Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World PDF Download
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Author: Scott Noegel
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271046006
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents. In Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to--or, in some cases, to bind or escape from--the divine powers of heaven and earth. Grounded in a variety of disciplines, including Assyriology, Classics, and early Islamic history, the fifteen essays in this volume cover a broad geographic area: Greece, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Topics include celestial divination in early Mesopotamia, the civic festivals of classical Athens, and Christian magical papyri from Coptic Egypt. Moving forward to Late Antiquity, we see how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each incorporated many aspects of ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman religion into their own prayers, rituals, and conceptions. Even if they no longer conceived of the sun, moon, and the stars as eternal or divine, Christians, Jews, and Muslims often continued to study the movements of the heavens as a map on which divine power could be read. The reader already familiar with studies of ancient religion will find in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars both old friends and new faces. Contributors include Gideon Bohak, Nicola Denzey, Jacco Dieleman, Radcliffe Edmonds, Marvin Meyer, Michael G. Morony, Ian Moyer, Francesca Rochberg, Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Peter Struck, Michael Swartz, and Kasia Szpakowska. Published as part of Penn State's Magic in History series, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars appears at a time of renewed interest in divination and occult practices in the ancient world. It will interest a wide audience in the field of comparative religion as well as students of the ancient world and late antiquity.
Author: Scott Noegel
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271046006
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Get Book Here
Book Description
In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents. In Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to--or, in some cases, to bind or escape from--the divine powers of heaven and earth. Grounded in a variety of disciplines, including Assyriology, Classics, and early Islamic history, the fifteen essays in this volume cover a broad geographic area: Greece, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Topics include celestial divination in early Mesopotamia, the civic festivals of classical Athens, and Christian magical papyri from Coptic Egypt. Moving forward to Late Antiquity, we see how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each incorporated many aspects of ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman religion into their own prayers, rituals, and conceptions. Even if they no longer conceived of the sun, moon, and the stars as eternal or divine, Christians, Jews, and Muslims often continued to study the movements of the heavens as a map on which divine power could be read. The reader already familiar with studies of ancient religion will find in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars both old friends and new faces. Contributors include Gideon Bohak, Nicola Denzey, Jacco Dieleman, Radcliffe Edmonds, Marvin Meyer, Michael G. Morony, Ian Moyer, Francesca Rochberg, Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Peter Struck, Michael Swartz, and Kasia Szpakowska. Published as part of Penn State's Magic in History series, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars appears at a time of renewed interest in divination and occult practices in the ancient world. It will interest a wide audience in the field of comparative religion as well as students of the ancient world and late antiquity.
Author: Scott B. Noegel
Publisher: Penn State University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Explores how people living in the ancient and late antique world sought to gain access to, or in some cases to escape from, the divine powers of heaven and earth.
Author: Richard Lindsay Gordon
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004179046
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 737
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Book Description
Most studies of Graeco-Roman magic focus on the Greek texts. Stimulated by important recent finds of Latin curse-tablets, this collection of essays for the first time tries to define the nature and extent of the originality of magical practice in the Latin West
Author: David J. Collins, S. J.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316239497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 897
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Book Description
This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to US neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.
Author: Andrew Wilburn
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472117793
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
Materia Magica approaches magic as a material endeavor, in which spoken spells, ritual actions, and physical objects all played vital roles in the performance of a rite. Through case studies drawing on objects excavated or discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century at three Mediterranean sites, Andrew T. Wilburn identifies previously unknown forms of magic. He discovers evidence of the practice of magic in objects of ancient daily life, suggesting that individuals frequently turned to magic, particularly in times of crises. Studying the remains of spells enacted by practitioners, Wilburn examines the material remains of magical practice by identifying and placing them within their archaeological contexts. His method of connecting an analysis of the texts and inscriptions found on artifacts of magic with a close consideration of the physical form of these objects illuminates an exciting path toward new discoveries in the field.
Author: Daniel Stein Kokin
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110389517
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
Though typically associated more with Judaism than Christianity, the status and sacrality of Hebrew has nonetheless been engaged by both religious cultures in often strikingly similar ways. The language has furthermore played an important, if vexed, role in relations between the two. Hebrew between Jews and Christians closely examines this frequently overlooked aspect of Judaism and Christianity's common heritage and mutual competition.
