Download or read book Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture written by Laura Salah Nasrallah and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-25 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Nasrallah argues that early Christian literature is best understood when read alongside the archaeological remains of Roman antiquity.
Download or read book Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity written by Dr. Katherine A. Shaner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enslaved persons were ubiquitous in the first- and second-century CE Roman Empire, and early Christian texts reflect this fact. Yet the implications of enslaved presence in religious practices are under-examined in early Christian and Roman history. Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity argues that enslaved persons' roles in civic and religious activities were contested in many religious groups throughout ancient cities, including communities connected with Paul's legacy. This power struggle emerges as the book examines urban spaces, inscriptions, images, and literature from ancient Ephesos and its environs. Enslaved Leadership breaks new ground in analyzing archaeology and texts-asking how each attempts to persuade viewers, readers, and inhabitants of the city. Thus this book paints a complex picture of enslaved life in Asia Minor, a picture that illustrates how enslaved persons enacted roles of religious and civic significance that potentially upended social hierarchies privileging wealthy, slave-holding men. Enslaved persons were religious specialists, priests, and leaders in cultic groups, including early Christian groups. Yet even as the enslaved engaged in such authoritative roles, Roman slavery was not a benign institution nor were all early Christians kinder and more egalitarian to slaves. Both early Christian texts (such as Philemon,1 Timothy, Ignatius' letters) and the archaeological finds from Asia Minor defend, construct, and clarify the hierarchies that kept enslaved persons under the control of their masters. Enslaved Leadership illustrates a historical world in which control of slaves must continually be asserted. Yet this assertion of control raises a question: Why does enslaved subordination need to be so frequently re-established, particularly through violence, the threat of social death, and assertions of subordination?
Download or read book Architectures of the Roman World written by Niccolò Mugnai and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-11-23 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects essays by international scholars who engage with Roman-period architecture outside Rome and the Italian Peninsula, looking at the regions that formed part of the Roman Empire over a broad time frame: from the second century BCE to the third century CE. Moving beyond traditional views of ‘Roman provincial architecture’, the aim is to highlight the multi-faceted features of these architectures, their function, impact and significance within the local cultures, and the dynamic discourse between periphery and center. Architecture is intended in the broad sense of the term, encompassing the buildings’ technological components as well as their ornamental and epigraphic apparatuses. The geographic framework under examination is a broad one: along with well-documented areas of the ancient Mediterranean, attention is also paid to the territories of north-west Europe. The discussion throughout the volume focuses on three interrelated themes – models, agency, and reception. The broader scope of these essays is to give a reinvigorated impetus to the scholarly debate on the role and influence of ancient architectures beyond the center of Empire. The book has a strong interdisciplinary character, which reflects the authors’ diverse expertise in the fields of archaeology, architecture, ancient history, art and architectural history.
Download or read book Aesthetics and Theurgy in Byzantium written by Sergei Mariev and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-07-31 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The general scope of the present volume is to present a variety of approaches and topics within the growing field of research on Byzantine aesthetics. Theurgy in Neoplatonic and Christian contexts is represented by the contributions of W.-M. Stock and L. Bergemann; theories of beauty are at the centre of interest of the papers by S. Mariev and M. Marchetto. A. Pizzone approaches Byzantine aesthetics by looking for aesthetic experience in the literary texts, while the remaining contributions explore issues related to the iconoclast controversy: An important moment in the development of Byzantine philosophy on the eve of iconoclasm is the primary interest of A. del Campo Echevarría, who looks at the question of universals in John of Damaskos. The relationship between image and text in Byzantine illustrated manuscripts occupies the attention of B. Crostini. D. Afinogenov explores from a philological perspective the fate of important iconophile terminology in Old Bulgarian, while L. Lukhovitskij reconstructs from historical and philological perspectives the historical memory of the iconoclast controversy during the Late Byzantine Period.
Download or read book The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity written by Mark D. Ellison and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-11 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines third- and fourth-century portraits of married Christians and associated images, reading them as visual rhetoric in early Christian conversations about marriage and celibacy, and recovering lay perspectives underrepresented or missing in literary sources. Historians of early Christianity have grown increasingly aware that written sources display an enthusiasm for asceticism and sexual renunciation that was far from representative of the lives of most early Christians. Often called a “silent majority,” the married laity in fact left behind a significant body of work in the material record. Particularly in and around Rome, they commissioned and used such objects as sarcophagi, paintings, glass vessels, finger rings, luxury silver, other jewellery items, gems, and seals that bore their portraits and other iconographic forms of self-representation. This study is the first to undertake a sustained exploration of these material sources in the context of early Christian discourses and practices related to marriage, sexuality, and celibacy. Reading this visual evidence increases understanding of the population who created it, the religious commitments they asserted, and the comparatively moderate forms of piety they set forth as meritorious alternatives to the ascetic ideal. In their visual rhetoric, these artifacts and images comprise additional voices in Late Antique conversations about idealized ways of Christian life, and ultimately provide a fuller picture of the early Christian world. Plentifully illustrated with photographs and drawings, this volume provides readers access to primary material evidence. Such evidence, like textual sources, require critical interpretation; this study sets forth a careful methodology for iconographic analysis and applies it to identify the potential intentions of patrons and artists and the perceptions of viewers. It compares iconography to literary sources and ritual practices as part of the interpretive process, clarifying the ways images had a rhetorical edge and contributed to larger conversations. Accessibly written, The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity is of interest to students and scholars working on Late Antiquity, early Christian and late Roman social history, marriage and celibacy in early Christianity, and early Christian, Roman, and Byzantine art.
