The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions PDF Author: Barbette Stanley Spaeth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521113962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Provides an introduction to the major religions of the ancient Mediterranean and explores current research regarding the similarities and differences among them.

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions PDF Author: Barbette Stanley Spaeth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521113962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Provides an introduction to the major religions of the ancient Mediterranean and explores current research regarding the similarities and differences among them.

Political Religions in the Greco-Roman World

Political Religions in the Greco-Roman World PDF Author: Charlotte Dunn
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527535401
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Until the 1980s, historical treatments of ancient religion focused mainly on myth, cult and ritual as a way to interpret the mental structures or primary emotions of ancient peoples, but, in the last few decades, a “political turn” in the study of religion has taken hold. This volume serves to diversify our understanding of the political conceptualizations and implementations of religious practice in the ancient Mediterranean region from the 7th Century BCE to the 4th Century CE, in both Greek and Roman contexts. The underlying question taken up here is: in what situations was Greco-Roman religious practice articulated, communicated, and perceived in political contexts, both real and imagined? Written by experts in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, art history, historiography, political science and religion, the chapters of this volume engage the plurality and the diversity of the Greco-Roman religious experience as it receives and negotiates power relations.

Education, Religion, and Literary Culture in the 4th Century CE

Education, Religion, and Literary Culture in the 4th Century CE PDF Author: Gabriela Ryser
Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
ISBN: 3647573213
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
This book contextualizes Claudian's handling of the Proserpina myth and the underworld in the history of literature and religion while showing intersections with and differences between the literary and religious uses of the underworld topos. In doing so, the study provides an incentive to rethink the dichotomy of the terms 'religious' and 'non-religious' in favour of a more nuanced model of references and refunctionalisations of elements which are, or could be, religiously connotated. A close philological analysis of De raptu Proserpinae identifies the sphere of myth and poetry as an area of expressive freedom, a parallel universe to theological discourses (whether they be pagan-philosophical or Christian), while the profound understanding and skilful use of this particular sphere – a formative aspect of European religious and intellectual history – is postulated as a characteristic of the educated Roman and of Claudian's poetry.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions

Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions PDF Author: Eric Orlin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134625596
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1624

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Book Description
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions is the first comprehensive single-volume reference work offering authoritative coverage of ancient religions in the Mediterranean world. Chronologically, the volume’s scope extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E. An interdisciplinary approach draws out the common issues and elements between and among religious traditions in the Mediterranean basin. Key features of the volume include: Detailed maps of the Mediterranean World, ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, and the Hellenistic World A comprehensive timeline of major events, innovations, and individuals, divided by region to provide both a diachronic and pan-Mediterranean, synchronic view A broad geographical range including western Asia, northern Africa, and southern Europe This encyclopedia will serve as a key point of reference for all students and scholars interested in ancient Mediterranean culture and society.

Religion and the Everyday Life of Manichaeans in Kellis

Religion and the Everyday Life of Manichaeans in Kellis PDF Author: Mattias Brand
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900451029X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Published in Open Access with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Winner of the Manfred Lautenschläger Award! Religion is never simply there. In Religion and the Everyday Life of Manichaeans in Kellis, Mattias Brand shows where and when ordinary individuals and families in Egypt practiced a Manichaean way of life. Rather than portraying this ancient religion as a well-structured, totalizing community, the fourth-century papyri sketch a dynamic image of lived religious practice, with all the contradictions, fuzzy boundaries, and limitations of everyday life. Following these microhistorical insights, this book demonstrates how family life, gift-giving, death rituals, communal gatherings, and book writing are connected to our larger academic debates about religious change in late antiquity.

Cosmologies of Pure Realms and the Rhetoric of Pollution

Cosmologies of Pure Realms and the Rhetoric of Pollution PDF Author: Yohan Yoo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000392848
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
This collaboration between two scholars from different fields of religious studies draws on three comparative data sets to develop a new theory of purity and pollution in religion, arguing that a culture’s beliefs about cosmological realms shapes its pollution ideas and its purification practices. The authors of this study refine Mary Douglas’ foundational theory of pollution as "matter out of place," using a comparative approach to make the case that a culture’s cosmology designates which materials in which places constitute pollution. By bringing together a historical comparison of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions, an ethnographic study of indigenous shamanism on Jeju Island, Korea, and the reception history of biblical rhetoric about pollution in Jewish and Christian cultures, the authors show that a cosmological account of purity works effectively across multiple disparate religious and cultural contexts. They conclude that cosmologies reinforce fears of pollution, and also that embodied experiences of purification help generate cosmological ideas. Providing an innovative insight into a key topic of ritual studies, this book will be of vital interest to scholars and graduate students in religion, biblical studies, and anthropology.

