The Baptized Muse

The Baptized Muse PDF Author: Karla Pollmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192517228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. With the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire increasing numbers of educated people converted to this new belief. As Christianity did not have its own educational institutions the issue of how to harmonize pagan education and Christian convictions became increasingly pressing. Especially classical poetry, the staple diet of pagan education, was considered to be morally corrupting (due to its deceitful mythological content) and damaging for the salvation of the soul (because of the false gods it advocated). But Christianity recoiled from an unqualified anti-intellectual attitude, while at the same time the experiment of creating an idiosyncratic form of genuinely Christian poetry failed (the sole exception being the poet Commodianus). In The Baptized Muse: Early Christian Poetry as Cultural Authority, Karla Pollmann argues that, instead, Christian poets made creative use of the classical literary tradition, and—in addition to blending it with Judaeo-Christian biblical exegesis—exploited poetry's special ability of enhancing communicative effectiveness and impact through aesthetic means. Pollman explores these strategies through a close analysis of a wide range of Christian, and for comparison partly also pagan, writers mainly from the fourth to sixth centuries. She reveals that early Christianity was not a hermetically sealed uniform body, but displays a rich spectrum of possibilities in dealing with the past and a willingness to engage with and adapt the surrounding culture(s), thereby developing diverse and changing responses to historical challenges. By demonstrating throughout that authority is a key in understanding the long denigrated and misunderstood early Christian poets, this book reaches the ground-breaking conclusion that early Christian poetry is an art form that gains its justification by adding cultural authority to Christianity. Thus, in a wider sense it engages with the recently developed interdisciplinary scholarly interest in aspects of religion as cultural phenomena.

The Baptized Muse

The Baptized Muse PDF Author: Karla Pollmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192517228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. With the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire increasing numbers of educated people converted to this new belief. As Christianity did not have its own educational institutions the issue of how to harmonize pagan education and Christian convictions became increasingly pressing. Especially classical poetry, the staple diet of pagan education, was considered to be morally corrupting (due to its deceitful mythological content) and damaging for the salvation of the soul (because of the false gods it advocated). But Christianity recoiled from an unqualified anti-intellectual attitude, while at the same time the experiment of creating an idiosyncratic form of genuinely Christian poetry failed (the sole exception being the poet Commodianus). In The Baptized Muse: Early Christian Poetry as Cultural Authority, Karla Pollmann argues that, instead, Christian poets made creative use of the classical literary tradition, and—in addition to blending it with Judaeo-Christian biblical exegesis—exploited poetry's special ability of enhancing communicative effectiveness and impact through aesthetic means. Pollman explores these strategies through a close analysis of a wide range of Christian, and for comparison partly also pagan, writers mainly from the fourth to sixth centuries. She reveals that early Christianity was not a hermetically sealed uniform body, but displays a rich spectrum of possibilities in dealing with the past and a willingness to engage with and adapt the surrounding culture(s), thereby developing diverse and changing responses to historical challenges. By demonstrating throughout that authority is a key in understanding the long denigrated and misunderstood early Christian poets, this book reaches the ground-breaking conclusion that early Christian poetry is an art form that gains its justification by adding cultural authority to Christianity. Thus, in a wider sense it engages with the recently developed interdisciplinary scholarly interest in aspects of religion as cultural phenomena.

Pagan

Pagan PDF Author: Michael A. Aung-Thwin
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824880080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Pagan: The Origin of Modern Burma offers major contributions in three areas: the manner in which it integrates original, indigenous source material with social science theory; the significant association it makes between religion and the economy of redistribution; and the model it provides for the rise and decline of a major Buddhist kingdom in Southeast Asia. This is an important book for Southeast Asia scholars and Burma specialists. It will be standard reference work for historians, social scientists, and philologists with an interest in Southeast Asia. Readers interested in general issues of church and state, religion and society, as well as those more specifically concerned with historic and institutional Buddhism will find it a valuable work.

