Continuity and Innovation in the Aramaic Legal Tradition

For a thousand years leading to the advent of the current era, people from Egypt to Afghanistan shared the Aramaic language. Gross (Semitic languages, Catholic U. of America) asks whether they also shared a common legal tradition, and seeks an answer in legal formularies as the intersection between legal traditions and the role of language. He focuses on features that formularies share over broad geographical and temporal spans, and especially those that descended from much earlier in the ancient Near East: the acknowledgment of receipt clause, the investiture clause, and the warranty clause. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Andrew D. Gross, Ph.D. (2006) in Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, is Assistant Professor in Semitic Languages at the Catholic University of America.