. 375-405. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009.
“Introduction.” In Children in Late Ancient Christianity. Ed. Cornelia Horn and Robert R. Phenix Jr. STAC 58. Pp. xiii-xxvi. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009.
“Prayer and Penance in Early and Middle Byzantine Christianity: Some Trajectories from the Greek- and Syriac-Speaking Realms.” Co-authored with Cornelia B. Horn. In Seeking the Favor of God. Volume 3, The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism. Ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline. Early Judaism and Its Literature 23. Pp. 225-254. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Studies, 2008.
“The Sermons on Joseph of Balai of Qennešrīn (Early Fifth Century CE) as a Witness to the Transmission History and Interpretive Development of Joseph Traditions,” in Interpretation, Religion and Culture in Midrash and Beyond. Proceedings of the 2006 and 2007 SBL Midrash Sections, ed. Lieve M. Teugels and Rivka Ulmer, Judaism in Context 6 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2008), 3-24.
“Kunstprosaische Elemente in der Vita Rabbulae: Ein Blick auf das Encomium an den Helden.” In Die Suryoye und ihre Umwelt. Viertes deutsches Syrologen-Symposium in Trier 2004. Festgabe Wolfgang Hage zum 70. Geburtstag. Ed. Martin Tamcke and Andreas Heinz. Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 36. Pp. 281-293. Münster, Hamburg, Berlin, Wien, and London: LIT-Verlag, 2005.
“Syriac-speaking Churches: Their Origins and History to the Eighteenth Century,” co-authored with Cornelia Horn, in Christianity at the Crossroads of Civilization, guest-edited by Avril Makhlouf†, special issue of Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 7.2 (2005), 9-34. [invited article; published in 2007]
“Eastern Catholic Churches of the Syriac Tradition in the Near East: Their Origins, History, and Place in Ecumenical Dialogue,” co-authored with Cornelia Horn, in Christianity at the Crossroads of Civilization, guest-edited by Avril Makhlouf†, special issue of Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 7.2 (2005), 157-182. [invited article; published in 2007]
Book Reviews
Review of Ruth Webb. Demons and Dancers. Performance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2008). Pp. viii + 296. Hardcover $45. In Journal of Early Christian Studies 18.3 (2010), 465-466.
Review of Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred. The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 38 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: The University of California Press, 2005). Pp. xv + 250. Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 14.1 (2010), 260-265.
Review of John Anthony McGuckin, The Orthodox Church. An Introduction to its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture (Malden, MA and Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing, June 30th, 2008). Pp. xv + 457. ISBN: 1405150661 (cloth), $150.00. In Church History 78.2 (2009), 454.
Review of Ilse Rochow. Die Legende von der abgehauenen Hand des Johannes Damaskenos. Ursprung-Varianten-Verbreitung. Berliner Byzantinische Studien 8. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007. Pp. xliv + 413. One color plate. The Catholic Historical Review 95.4 (2009), 791-792.
Review of Muriel Debié, Alain Desreumaux, Christelle Jullien, and Florence Jullien, Les apocryphes syriaques, Études Syriaques 2 (Paris: Geuthner, 2005). Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 18.4 (2009), 303-310.
Review of Michael Angold, ed., The Cambridge History of Christianity. Volume 5: Eastern Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). In Church History 77.2 (2008), 526.
Review of Percy S. F. van Keulen and Wido Th. Peursen, eds. Corpus Linguistics and Textual Theory. A Computer-Assisted Interdisciplinary Approach to the Peshitta. Studia Semitica Neerlandica 48 (Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2006). Pp. ix + 367. Hebrew Studies 48 (2007), 390-393.
Review of J. F. Coakley, Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar 5th ed., Hugoye: Journal for Syriac Studies 6.2 (2003), http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No2/index.html .
Co-authored with Cornelia Horn. Review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.), Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschluesselung der Qur’ānsprache (Berlin, Germany: Das Arabische Buch, first ed., 2000), ix & 306 pp., Hugoye: Journal for Syriac Studies 6.1 (2003), http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html ; reprinted in: St. Francis Magazine. Online Magazine about Religions and Mission in the Arab World 2.1 (September 2005), http://www.stfrancismagazine.info/issue2/francis2004.pdf .
Review of Harald Suermann Die Gründungsgeschichte der maronitischen Kirche (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998), x & 343 pp., submitted to appear in: The Journal of Maronite Studies
Academic Papers
“Adam and His Offspring: Comparative Perspectives on Trajectories in Syriac Christian and Early Islamic Literature.” Presented to the joint session “The Qur’ān (and Its Commentaries) in Comparison with Syriac and Byzantine Greek Literature.” Sponsored by SBL Syriac Literature and Interpretations of Sacred Texts/Qur’ān and Biblical Literature Section. Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans. Louisiana (November, 2009).
