MIRIAM AND AARON: THE BIBLE AND WOMEN WEBSITE

THE CITY AND THE BOOK/ LA CITTA' E IL LIBRO I
PROCEEDINGS, THE ALPHABET AND THE BIBLE/ GLI ATTI, L'ALFABETO E LA BIBBIA
FLORENCE, MAY/JUNE 2001/ FIRENZE, MAGGIO/GIUGNO 2001

I. ALPHABET AND BIBLE/ L'ALFABETO E LA BIBBIA : Introduction, prof.ssa Julia Bolton Holloway, Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei (English, italiano) || Fioretta Mazzei and the City, Giannozzo Pucci (English, italiano) || Fioretta Mazzei and the Book, dott.ssa Giovanna Carocci (italiano, English) || The CODEX AMIATINUS: Initiatives of the Laurentian Library, dott.ssa Franca Arduini, Laurentian Library (italiano, English) || The Alphabet: Origins and Diffusion, prof.ssa Maria Giulia Amadasi, Università 'La Sapienza' di Roma (italiano, English) || Some Observations on the Composition of the Bible, Osservazioni sulla composizione della Bibbia, prof.ssa Ida Zatelli, Università di Firenze (italiano, English) || The Hebrew Bible in the First Millennium, prof. Giuliano Tamani, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice (italiano, English) || [http://www.florin.ms/aleph.html§]

II. THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE/ LA BIBBIA CRISTIANA : The CODEX SINAITICUS and the CODEX ALEXANDRINUS: A Tale of Four Cities, Dr Scot McKendrick, The British Library (unavailable/non disponibile) || Jerome and His Learned Lady Disciples, prof. Claudio Moreschini, Università di Pisa (italiano, English) || Bishop Wulfila and the CODEX ARGENTEUS, Professor James Marchand, University of Illinois (English, italiano) || Cassiodorus, dott.ssa Luciana Cuppo Csaki, Societas internationalis pro Vivario (italiano, English) || [http://www.florin.ms/aleph2.html§]

III. IRISH PSALTERS AND BIBLES/ SALTERI E BIBBIE IRLANDESI :Irish Psalters and Bibles, The CATHACH, THE BOOK OF KELLS, The Manuscripts, Dr Bernard Meehan, Trinity College Library, Dublin (English, italiano) || Irish Psalters and Bibles, The CATHACH, THE BOOK OF KELLS, The Texts, Professor Martin McNamara, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (English) || The Irish peregrini, Professor Maire Herbert, University of Cork (English, italiano) || [http://www.florin.ms/aleph3.html§]

IV. THE BIBLE IN ENGLAND AND ICELAND/ LA BIBBIA IN INGHILTERRA E ISLANDA : The CODEX AMIATINUS, prof.ssa Lucia Castaldi, S.I.S.M.E.L., Florence (italiano, English) || The Celtic and Scandinavian Loan Words in the LINDISFARNE Glosses, David Moreno, University of Moraga (English, italiano) || The LICHFIELD GOSPELS, Canon Tony Barnard, Lichfield Cathedral (English, italiano) || The Dream of the Rood, Ruthwell/Vercelli, prof. Domenico Pezzini (English, italiano) || Life of St Gregory, A.D. 713, Whitby/ St Gall, Julia Bolton Holloway, Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei (English, italiano) || Fondness for Stories: The Bible in Iceland, Professor Svanhildur Oskarsdottir, Arni Magnusson Institute, Reykjavik (English, italiano) || [http://www.florin.ms/aleph4.html§]

V. THE BIBLE IN RUSSIA, SPAIN, ITALY/ LA BIBBIA IN RUSSIA, SPAGNA E ITALIA : The Gospels in the Byzantine-Slavic World, prof. Marcello Garzaniti, University of Florence (italiano, English) || Alphabet and Bible in Russia, Juliana Dresvina, University of Moscow (English, italiano) || The Apostles' Diaspora and the Relation of the Beatus with Islam, dott.ssa Angela Franco, Museo Arqeològico Nacional, Madrid (Spanish) || Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained: Multiple Texts and Multiple Communities, Professor Regina Schwartz, Northwestern University (English, italiano) || Monastic lectio divina, Padre priore Luigi De Candido, O.S.M., Monte Senario (italiano, English) [http://www.florin.ms/aleph5.html§]

This Website, called 'Miriam and Aaron: The Bible and Women' is in Progress. It is to be a book about the Book. It was conceived in an Anglican convent 's library, amidst the Mother Foundress's now-lost books on the Bible in the sacred languages and on the women mystics. The first part, on women in the Hebrew Scriptures, will also teach the Hebrew alphabet. The second, on women in the Greek Testament, will teach the Greek alphabet (which the Greeks pirated from the Phoenicians). Then it will concentrate on such women as Helena, mother of Constantine, studying the Bible and the Holy Land's archeology, on Egeria travelling Bible in hand and writing home to her nuns in Spain about her observations, on Paula and Eustochium going from Rome to Bethlehem, studying Hebrew, already having Greek and Latin, and funding and helping Jerome translate the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into the Vulgate Latin that then also women and children could understand. It will then give Boniface's circle of English nuns on mission in Germany creating Bibles on purple vellum with golden letters. It will discuss Julian's and Birgitta's close knowledge of the Bible, both likely having advisers who knew Hebrew, Adam Easton who taught it at Oxford, Magister Mathias who studied it in Paris. It will continue through such women as George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Simone Weil and Edith Stein, noting, too, St Therese of Lisieux's desire that priests study the Bible in the sacred and original tongues.

The book, Miriam and Aaron: The Bible and Women, will have this structure:

I. The Joy of Hebrew
II. Miriam and Aaron: Women and the Hebrew Scriptures
III. Teach Yourself Greek
IV. Mary and John: Women in the Greek Testament
V. The Bible and Women Pilgrims
VI. Birgitta of Sweden
VII. Julian of Norwich
VIII. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot
IX. The Lord's Prayer and Women
X. Islam and Women

In Florence, in Tuscany, we are surrounded with treasures created by women responding in lectio divina to the Bible, in Arezzo, Egeria's unique manuscript, prompting Piero della Francesca's cycle of paintings of Helena's Finding of the True Cross; in Lucca, Hildegard of Bingen's superb and final manuscript; in Florence, Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, translated into Italian, a book for which she was condemned to be burned in Paris by 21 Doctors of Theology, 1310, but which continued to be copied and translated as a samizdat sacred book, creating the Friends of God of Meister Eckhart, John Tauler, Henry Suso, Jan Van Ruusbroec; and St Birgitta of Sweden's Revelationes, in Siena, St Catherine of Siena's disciple, Cristofano Di Gano, having had it translated into Italian. In June, 2002, we discussed many of these manuscripts at our international conference, The City and the Book II§. And this is the city in which Elizabeth Barrett Browning§ wrote Aurora Leigh, resonating with the Bible, concluding with the Apocalypse, George Eliot also visiting it.

See: La Bibbia nell'interpretazione delle donne. Ed. Claudio Leonardi, Francesco Santi, Adriana Valerio. Firenze: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2002.

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