Download or read book Gods Objects and Ritual Practice written by Sandra Blakely and published by Lockwood Press. This book was released on 2017-07-01 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations about materiality have helped forge a common meeting ground for scholars seeking to integrate images, sites, texts and implements in their approach to religion in the ancient Mediterranean. The thirteen chapters in this volume explore the productivity of these approaches, with case studies from Israel, Athens, Rome, Sicily and North Africa. The results foreground the capacity of material approaches to cast light on the cultural creation of the sacred through the integration of rhetorical, material, and iconographic means. They open more nuanced pathways to the uses of text in the study of material evidence. They highlight the potential for material objects to bring political and ethnic boundaries into the sacred realm. And they emphasize the role of ongoing interpretation, debate, and multiple readings in the creation of the sacred, in both ancient contexts and scholarly discussion.
Download or read book Religion of the Gods written by Kimberley Christine Patton and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2009 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text seeks to explain an enigmatic image common to many of the world religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, that of the God who worships. Drawing on an array of comparative evidence, Patton suggests a theory of 'divine reflexivity'.
Download or read book Remains of Ritual written by Steven M. Friedson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remains of Ritual, Steven M. Friedson’s second book on musical experience in African ritual, focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. Friedson presents a multifaceted understanding of religious practice through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country. Each chapter of this fascinating book considers a different aspect of ritual life, demonstrating throughout that none of them can be conceived of separately from their musicality—in the Brekete world, music functions as ritual and ritual as music. Dance and possession, chanted calls to prayer, animal sacrifice, the sounds and movements of wake keeping, the play of the drums all come under Friedson’s careful scrutiny, as does his own position and experience within this ritual-dominated society.
Download or read book Locating the Sacred written by Claudia Moser and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual happens in distinct places Ð in temples, in caves, along pilgrimage routes Ð and religious activities there incorporate a diverse set of objects such as holy water, cult statues, and sacred texts. Understanding religious ritual requires viewing it not as a disembodied event, but as emplaced, grounded in both built and natural surroundings, and integrated with its associated material objects. Here authors examine various religious practices in the Greco-Roman world and pilgrimage routes in contemporary Israel. Other contributions focus on the East, on domestic religion in prehistoric Taiwan, and the palimpsest of ritual activity in Buddhist China. One author considers not just ritualÕs built and natural setting, but also the landscape of the human mind. By way of conclusion, many of the recurring issues concerning the material and topographic matrix of ritual practice are expanded upon in a final meditation on sacred space. The papers in this volume, with their disciplinary, geographic, and chronological diversity, will serve as a resource for theoretical approaches to the study of ritual practice that may have broad cross-cultural application and provide new insight into the relationship between ritual and place. The volume is based on a conference held at Brown University.
Download or read book How God Becomes Real written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.
Download or read book Myth Ritual and Religion written by Andrew Lang and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2022-12-04 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproduction of the original.
Download or read book Nemo non metuit written by Fabrizio Conti and published by Trivent Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-30 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nemo Non Metuit": Magic in the Roman World has the ambitious goal of discussing some of the fundamental themes in the development of the idea of magic, in all its facets, in the long chronological span of the Roman world, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE. At the same time, this volume is the result of a team effort that has brought together both accomplished scholars and young researchers at the beginning of their scholarly careers. Altogether, this ample work is the result of a synergy that brought together different approaches to the study of Roman magic. The broad content of this volume includes studies on magical gems of Etruscan, Greek and Phoenician background; curse tablets; amulets targeting malaria; erotic spells; the use of veneficia or poisons for magical purposes; judicial prayers in Roman Britain; witches in the literary tradition; the role of women in the matter of magic and divination; the figure of the "Orphic witch" in the age of Augustus; sorcerers and rivals of Jesus Christ; early-Christian sermons against magic and superstition; the fight of late-antique Church against magical powers. By addressing such a diverse spectrum of topics, this volume aims to challenge traditional views and open new paths of interpretation in the reconstruction of a long-term cultural-historical object such as magic in connection to the Roman civilization.