Download or read book When You Were Gentiles written by Cavan W Concannon and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cavan W. Concannon makes a significant contribution to Pauline studies by imagining the responses of the Corinthians to Paul’s letters. Based on surviving written materials and archaeological research, this book offers a textured portrait of the ancient Corinthians with whom Paul conversed, argued, debated, and partnered, focusing on issues of ethnicity, civic identity, politics, and empire. In doing so, the author provides readers a unique opportunity to assess anew, and imagine possibilities beyond, Paul’s complicated legacy in shaping Western notions of race, ethnicity, and religion.
Download or read book Treasure Hidden in a Field written by David W. Jorgensen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reception history of the Gospel of Matthew utilizes theoretical frameworks and literary sources from two typically distinct disciplines, patristic studies and Valentinian (a.k.a. “Gnostic”) studies. The author shows how in the second and third centuries, the Valentinians were important contributors to a shared culture of early Christian exegesis. By examining the use of the same Matthean pericopes by both Valentinian and patristic exegetes, the author demonstrates that certain Valentinian exegetical innovations were influential upon, and ultimately adopted by, patristic authors. Chief among Valentinian contributions include the allegorical interpretation of texts that would become part of the New Testament, a sophisticated theory of the historical and theological relationship between Christians and Jews, and indeed the very conceptualization of the Gospel of Matthew as sacred scripture. This study demonstrates that what would eventually emerge from this period as the ecclesiological and theological center cannot be adequately understood without attending to some groups and individuals that have often been depicted, both by subsequent ecclesiastical leaders and modern scholars, as marginal and heretical.
Download or read book Jews Christians and the Roman Empire written by Natalie B. Dohrmann and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume revisits issues of empire from the perspective of Jews, Christians, and other Romans in the third to sixth centuries. Through case studies, the contributors bring Jewish perspectives to bear on longstanding debates concerning Romanization, Christianization, and late antiquity.
Download or read book Prudentius Spain and Late Antique Christianity written by Paula Hershkowitz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an innovative approach to the Hispano-Roman Christian poet Prudentius and his poetry. It is a breakthrough in Prudentian scholarship which unifies the differing disciplines of history, archaeology, literature and art history in arguing that Prudentius and his envisaged Spanish audience cannot be fully understood in isolation from their environment in late fourth- and early fifth-century Spain. Paula Hershkowitz focuses on Prudentius' Peristephanon, his collection of verses celebrating the deaths of martyrs, and places these poems within the context of Prudentius' world, uniquely employing material, visual and textual remains as evidence for its religious, social and cultural affiliations. It also draws on this material evidence to contextualise Prudentius' awareness of the significance of the visual as a means of promoting beliefs against the background of this crucial formative period in religious history when many of his Spanish audience were not yet fully committed to the Christian faith.
Download or read book Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity written by Kristine Kolrud and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phenomenon of iconoclasm, expressed through hostile actions towards images, has occurred in many different cultures throughout history. The destruction and mutilation of images is often motivated by a blend of political and religious ideas and beliefs, and the distinction between various kinds of ’iconoclasms’ is not absolute. In order to explore further the long and varied history of iconoclasm the contributors to this volume consider iconoclastic reactions to various types of objects, both in the very recent and distant past. The majority focus on historical periods but also on history as a backdrop for image troubles of our own day. Development over time is a central question in the volume, and cross-cultural influences are also taken into consideration. This broad approach provides a useful comparative perspective both on earlier controversies over images and relevant issues today. In the multimedia era increased awareness of the possible consequences of the use of images is of utmost importance. ’Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity’ approaches some of the problems related to the display of particular kinds of images in conflicted societies and the power to decide on the use of visual means of expression. It provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the phenomenon of iconoclasm. Of interest to a wide group of scholars the contributors draw upon various sources and disciplines, including art history, cultural history, religion and archaeology, as well as making use of recent research from within social and political sciences and contemporary events. Whilst the texts are addressed primarily to those researching the Western world, the volume contains material which will also be of interest to students of the Middle East.
Download or read book Roman Art written by Nancy Lorraine Thompson and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2007 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete introduction to the rich cultural legacy of Rome through the study of Roman art ... It includes a discussion of the relevance of Rome to the modern world, a short historical overview, and descriptions of forty-five works of art in the Roman collection organized in three thematic sections: Power and Authority in Roman Portraiture; Myth, Religion, and the Afterlife; and Daily Life in Ancient Rome. This resource also provides lesson plans and classroom activities."--Publisher website.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions written by Barbette Stanley Spaeth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-25 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an introduction to the major religions of the ancient Mediterranean and explores current research regarding the similarities and differences among them.
