Empire and Religion in the Roman World

Empire and Religion in the Roman World PDF Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108934242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
The inspiration for this volume comes from the work of its dedicatee, Brent D. Shaw, who is one of the most original and wide-ranging historians of the ancient world of the last half-century and continues to open up exciting new fields for exploration. Each of the distinguished contributors has produced a cutting-edge exploration of a topic in the history and culture of the Roman Empire dealing with a subject on which Professor Shaw has contributed valuable work. Three major themes extend across the volume as a whole. First, the ways in which the Roman world represented an intricate web of connections even while many people's lives remained fragmented and local. Second, the ways in which the peculiar Roman space promoted religious competition in a sophisticated marketplace for practices and beliefs, with Christianity being a major benefactor. Finally, the varying forms of violence which were endemic within and between communities.

Empire and Religion in the Roman World

Empire and Religion in the Roman World PDF Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108934242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540

Get Book

Book Description
The inspiration for this volume comes from the work of its dedicatee, Brent D. Shaw, who is one of the most original and wide-ranging historians of the ancient world of the last half-century and continues to open up exciting new fields for exploration. Each of the distinguished contributors has produced a cutting-edge exploration of a topic in the history and culture of the Roman Empire dealing with a subject on which Professor Shaw has contributed valuable work. Three major themes extend across the volume as a whole. First, the ways in which the Roman world represented an intricate web of connections even while many people's lives remained fragmented and local. Second, the ways in which the peculiar Roman space promoted religious competition in a sophisticated marketplace for practices and beliefs, with Christianity being a major benefactor. Finally, the varying forms of violence which were endemic within and between communities.

Religion in the Roman Empire

Religion in the Roman Empire PDF Author: Jörg Rüpke
Publisher: Kohlhammer Verlag
ISBN: 3170292250
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The Roman Empire was home to a fascinating variety of different cults and religions. Its enormous extent, the absence of a precisely definable state religion and constant exchanges with the religions and cults of conquered peoples and of neighbouring cultures resulted in a multifaceted diversity of religious convictions and practices. This volume provides a compelling view of central aspects of cult and religion in the Roman Empire, among them the distinction between public and private cult, the complex interrelations between different religious traditions, their mutually entangled developments and expansions, and the diversity of regional differences, rituals, religious texts and artefacts.

Coming Out Christian in the Roman World

Coming Out Christian in the Roman World PDF Author: Douglas Ryan Boin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620403188
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The supposed collapse of Roman civilization is still lamented more than 1,500 years later-and intertwined with this idea is the notion that a fledgling religion, Christianity, went from a persecuted fringe movement to an irresistible force that toppled the empire. The “intolerant zeal” of Christians, wrote Edward Gibbon, swept Rome's old gods away, and with them the structures that sustained Roman society. Not so, argues Douglas Boin. Such tales are simply untrue to history, and ignore the most important fact of all: life in Rome never came to a dramatic stop. Instead, as Boin shows, a small minority movement rose to transform society-politically, religiously, and culturally-but it was a gradual process, one that happened in fits and starts over centuries. Drawing upon a decade of recent studies in history and archaeology, and on his own research, Boin opens up a wholly new window onto a period we thought we knew. His work is the first to describe how Christians navigated the complex world of social identity in terms of “passing” and “coming out.” Many Christians lived in a dynamic middle ground. Their quiet success, as much as the clamor of martyrdom, was a powerful agent for change. With this insightful approach to the story of Christians in the Roman world, Douglas Boin rewrites, and rediscovers, the fascinating early history of a world faith.

Religious Networks in the Roman Empire

Religious Networks in the Roman Empire PDF Author: Anna Collar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107043441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Examines the relationship between social networks and religious transmission to reappraise how new religious ideas spread in the Roman Empire.

