Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical Commentary

John Z. Wee, Ph.D. (2012), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago. He is author of books and articles on medicine and astronomy in Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman antiquity, and editor of The Comparable Body (Brill, 2017).

"The two-volume work of John Z. Wee is a welcome new contribution to the discussion of Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform commentariesan at times complex and, to readers unaware of its intricacies, often opaque textual genre, mainly known from the late time of Cuneiform Culture. (...) The first volume addresses not only Assyriologists but also scholars interested in the history of medicine and the history of interpretation and science. The study presented here includes a great many detailed discussions and presentations of interrelated issues within Mesopotamian commentary literature particularly in relation to the DH and its structure, as well as the context of these commentaries and their arguments in respect to their use and institutional background. Volume two provides the relevant data, presenting a collective edition of all commentaries on the DH so far known. This offers the particular advantage of making all relevant data accessible in a printed, citable form together with detailed philological commentaries and discussions on difficult or peculiar words and phrases."- Eric Schmidtchen, Universit de Genve, in Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXVIII N 3-4 (2021)."In short, John Wees Knowledge and Rhetorical in Medical Commentary in an erudite and refreshing analysis of Sa-gig and its commentaries. Although a highly specialized subject, some of his broader observations about serialization, canonization, textual sources of authority, and embedded variants may be helpful for folks in religious studies thinking about so-called canon, interpretive practices and textual sources of authority, and the boundaries in the ancient world of what we often designate science and literature."- William Brown, in The Biblical Review, 2021.

• I. Knowledge and Rhetoric in Medical CommentaryPrefaceAcknowledgementsContents (Two Volumes)List of FiguresMedical Text Labels and AbbreviationsFormat and Translation IssuesGlossaryI.1 Introduction to the Sa-gig CommentariesI.1.1 The Situatedness of CommentariesI.1.2 The Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gig and Its SerializationI.1.3 Serialized Variants and Their InterpretationI.1.4 The Presentation of Alternatives in Text Series and CommentariesChapter Two: Commentary and Scholastic RhetoricI.2.1 Commentary Designations and Scribal ActorsI.2.1.1 “Glossary” (ṣâtu)I.2.1.2 “Oral Lore” (šūt pî)I.2.1.3 “Readings” (malsûtu)I.2.1.4 “Questionings” (mašʾaltu)I.2.1.5 “From the Mouth of the Ummânu-scholar” (ša pî ummâni)I.2.1.6 Patterns of Commentary DesignationsI.2.2 Textual Sources of AuthorityI.2.2.1 Lexical Text CitationsI.2.2.2 Narratival IntertextualityI.2.2 Forms of ArgumentationI.2.3.1 Two-Member ArgumentsI.2.3.2 Multiple Member ArgumentsI.2.3.3 Single Member ArgumentsI.2.4 Exemplar and License in Scholastic HermeneuticsChapter Three: Commentary and Medical KnowledgeI.3.1 Epistemic Progression in Medical Practice and TextsI.3.1.1 The Therapeutic TraditionI.3.1.2 Structuring the Diagnostic HandbookI.3.2 Harmonizing Texts and PhenomenaI.3.2.1 Knowledge Assumptions in Topic ChoiceI.3.2.2 The Pericope and Omissions from TopicsI.3.2.3 Comment Choice and Argument as PretextI.3.1 Habits of Use and the Cuneiform HandbookI.4 Conclusion: Scholasticism and the Boundaries for InterpretationAppendix One: Embedded Variants in the Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gigAppendix Two: Transliterations of Medical TextsBibliographyIndex of Excerpts (Two Volumes)II. Mesopotamian Commentaries on the Diagnostic Handbook Sa-gigPrefaceAcknowledgementsContents (Two Volumes)Medical Text Labels and AbbreviationsFormat and Translation IssuesChapter One: Edition of the Sa-gig CommentariesII.1.1 Commentary Sa-gig 1AII.1.2 Commentary Sa-gig 1BII.1.3 Commentary Sa-gig 1CII.1.4 Commentary Sa-gig 1DII.1.5 Commentary Sa-gig 1–3II.1.6 Commentary Sa-gig 3AII.1.7 Commentary Sa-gig 3BII.1.8 Commentary Sa-gig 3CII.1.9 Commentary Sa-gig 4AII.1.10 Commentary Sa-gig 4BII.1.11 Commentary Sa-gig 4CII.1.12 Commentary Sa-gig 5II.1.13 Commentary Sa-gig 7AII.1.14 Commentary Sa-gig 7BII.1.15 Commentary Sa-gig 7CaII.1.16 Commentary Sa-gig 7CbII.1.17 Commentary Sa-gig 7Cc (?)II.1.18 Commentary Sa-gig 10 & 11II.1.19 Commentary Sa-gig 13+II.1.20 Commentary Sa-gig 14II.1.21 Commentary Sa-gig 18II.1.22 Commentary Sa-gig 19II.1.23 Commentary Sa-gig 21 & 22aII.1.24 Commentary Sa-gig 23II.1.25 Commentary Sa-gig 29II.1.26 Commentary Sa-gig 34II.1.27 Commentary Sa-gig 36II.1.28 Commentary Sa-gig 39II.1.29 Commentary Sa-gig 40AII.1.30 Commentary Sa-gig 40BChapter Two: Commentary NotationsII.2.1 Disjunction SignII.2.2 “The Case of / Where” (ša)II.2.3 “Which It Said” (ša iqbû)II.2.4 “As in” (libbû)II.2.5 “Complement to” (IGI / pāni)II.2.6 “(Points) to” (ana)II.2.7 “The Usual (Meaning)” (kayyān)II.2.8 Other NotationsPhotographsBibliographyIndex of Excerpts (Two Volumes)