Download or read book Senses Cognition and Ritual Experience in the Roman World written by Blanka Misic and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and remember ritual experiences? This book applies cognitive and sensory approaches to Roman rituals, reconnecting readers with religious experiences as members of an embodied audience. These approaches allow us to move beyond the literate elites to examine broader audiences of diverse individuals, who experienced rituals as participants and/or performers. Case studies of ritual experiences from a variety of places, spaces, and contexts across the Roman world, including polytheistic and Christian rituals, state rituals, private rituals, performances, and processions, demonstrate the dynamic and broad-scale application that cognitive approaches offer for ancient religion, paving the way for future interdisciplinary engagement. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
Download or read book Beyond the Romans written by Irene Selsvold and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest volume in the TRAC Themes in Theoretical Roman Archaeology series takes up posthuman theoretical perspectives to interpret Roman material culture. These perspectives provide novel and compelling ways of grappling with theoretical problems in Roman archaeology producing new knowledge and questions about the complex relationships and interactions between humans and non-humans in Roman culture and society. Posthumanism constitutes a multitude of theoretical positions characterised by common critiques of anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. In part, they react to the dominance of the linguistic turn in humanistic sciences. These positions do not exclude “the human”, but instead stress the mutual relationship between matter and discourse. Moreover, they consider the agency of “non-humans”, e.g., animals, material culture, landscapes, climate, and ideas, their entanglement with humans, and the situated nature of research. Posthumanism has had substantial impacts in several fields (including critical studies, archaeology, feminist studies, even politics) but have not yet emerged in any fulsome way in Classical Studies and Classical Archaeology. This is the first volume on these themes in Roman Archaeology, aimed at providing valuable perspectives into Roman myth, art and material culture, displacing and complicating notions of human exceptionalism and individualist subjectivity. Contributions consider non-human agencies, particularly animal, material, environmental, and divine agencies, critiques of binary oppositions and gender roles, and the Anthropocene. Ultimately, the papers stress that humans and non-humans are entangled and imbricated in larger systems: we are all post-human.
Download or read book Romans and Barbarians Beyond the Frontiers written by Sergio Gonzalez Sanchez and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first thematic volume of the new series TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology brings renowned international experts to discuss different aspects of interactions between Romans and ‘barbarians’ in the north-western regions of Europe. Northern Europe has become an interesting arena of academic debate around the topics of Roman imperialism and Roman:‘barbarian’ interactions, as these areas comprised Roman provincial territories, the northern frontier system of the Roman Empire (limes), the vorlimes (or buffer zone), and the distant barbaricum. This area is, today, host to several modern European nations with very different historical and academic discourses on their Roman past, a factor in the recent tendency towards the fragmentation of approaches and the application of post-colonial theories that have favoured the advent of a varied range of theoretical alternatives. Case studies presented here span across disciplines and territories, from American anthropological studies on transcultural discourse and provincial organization in Gaul, to historical approaches to the propagandistic use of the limes in the early 20th century German empire; from Danish research on warrior identities and Roman-Scandinavian relations, to innovative ideas on culture contact in Roman Ireland; and from new views on Romano-Germanic relations in Central European Barbaricum, to a British comparative exercise on frontier cultures. The volume is framed by a brilliant theoretical introduction by Prof. Richard Hingley and a comprehensive concluding discussion by Prof. David Mattingly.
Download or read book Gods and Rituals written by John Middleton and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography written by Lea K. Cline and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-29 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Roman imagery and iconography are typically studied under the more general umbrella of Roman art and in broader, medium-specific studies. This handbook focuses primarily on visual imagery in the Roman world, examined by context and period, and the evolving scholarly traditions of iconographic analysis and visual semiotics that have framed the modern study of these images. As such topics-or, more directly, the isolation of these topics from medium-specific or strictly temporal evaluations of Roman art-are uncommon in monograph-length studies, our goal is that this handbook will be an important reference for both the communicative value of images in the Roman world and the tradition of iconographical analysis. The chapters herein represent contributions from a number of leading and emerging authorities on Roman imagery and iconography from across the world, representing a variety of academic traditions and methods of image analysis"--
Download or read book Before the God in this Place for Good Remembrance written by Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph is an investigation of Yahwistic votive practice during the Hellenistic period. The dedicatory inscriptions from the Yahweh temple on Mount Gerizim are analyzed in light of votive practice in Biblical literature and in general on the basis of a thorough terminological and theoretical discussion. A special focus is laid on remembrance formulae, which request the deity to remember the worshipper in return for a gift. These formulae cannot only be found at Gerizim, but also in other Semitic dedicatory inscriptions. Therefore these texts are interpreted in their broader cultural context, placed within a broad religious practice of dedicating gifts to the gods and leaving inscriptions in sanctuaries. Finally, the aspect of divine remembrance in the Hebrew Bible is explored and related to the materiality of the votive inscription. The research concludes that there is a perception of the divine behind this practice on Mount Gerizim that ties together the aspects of gift, remembrance and material presence. This ‘theology’ is echoed both in similar Semitic dedicatory inscriptions and in the Hebrew Bible.