Empire and Religion in the Roman World

Empire and Religion in the Roman World PDF Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781108932981
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"Introduction:Patterns and Paradigms in the Ancient Mediterranean Harriet I. Flower Who are you? The question had been at the center of the crisis in African Christianity, as bishops and priests, deacons and lay persons, landowners and tenants, fishermen and moneychangers, craftsmen and civil servants, and itinerant gangs of young men and women mobilized the full panoply of memory, knowledge, and emotion that guided their actions as Christians." Brent Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine, p. 771 Perhaps it is only in new Christian values emerging on the sill of Late Antiquity that we might see some of the first tentative steps toward a quality and structure of the future which most Romans of earlier ages apparently did not share. Brent Shaw, Did the Romans Have a Future? p. 22-23 The present volume took its inspiration from an academic conference held at Princeton University in May 2017 to mark the retirement of Professor Brent D. Shaw from the Department of Classics, after a long and distinguished career as a Roman historian, both in Canada and in the US. The conference, entitled Subjects of Empire: Political and Cultural Exchange in Imperial Rome, was very well attended by many from the East Coast and beyond. Over a day and a half colleagues, friends, and former students delivered papers and reminisced about the scholarly inspiration and personal encouragement they had received from Brent Shaw over an academic career that spanned more than 40 years"--

Religion in the Roman Empire

Religion in the Roman Empire PDF Author: James B. Rives
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 1405106565
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book provides an engaging, systematic introduction to religion in the Roman empire. Covers both mainstream Graeco-Roman religion and regional religious traditions, from Egypt to Western Europe Examines the shared assumptions and underlying dynamics that characterized religious life as a whole Draws on a wide range of primary material, both textual and visual, from literary works, inscriptions and monuments Offers insight into the religious world in which contemporary rabbinic Judaism and Christianity both had their origin

The Matter of the Gods

The Matter of the Gods PDF Author: Clifford Ando
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520259866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
What did the Romans know about their gods? Why did they perform the rituals of their religion, & what motivated them to change those rituals? Clifford Ando explores the answers to these questions, pursuing a variety of themes essential to the study of religion in history.

Priests and State in the Roman World

Priests and State in the Roman World PDF Author: James H. Richardson
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden gmbh
ISBN: 9783515098175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 643

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Book Description
This collection of 24 essays, written by a group of international scholars who specialise in the religious, political and social history of ancient Rome, explores the relationship between priests and State in the Roman world. Attention is devoted to a number of interconnected problems: the nature and scope of priesthoods in the Roman world, the rules governing access to them, the role that priests played in the various levels of government, from the imperial court to the cities on the fringes of the empire, the different development of priesthoods across the empire, and more generally the relationship between religion and power. The outcome is a diverse and comprehensive collection that seeks to do justice to the complexity of the interaction between priests and State by presenting the reader with a wide set of problems and sources, ranging from early Rome to the late Empire.

Paul and Empire

Paul and Empire PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781563382178
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Over the centuries, Paul has been understood as the prototypical convert from Judaism to Christianity. At the time of Pauls conversion, however, Christianity did not yet exist. Moreover, Paul says nothing to indicate that he was abandoning Judaism or Israel. He, in fact, understood his mission as the fulfillment of the promises to Israel and of Israels own destiny. In brief, Pauls gospel and mission were set over against the Roman Empire, not Judaism.

Roman Religion

Roman Religion PDF Author: Valerie M. Warrior
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316264920
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
Examining sites that are familiar to many modern tourists, Valerie Warrior avoids imposing a modern perspective on the topic by using the testimony of the ancient Romans to describe traditional Roman religion. The ancient testimony recreates the social and historical contexts in which Roman religion was practised. It shows, for example, how, when confronted with a foreign cult, official traditional religion accepted the new cult with suitable modifications. Basic difficulties, however, arose with regard to the monotheism of the Jews and Christianity. Carefully integrated with the text are visual representations of divination, prayer, and sacrifice as depicted on monuments, coins, and inscriptions from public buildings and homes throughout the Roman world. Also included are epitaphs and humble votive offerings that illustrate the piety of individuals, and that reveal the prevalence of magic and the occult in the spiritual lives of the ancient Romans.