Download or read book Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology written by James F. Osborne and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-10-24 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interdisciplinary study of monumental art and architecture in human history. Monumentality is a human phenomenon that has occurred in nearly all times and places. Because of its ubiquity, monumentality is something that has been studied by a large number of disciplines and individuals. Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology explores the phenomenon of monumental art and architecture from humankinds most ancient past to recent history, and does so using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates the research of anthropological archaeologists, art historians, classicists, and sociologists working in a wide variety of historical and cultural contexts. The volume seeks to define what is meant by the terms monument and monumentality, and to understand the social and political significance of monument-building as it has manifested around the world. By advocating for a relational approach to the topic that seeks to find monumentality in the ongoing relationship between object and person, this book offers the opportunity to begin the process of uniting these varied interests into a unified discourse.
Download or read book Antioch II written by Silke-Petra Bergjan and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the fourth century, Antioch on the Orontes was the most important imperial residence in the Roman Empire and a "hot-bed" of intellectual and religious activity. The writings of men such as Libanius, the emperor Julian, Ammianus Marcellinus, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, and many others, provide a density of written sources that is nearly unmatched in antiquity, while the archaeological evidence of the city's evolution is much harder to reconstruct. This volume assembles state-of-the-art scholarship on these ancient authors within the context of recent archaeological work to offer a rare comprehensive view of this late Roman city. Contributors: Rudolf Brandle, Gunnar Brands, Silke-Petra Bergjan, Susanna Elm, Johannes Hahn, Gavin Kelly, Blake Leyerle, Jaclyn Maxwell, Wendy Mayer, Yannis Papadogiannakis, Catherine Saliou, Adam M. Schor, Christine Shepardson, Jan R. Stenger, Claudia Tiersch, Edward Watts, Jorit Wintjes
Download or read book Defending and Defining the Faith written by D.H. Williams and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Early Christian Apologetics, D.H. Williams offers a comprehensive presentation of Christian apologetic literature from the second to the fifth century, considering each writer within the intellectual context of the day. Williams argues that most apologies were not directed at a pagan readership. In most cases, he says, ancient apologetics had a double object: to instruct the Christian and to persuade weak Christians or non-Christians who were sympathetic to Christian claims. Traditionally, scholars of apologetics have focused on the context of persecution in the pre-Constantinian period. By following the links in the intellectual trajectory up though the early fifth century, Williams prompts deeper reflection on the process of Christian self-definition in late antiquity. Taken cumulatively, he finds, apologetic literature was in fact integral to the formation of the Christian identity in the Roman world.
Download or read book Clothing the Body of Christ at Colossae written by Rosemary Canavan and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2012 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What we think of our bodies and what we wear says something about who we are and how we belong. This was the same in the ancient world. Rosemary Canavan explores the imagery of clothing and body in the first century CE Christian writing. An examination of statuary, funerary monuments and coins in this geographical location contemporaneous with the letter's writing reveals how clothing and body images were understood. This is then placed in dialogue with the metaphorical use of clothing and body in other texts, especially the Letter to the Colossians. Social identity and rhetorical studies draw on archaeological, epigraphical, iconographical and literary sources to formulate a new approach to biblical interpretation aptly named "visual exegesis."
Download or read book Rabbinic Tales of Destruction written by Julia Watts Belser and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rabbinic Tales of Destruction examines early Jewish accounts of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem from the perspective of the wounded body and the scarred land. Amidst stories saturated with sexual violence, enslavement, forced prostitution, disability, and bodily risk, the book argues that rabbinic narrative wrestles with the brutal body costs of Roman imperial domination. It brings disability studies, feminist theory, and new materialist ecological thought to accounts of rabbinic catastrophe, revealing how rabbinic discourses of gender, sexuality, and the body are shaped in the shadow of empire. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud's longest account of the destruction of the Second Temple, the book reveals the distinctive sex and gender politics of Bavli Gittin. While Palestinian tales frequently castigate the "wayward woman" for sexual transgressions that imperil the nation, Bavli Gittin's stories resist portraying women's sexuality as a cause of catastrophe. Rather than castigate women's beauty as the cause of sexual sin, Bavli Gittin's tales express a strikingly egalitarian discourse that laments the vulnerability of both male and female bodies before the conqueror. Bavli Gittin's body politics align with a significant theological reorientation. Bavli Gittin does not explain catastrophe as divine chastisement. Instead of imagining God as the architect of Jewish suffering, it evokes God's empathy with the subjugated Jewish body and forges a sharp critique of empire. Its critical discourse aims to pierce the power politics of Roman conquest, to protest the brutality of imperial dominance, and to make plain the scar that Roman violence leaves upon Jewish flesh"--
