Text Targum & Testament
A Conference in Honour of Martin McNamara MSC

The Pontifical University at Saint Patrick's College Maynooth honoured the contribution of Martin McNamara MSC to biblical scholarship
on Thursday, November 17th  with the conferring of a
Doctorate in Theology, honoris causa on Professor McNamara.
The Faculty of Theology hosted a conference in Fr McNamara's honour 
under the heading "Text, Targum and Testament."

13.30 – 14.00: Registration
Lunch in Pugin Hall from 12.30.

14.00: Philip Alexander FBA, Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature, University of Manchester
“Three Strange Targums—Targum Canticles, Targum Ecclesiastes, Targum Lamentations—and the Problem of the Genre ‘Targum.’”

15.00: Jonathan Kearney, Occasional Lecturer in Jewish and Islamic Studies, SPCM
“Rashi’s use of the Targumim in his Commentary on Deuteronomy”

15.50: Coffee

16.15: Russell Library Visit

The Russell Library is home to Maynooth College's collections of early-printed books, manuscripts and archives, and to the conservation department of the Maynooth University Library. The collections in the Russell Library offer a leading resource for academic research and teaching. The magnificent reading room, soaring to fifty feet, with its hammer-beam roof, its bibliographical frieze and its serried shelves of leather- and vellum-bound books, was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin, and completed in 1861. It is named after Charles William Russell, president of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1857–1880).

Penelope Woods, Librarian at the Russell Library, has assembled a number of exhibits which resonate with the research interests of Martin McNamara. Among the exhibits on display will be volumes from the Antwerp (1569-72) and London (1657) Polyglots ­ with their texts of the Targums, Commentary on the Song of Songs by Rashi and Abraham ibn 'Ezra (Paris, 1570), the first edition of the commentary of Sedulius Scotus on the Pauline Epistles (Basel, 1528), and St Jerome on the Celts of Galatia edited by Erasmus (Basel,1526).

17.00: Conferring of Honorary Doctorate and Musical Interlude: Schola Hyberniae

Professor Martin McNamara MSC is led from the podium by Professor Séamus O'Connell, Professor of Sacred Scripture in the Pontifical University at Maynooth College

Rev Prof Séamus O'Connell, Rev Prof Martin McNamara MSC, Rev Brendan McConvery and Rev Jeremy Corley following the conferring of the Honorary Degree on Fr McNamara

19.30: Public Lecture
Robert Gordon FBA, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge
“The Way of the Translator is Hard: Reflections on Translations Ancient and Modern” 

21.00: Reception