Author: Richard Reitzenstein
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 0915138204
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 584

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: S. Angus
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486143511
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Get Book Here

Book Description
Classic study explores the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece; Asiatic cults of Cybele, the Magna Mater, and Attis; Dionysian groups; Orphics; Egyptian devotees of Isis and Osiris; Mithraism; and others.

Author: Smith, Morton
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 157174715X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A twentieth-century classic, uncannily smart, incredibly learned."--from the foreword by Bart Ehrman This book challenges traditional Christian teaching about Jesus. While his followers may have seen him as a man from heaven, preaching the good news and working miracles, Smith asserts that the truth about Jesus is more interesting and rather unsettling. The real Jesus, only barely glimpsed because of a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and censorship by religious authorities, was not Jesus the Son of God. In actuality he was Jesus the Magician. Smith marshals all the available evidence including, but not limited to, the Gospels. He succeeds in describing just what was said of Jesus by "outsiders," those who did not believe him. He deals in fascinating detail with the inevitable questions. What was the nature of magic? What did people at that time mean by the term "magician"? Who were the other magicians, and how did their magic compare with Jesus' works? What facts led to the general assumption that Jesus practiced magic? And, most important, was that assumption correct? The ramifications of Jesus the Magician give new meaning to the word controversial. This book recovers a vision of Jesus that two thousand years of suppression and polemic could not erase. And--what may be the central point of the debate--Jesus the Magician strips away the myths and legends that have obscured Jesus, the man who lived.

Author: S. Angus
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781684225514
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
2021 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. Facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This book is generally considered the most useful single work in English on the subject and provides a solid background in the various forms of religious experience that are grouped together under the term Mystery-Religious. Mystery religion were any of various secret cults of the Greco-Roman world that offered to individuals religious experiences not provided by the official public religions. They originated in tribal ceremonies that were performed by peoples in many parts of the world. Whereas in these tribal communities almost every member of the clan or the village was initiated, initiation in Greece became a matter of personal choice. The mystery religions reached their peak of popularity in the first three centuries a.d. Their origin, however, goes back to the earlier centuries of Greek history. The main characterization of these religions is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which was never revealed to outsiders. The most famous mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity were the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were of considerable antiquity and predated the Greek Dark Ages. The mystery schools flourished in Late Antiquity. Contents: Orientation: the historical crises of the Graeco-Roman world in their bearing upon the mystery-religions and Christianity -- What is a mystery-religion? -- The three stages of a mystery -- The appeal of the mystery-religions (a) -- The appeal of the mystery-religions (b) -- The defects of the mysteries and their ultimate failure -- The victory of Christianity.

Author: Andrew B. McGowan
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441246312
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book Here

Book Description
An Important Study on the Worship of the Early Church This introduction to the origins of Christian worship illuminates the importance of ancient liturgical patterns for contemporary Christian practice. Andrew McGowan takes a fresh approach to understanding how Christians came to worship in the distinctive forms still familiar today. Deftly and expertly processing the bewildering complexity of the ancient sources into lucid, fluent exposition, he sets aside common misperceptions to explore the roots of Christian ritual practices--including the Eucharist, baptism, communal prayer, preaching, Scripture reading, and music--in their earliest recoverable settings. Now in paper.

Author: Tricia McCannon
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 1612831052
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 699

Get Book Here

Book Description
“[A] tour de force through an incredible array of myth, history and philosophy . . . that have shaped the teachings of the world’s Great Masters.” —Jim Marrs, author of the New York Times bestseller, Rule by Secrecy A breathtaking work of staggering research and synthesis that provides startling new information and context to the first thirty years of Jesus’ life Where was Jesus for the first thirty years of his life? Where and what was he taught? Who were his teachers? Based on new information culled from hard to find Vatican texts, theosophical classics, ancient texts, legends, and systems of hermetic symbolism, Tricia McCannon constructs a radical new timeline of Jesus’ life. She assert Jesus spent at least seven years of study and training in Egypt, a number of years in England, and visited both India and Tibet before beginning his public ministry in Palestine. This is a wide-ranging examination of the direct links and similarities between Jesus’ teachings and those of various Mystery religions and sects that were popular during his lifetime, including the Essenes, Buddhist, Mithrans, Zoroastrians, and Druids. McCannon offers compelling evidence that places Jesus’s life and mission firmly in the context of the profound spiritual teachings that came before him. Drawing on records from the Vatican, Tibet, India, and Egypt, along with Greek, Aramaic, and Pali text, as well as oral traditions of Jesus’s teachings, McCannon uncovers the real reason that he has remained such a powerful and pivotal figure in world consciousness for over two millennia. “Thoroughly researched, interesting, and highly readable. . . . Tricia McCannon has done modern readers a great service by compiling this very readable book about Jesus’s life and teachings.” —Chet B. Snow, Ph.D., author of Mass Dreams of the Future

Author: David Regan
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 9780814623282
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A Liturgical Press book."Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Pontifical Gregorian University at Rome, 1992. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Author: Samuel Angus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christianity and other religions
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Marvin W. Meyer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812216929
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zeus and the other gods of shining Olympus were in reality divine only by popular consent. Over the course of time Olympian luster diminished in favor of religious experiences more immediate to the concerns of people living in an increasingly cosmopolitan ancient world. These experiences were provided by the mysteries, religions that flourished particularly during the Hellenistic period and were secretly practiced by groups of adherents who decided, through personal choice, to be initiated into the profound realities of one deity or another. Unlike the official state religions, in which people were expected to make an outward show of allegiance to the local gods, the mysteries emphasized an inwardness and privacy of worship within a closed band of initiates. In this book, Marvin W. Meyer explores the sacrifices and prayers, the public celebrations and secret ceremonies, the theatrical performances and literary works, the gods and goddesses that were a part of the mystery religions of Greece in the seventh century B.C. to the Judaism and Christianity of the Roman world of the seventh century A.D.

Author: Walter Burkert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674253159
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book Here

Book Description
The foremost historian of Greek religion provides the first comprehensive, comparative study of a little-known aspect of ancient religious beliefs and practices. Secret mystery cults flourished within the larger culture of the public religion of Greece and Rome for roughly a thousand years. This book is neither a history nor a survey but a comparative phenomenology, concentrating on five major cults. In defining the mysteries and describing their rituals, membership, organization, and dissemination, Walter Burkert displays the remarkable erudition we have come to expect of him; he also shows great sensitivity and sympathy in interpreting the experiences and motivations of the devotees.