Mysteriously Meant

Mysteriously Meant PDF Author: Don Cameron Allen
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421435284
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Originally published in 1971. In Mysteriously Meant, Professor Allen maps the intellectual landscape of the Renaissance as he explains the discovery of an allegorical interpretation of Greek, Latin, and finally Egyptian myths and the effect this discovery had on the development of modern attitudes toward myth. He believes that to understand Renaissance literature one must understand the interpretations of classical myth known to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In unraveling the elusive strands of myth, allegory, and symbol from the fabric of Renaissance literature such as Milton's Paradise Lost, Allen is a helpful guide. His discussion of Renaissance authors is as authoritative as it is inclusive. His empathy with the scholars of the Renaissance keeps his discussion lively—a witty study of interpreters of mythography from the past.

Voices from the Pagan Census

Voices from the Pagan Census PDF Author: Helen A. Berger
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570034886
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Voices from the Pagan Census provides insight into the expanding but largely unstudied religious movement of Neo-Paganism in the United States. The authors present the findings of The Pagan Census, which was created and distributed by Berger and Andras Corban Arthen of the Earthspirit Community. Analysing the most comprehensive and largest-scale survey of the Neo-Pagans to date, the authors offer a portrait of this emerging religious community, including an examination of Neo-Pagan political activism, educational achievements, family life, worship methods, experiences with the paranormal and beliefs about such issues as life after death.

John Milton's Epic Invocations

John Milton's Epic Invocations PDF Author: Philip Edward Phillips
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
While predecessors such as Abraham Cowley and Guillaume du Bartas either rejected the pagan Muses outright or attempted to Christianize them, Milton invoked the inspirational power of the Muses throughout his poetic career.

American Heathens

American Heathens PDF Author: Jennifer Snook
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439910979
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
American Heathens is the first in-depth ethnographic study about the largely misunderstood practice of American Heathenry (Germanic Paganism). Jennifer Snook—who has been Pagan since her early teens and a Heathen since eighteen—traces the development and trajectory of Heathenry as a new religious movement in America, one in which all identities are political and all politics matter. Snook explores the complexities of pagan reconstruction and racial, ethnic and gender identity in today’s divisive political climate. She considers the impact of social media on Heathen collectivities, and offers a glimpse of the world of Heathen meanings, rituals, and philosophy. In American Heathens, Snook presents the stories and perspectives of modern practitioners in engaging detail. She treats Heathens as members of a religious movement, rather than simply a subculture reenacting myths and stories of enchantment. Her book shrewdly addresses how people construct ethnicity in a reconstructionist (historically-minded) faith system with no central authority.

The Baptized Muse

The Baptized Muse PDF Author: Karla Pollmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198726481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
A collection of Pollmann's previously-published essays on early Christian poetry, most newly-translated from German and all updated and corrected. It is a genre that has tended to be overlooked by both Classicists and Patristics scholars and this collection will rectify that.

Paul

Paul PDF Author: Paula Fredriksen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231369
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A groundbreaking new portrait of the apostle Paul, from one of today’s leading historians of antiquity Often seen as the author of timeless Christian theology, Paul himself heatedly maintained that he lived and worked in history’s closing hours. His letters propel his readers into two ancient worlds, one Jewish, one pagan. The first was incandescent with apocalyptic hopes, expecting God through his messiah to fulfill his ancient promises of redemption to Israel. The second teemed with ancient actors, not only human but also divine: angry superhuman forces, jealous demons, and hostile cosmic gods. Both worlds are Paul’s, and his convictions about the first shaped his actions in the second. Only by situating Paul within this charged social context of gods and humans, pagans and Jews, cities, synagogues, and competing Christ-following assemblies can we begin to understand his mission and message. This original and provocative book offers a dramatically new perspective on one of history’s seminal figures.

Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity

Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Polymnia Athanassiadi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191541451
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
In this book distinguished experts from a range of disciplines (Orientalists, philologists, philosophers, theologians and historians) address a central problem which lies at the heart of the religious and philosophical debate of late antiquity. Paganism was not a unified tradition and consequently the papers cover a wide social and intellectual spectrum. Particular emphasis is given to several aspects of the topic: first, monotheistic belief in late antique philosophical ideals and its roots in classical antiquity and the Near East; second, monistic Gnosticism; third, the revelatory tradition as expressed in oracular literature; and finally, the monotheistic trend in popular religion.

The Final Pagan Generation

The Final Pagan Generation PDF Author: Edward J. Watts
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520379225
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
A compelling history of radical transformation in the fourth-century--when Christianity decimated the practices of traditional pagan religion in the Roman Empire. The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.