Author: Leonardo Costantini
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311061667X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
Despite the growing interest in Apuleius’ Apologia or Pro se de magia, a speech he delivered in AD 158/159 to defend himself against the charge of being a magus, the only comprehensive study on this speech and magic to date is that by Adam Abt (1908). The aim of this volume is to shed new light on the extent to which Apuleius’ speech reveals his own knowledge of magic, and on the implications of the dangerous allegations brought against Apuleius. By analysing the Apologia sequentially, the author does not only reassess Abt’s analysis but proposes a new reconstruction of the prosecution’s case, arguing that it is heavily distorted by Apuleius. Since ancient magic is the main topic of this speech, an extensive discussion of the topic is provided, offering a new semantic taxonomy of magus and its cognates. Finally, this volume also explores Apuleius’ forensic techniques and the Platonic ideology underpinning his speech. It is proposed that a Platonising reasoning – distinguishing between higher and lower concepts – lies at the core of Apuleius’ rhetorical strategy, and that Apuleius aims to charm the judge, the audience and, ultimately, his readers with the irresistible power of his arguments.
Author: Matthew J. Mandich
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1785702882
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
The 2015 TRAC proceedings feature a selection of 14 papers summing up some of the key sessions presented at the conference held at the University of Leicester in March 2015, which drew over 180 delegates of 17 nationalities from a variety of universities, museums, and research institutions in the UK, Europe, and North America. As this conference marked the 25th anniversary of TRAC, the volume opens with a preface commemorating the last 25 years with an eye toward the future direction of both conference and community. The proceedings begin with Dr Andrew Gardner’s keynote paper on the topic of ‘Debating Roman Imperialism: Critique, Construct, Repeat?’. This is followed by an array of papers with topics ranging in geographic scope and period, from small finds in early Roman Britain to bathing practices Late Antique North Africa, and from the investigation of deviant burials to the application of urban scaling theory in Roman contexts. Because of this diversity the volume is not broken into specific sections, however, papers with similar themes are grouped accordingly, allowing the text to flow and be read as a whole. The range of contributing authors is also of note, as papers were submitted by PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and university faculty, all helping to make the 25th anniversary of this series one that continues to emphasis and reflect the aims of TRAC, both as a conference and as a conduit for exploring more theory-driven approaches to the Roman past.
Author: Jacobus G. Swart
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0620507020
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 526
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Book Description
The "Shadow Tree Series" comprises a unique collection of Western Esoteric studies and practices which Jacobus Swart, has actuated and taught over a period of forty years. Having commenced his Kabbalah studies in Safed in the early 1970's, he later broadened his "kabbalistic horizons" under the careful guidance of the famed English Kabbalist William G. Gray. "The Book of Sacred Names" is a practical guide into the meditational and magical applications of ancient Hebrew Divine Names. Perpetuating the tenets of traditional Kabbalists who recognised the fundamental bond between "Kabbalah" and "Magic," Jacobus Swart offers step by step instructions on the deliberate and conscious control of personal life circumstances, by means of the most cardinal components of Kabbalistic doctrines and techniques-Divine Names! The material addressed in this tome derives from the extensive primary literature of "Practical Kabbalah," much of which is appearing in print for the first time in English translation.
Author: Kristin M. Heineman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317036271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Examining the final years of Delphic consultation, this monograph argues that the sanctuary operated on two connected, yet distinct levels: the oracle, which was in decline, and the remaining religious, political and social elements at the site which continued to thrive. In contrast to Delphi, other oracular counterparts in Asia Minor, such as Claros and Didyma, rose in prestige as they engaged with new "theological" issues. Issues such as these were not presented to Apollo at Delphi and this lack of expertise could help to explain why Delphi began to decline in importance. The second and third centuries AD witnessed the development of new ways of access to divine wisdom. Particularly widespread were the practices of astrology and the Neoplatonic divinatory system, theurgy. This monograph examines the correlation between the rise of such practices and the decline of oracular consultation at Delphi, analyzing several examples from the Chaldean Oracles to demonstrate the new interest in a personal, soteriological religion. These cases reveal the transfer of Delphi’s sacred space, which further impacted the status of the oracle. Delphi’s interaction with Christianity in the final years of oracular operation is also discussed. Oracular utterances with Christian overtones are examined along with archaeological remains which demonstrate a shift in the use of space at Delphi from a "pagan" Panhellenic center to one in which Christianity is accepted and promoted.