The Study of Greek and Roman Religions

The Study of Greek and Roman Religions PDF Author: Nickolas P. Roubekas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350102636
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
How should ancient religious ideas be approached? Is "religion" an applicable term to antiquity? Should classicists, ancient historians, and religious studies scholars work more closely together? Nickolas P. Roubekas argues that there is a disciplinary gap between the study of Greek and Roman religions and the study of “religion” as a category-a gap that has often resulted in contradictory conclusions regarding Greek and Roman religion. This book addresses this lack of interdisciplinarity by providing an overview, criticism, and assessment of this chasm. It provides a theoretical approach to this historical period, raising the issue of the relationship between “theory of religion” and “history of religion,” and explores how history influences theory and vice versa. It also presents an in-depth critique of some crucial problems that have been central to the discussions of scholars who work on Graeco-Roman antiquity, encouraging us to re-examine how we approach the study of ancient religions.

A Handbook of Ancient Religions

A Handbook of Ancient Religions PDF Author: John R. Hinnells
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139461982
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
Ancient civilisations exercise an intense fascination for people the world over. This Handbook provides a vivid, scholarly, and eminently readable account of ancient cultures around the world, from China to India, the Middle East, Egypt, Europe, and the Americas. It examines the development of religious belief from the time of the Palaeolithic cave paintings to the Aztecs and Incas. Covering the whole of society not just the elite, the Handbook outlines the history of the different societies so that their religion and culture can be understood in context. Each chapter includes discussion of the broad field of relevant studies alerting the reader to wider debates on each subject. An international team of scholars convey their own deep enthusiasm for their subject and provide a unique study of both popular and 'official' religion in the ancient world.

Religions and Migrations in the Black Sea Region

Religions and Migrations in the Black Sea Region PDF Author: Eleni Sideri
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319390678
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This book focuses on the interconnections of religion and migration in the Black Sea region through case studies that explore shifting identities, community, and national boundaries, as well as social practices and networks. During the past few decades the Black Sea has been transformed from a largely closed region, due to the Cold War, to a bridge for human, economic, and cultural capital flows. As the region opened up, understandings and practices of religion were re-signified due to new and diverse mobilities and resettlements. This volume addresses and responds to the current scarcity of academic research on the repercussion of political reform, migration, and modernization in the areas surrounding the Black Sea. Contributors uncover and examine the pivotal role of religion in current cultural contestations taking place in this strategic region. Engaging with a wide range of case studies, the book offers a fresh, comparative examination of migration as it relates to different countries and religious groups in the region.

Historical and Biblical Israel

Historical and Biblical Israel PDF Author: Reinhard G. Kratz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191044482
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
At the center of this book lies a fundamental yet unanswered question: under which historical and sociological conditions and in what manner the Hebrew Bible became an authoritative tradition, that is, holy scripture and the canon of Judaism as well as Christianity. Reinhard G. Kratz answers this very question by distinguishing between historical and biblical Israel. This foundational and, for the arrangement of the book, crucial distinction affirms that the Israel of biblical tradition, i.e. the sacred history (historia sacra) of the Hebrew Bible, cannot simply be equated with the history of Israel and Judah. Thus, Kratz provides a synthesis of both the Israelite and Judahite history and the genesis and development of biblical tradition in two separate chapters, though each area depends directly and inevitably upon the other. These two distinct perspectives on Israel are then confronted and correlated in a third chapter, which constitutes an area intimately connected with the former but generally overlooked apart from specialized inquiries: those places and "archives" that either yielded Jewish documents and manuscripts (Elephantine, Al-Yahudu, Qumran) or are associated conspicuously with the tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Mount Gerizim, Jerusalem, Alexandria). Here, the various epigraphic and literary evidence for the history of Israel and Judah comes to the fore. Such evidence sometimes represents Israel's history; at other times it reflects its traditions; at still others it reflects both simultaneously. The different sources point to different types of Judean or Jewish identity in Persian and Hellenistic times.