Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The writing and pronunciation of Old English
- I Teaching and learning
- II Keeping a record
- III Spreading the Word
- 13 After the Flood (from the Old English Hexateuch: Gen 8.6–18 and 9.8–13)
- 14 The Crucifixion (from the Old English Gospels: Mt 27.11–54)
- 15 King Alfred's Psalms
- 16 A Translator's Problems (Ælfric's preface to his translation of Genesis)
- 17 Satan's Challenge (Genesis B, lines 338–441)
- 18 The Drowning of Pharaoh's Army (Exodus, lines 447–564)
- 19 Judith
- IV Example and Exhortation
- V Telling Tales
- VI Reflection and lament
- Manuscripts and textual emendations
- Reference Grammar of Old English
- Glossary
- Guide to terms
- Index
17 - Satan's Challenge (Genesis B, lines 338–441)
from III - Spreading the Word
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The writing and pronunciation of Old English
- I Teaching and learning
- II Keeping a record
- III Spreading the Word
- 13 After the Flood (from the Old English Hexateuch: Gen 8.6–18 and 9.8–13)
- 14 The Crucifixion (from the Old English Gospels: Mt 27.11–54)
- 15 King Alfred's Psalms
- 16 A Translator's Problems (Ælfric's preface to his translation of Genesis)
- 17 Satan's Challenge (Genesis B, lines 338–441)
- 18 The Drowning of Pharaoh's Army (Exodus, lines 447–564)
- 19 Judith
- IV Example and Exhortation
- V Telling Tales
- VI Reflection and lament
- Manuscripts and textual emendations
- Reference Grammar of Old English
- Glossary
- Guide to terms
- Index
Summary
The ‘Junius’ manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11), named after the Dutch scholar who studied it and published its contents in the seventeenth century, contains three OE poems on Old Testament themes, Genesis, Exodus and Daniel, along with a fourth called Christ and Satan, which develops some of these themes from the perspective of the New Testament (but which may not have been part of the volume's earliest design). Together, these poems explore some of the major themes of Christian history. The manuscript was compiled in the second half of the tenth or the early eleventh century and the text is interspersed with line drawings, some embellished with coloured inks. Genesis, the longest of the poems with its 2936 surviving lines, presents an imaginative paraphrase of the first twenty-two chapters of Genesis. In fact, however, it is a hybrid work, for interpolated in it are over six hundred lines of a different origin from the rest, though they fit well into the narrative (lines 235–851, or thereabouts). The interpolated lines are known as Genesis B (formerly the Later Genesis) to distinguish them from the larger poem, Genesis A, into which they fit. Genesis B describes the fall from heaven of Lucifer and his followers, the temptation of Eve, the fall of her and Adam, and finally the expulsion of the pair from Eden. The poem is unique in the surviving literature, as far as we can tell, in being a close OE translation of an original work in Old Saxon.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Old English Reader , pp. 130 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004