“The Transmission of Greek and Syriac Exegesis in the Context of Islam: the Jacobite Scholion of Vat. Sir. 103.” Presented in the session: Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic Texts in Context. Texts and Contexts. A Conference at the Ohio State University. Sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies. Columbus, Ohio, November 6-7, 2009.
“Numbers: Views of the Death of Aaron in the Bible and Islam, by Way of Midrash and Oriental Christian Exegesis,” paper presented at the meeting of the Qur’an and Biblical Literature Section at the SBL Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 2008.
“Holiness and Rites of Passage of Child Saints in Ethiopic Hagiography,” presented at the meeting of the Early Christian Families Group at the SBL Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, November 2008.
“The Syriac Martyrdom of the Mimes: Text, Transmission, and Context,” paper presented at Texts and Contexts. A Conference at the Ohio State University, sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies, Columbus, Ohio, October 31 – November 1, 2008.
“Kann sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung einen Beitrag zum Studium der Welt von Kindern und der Vorstellung von Kindheit im frühen Äthiopien leisten?” Faculty of Cultural Sciences, University of Tübingen, Germany (July, 2008).
“Can Social Science Research Contribute to the Study of Children and Childhood in Pre-Modern Ethiopia?,” paper presented to the Early Church Colloquium, April 23rd 2008, Saint Louis University.
“Notes on Semitic Palaeography: Qumran, Syriac, Ethiopic,” invited lecture, The Palaeography Seminar Spring 2008, Saint Louis University.
“The Sermons on Joseph of Balai of Qennešrīn (early fifth century CE) as a Witness to the Transmission History and Interpretive Development of Joseph Traditions,” paper presented at the Midrash Section of the North American SBL Meeting, San Diego, November 2007.
“Battling over Elijah’s Virginal Body: the Appropriation of the Prophet Elijah in Opposing Eastern Christian Traditions in Late Antiquity,” paper accepted for the Eastern Christian Biblical Interpretation Section of the North American SBL Meeting, San Diego, November 2007 [could not be delivered due to scheduling conflict].
“Syntax, Lexicon, and Interpretation in Ezra 4.12,” paper presented at the Aramaic Section of the North American SBL Meeting, San Diego, November 2007.
“An Appraisal of the Manuscript Witnesses to the Ethiopic Version of the ‘Life of Anthony of Egypt’ and the Transmission of Saints’ Lives in Ethiopia,” invited paper delivered at “Texts and Contexts,” a conference held at the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at Ohio State University, October 26-27, 2007.
“A Syriac Verse Homily on the Translation of the Bones of the Patriarch Joseph to Constantinople in the Fifth Century,” paper presented at the 32nd Byzantine Studies Conference, University of Missouri at Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO, November 10th-12th, 2006.
“The End of the Story of Joseph in Pseudepigraphical Texts and in the Sermons on Joseph of Balai (First Half of 5th Century),“ invited paper, Ottawa Conference on the Pseudepigrapha, University of Ottawa, Ontario, 2006.
“Die Wert des Gensiskommentar Ephräms als Quelle für die Josefs-Memren Balais,” paper presented at the 5th Deutsches Syrologisches Symposium, Freie Universit:ät Berlin, July 15th-16th, 2006.
“Was there a Jewish Greek Vorlage to the Syriac Sermons on Joseph by Balai (first half of the fifth century)?” paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the North American Patristics Society (NAPS), Chicago, IL, May 25-27th, 2006.
“A Hermeneutical and Interpretative Look at the Ezra Story (Er chs. 7-10, Ne Chs. 8-9),” paper presented at the International SBL Meeting, Groningen, NL, July, 2004.
“Observations on Narrative Elements in The Life of Rabbula,” paper presented at the Viertes Syrologen Symposium, Trier, July 23-25th, 2004.
“Poetic Structure in Psalm 35 [in German]” paper presented at the Summer Semester colloquium (“Oberseminar”) in the Old Testament section of the Theological Faculty of the University of Würzburg, July 2004.
“Towards an Eastern Christian Curriculum: Integrating Eastern Christian Texts in the Classroom,” AAR/SBL Upper Midwest Regional Conference, St. Paul, MN April 2003.
“From Syriac into Armenian: Food for Body and Soul in Ephraem the Syrian’s Armenian Poetry,” The Second Chicago Conference on Caucasia, University of Chicago, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Chicago, IL (May 2002) [paper co-authored with Cornelia Horn].
“The Emergence of the Unmarked in Syntax: Evidence from Classical Biblical Hebrew and Hausa,” paper delivered at the 17th North American Conference of Afro-Asiatic Linguists, March 31st, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
“Non-Linear Phonology,” lecture presented at the University of Rhode Island, invited by Prof. Dr. Kenneth Rogers, Spring 1994.