Download or read book Myth Ritual and Religion written by Andrew Lang and published by Binker North. This book was released on 1887 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Myth, Ritual, and Religion is a classic mythology studies text by Andrew Lang. When this book first appeared (1886), the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological position was the "ghost theory" of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the "Animistic" theory of Mr. E. R. Tylor, according to whom the propitiation of ancestral and other spirits leads to polytheism, and thence to monotheism. In the second edition (1901) of this work the author argued that the belief in a "relatively supreme being," anthropomorphic was as old as, and might be even older, than animistic religion. When this book first appeared (1886), the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological position was the "ghost theory" of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the "Animistic" theory of Mr. E. R. Tylor, according to whom the propitiation of ancestral and other spirits leads to polytheism, and thence to monotheism. In the second edition (1901) of this work the author argued that the belief in a "relatively supreme being," anthropomorphic was as old as, and might be even older, than animistic religion. This theory he exhibited at greater length, and with a larger collection of evidence, in his Making of Religion. Since 1901, a great deal of fresh testimony as to what Mr. Howitt styles the "All Father" in savage and barbaric religions has accrued. As regards this being in Africa, the reader may consult the volumes of the New Series of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, which are full of African evidence, not, as yet, discussed, to my knowledge, by any writer on the History of Religion. As late as Man, for July, 1906, No. 66, Mr. Parkinson published interesting Yoruba legends about Oleron, the maker and father of men, and Oro, the Master of the Bull Roarer.
Download or read book Religious Convergence in the Ancient Mediterranean written by Sandra Blakely and published by Lockwood Press. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 597 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together scholars in religion, archaeology, philology, and history to explore case studies and theoretical models of converging religions. The twenty-four essays offered in this volume, which derive from Hittite, Cilician, Lydian, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman cultural settings, focus on encounters at the boundaries of cultures, landscapes, chronologies, social class and status, the imaginary, and the materially operative. Broad patterns ultimately emerge that reach across these boundaries, and suggest the state of the question on the study of convergence, and the potential fruitfulness for comparative and interdisciplinary studies as models continue to evolve.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible written by Samuel E. Balentine and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conceit in the title of this volume is that ritual, however expansively it may be defined, is ineluctably tethered to religion and worship. It has a primal connection to the idea that a transcendent order - numinous and mysterious, supranatural and elusive, divine and wholly other - gives meaning and purpose to life. The construction of rites and rituals enables humans to conceive and apprehend this transcendent order, to symbolize it and interact with it, to postulate its truths in the face of contradicting realities and to repair them when they have been breached or diminished. The focus of this Handbook is on ritual and worship from the perspective of biblical studies, particularly on the Hebrew Bible and its ancient Near Eastern antecedents. Within this context, attention will be given to the development of ideas in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinking, but only insofar as they connect with or extend the trajectory of biblical precedents. The volume reflects a wide range of analytical approaches to ancient texts, inscriptions, iconography, and ritual artifacts. It examines the social history and cultural knowledge encoded in rituals, and explores the way rituals shape and are shaped by politics, economics, ethical imperatives, and religion itself. Toward this end, the volume is organized into six major sections: Historical Contexts, Interpretive Approaches, Ritual Elements (participants, places, times, objects, practices), Underlying Cultural and Theological Perspectives, History of Interpretation, Social-Cultural Functions, and Theology and Theological Heritage"--
Download or read book Household Gods written by Alexandra Sofroniew and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daily religious devotion in the Greek and Roman worlds centered on the family and the home. Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone. Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book’s emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.
