Download or read book Reflections on Religious Individuality written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-07-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume will concentrate its search for religious individuality on texts and practices related to texts from Classical Greece to Late Antiquity. Texts offer opportunities to express one’s own religious experience and shape one’s own religious personality within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Inscriptions in public or at least easily accessible spaces might substantially differ in there range of expressions and topics from letters within a sectarian religious group (which, at the same time, might put enormous pressure on conformity among its members, regarded as deviant by a majority of contemporaries). Furthermore, texts might offer and advocate new practices in reading, meditating, remembering or repeating these very texts. Such practices might contribute to the development of religious individuality, experienced or expressed in factual isolation, responsibility, competition, and finally in philosophical or theological reflections about “personhood” or “self”. The volume develops its topic in three sections, addressing personhood, representative and charismatic individuality, the interaction of individual and groups and practices of reading and writing. It explores Jewish, Christian, Greek and Latin texts.
Download or read book Reflections on Religious Individuality written by Jörg Rüpke and published by de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Did ancient religions know religious individuality? How did it work in texts and practices related to texts? The creation of texts offered opportunities to express one's own religious experience and shape one's own religious personality - within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Greek and Latin, Jewish and Christian texts from the Hellenistic period down to Late Antiquity created exemplary individuals or condemned individual deviance. This volume presents exemplary cases and analyses, which open a new field for research in the history of religion, covering ritual and literary innovations." --from back cover.
Download or read book Group Identity and Religious Individuality in Late Antiquity written by Eric Rebillard and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To understand the past, we necessarily group people together and, consequently, frequently assume that all of its members share the same attributes. In this ground-breaking volume, Eric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke bring renowned scholars together to challenge this norm by seeking to rediscover the individual and to explore the dynamics between individuals and the groups to which they belong.
Download or read book Religious Deviance in the Roman World written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a new reading of the ancient sources in order to find indications for religious deviance practices in the Roman world.
Download or read book On Roman Religion written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provocative reading for anyone interested in Roman culture in the late Republic and early Empire.― Religious Studies Review Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? Jörg Rüpke, one of the world’s leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his new book that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, Rüpke highlights the dynamic character of Rome’s religious institutions and traditions. In Rüpke’s view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. Rüpke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. Rüpke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.
Download or read book Archaeology of Mind in the Hebrew Bible Arch ologie Alttestamentlichen Denkens written by Andreas Wagner and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-04-27 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research into the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near East, Philosophy and History have long considered whether thought in the cultural area of the ancient Middle East differs from that in the western Mediterranean. The inclusion of neurobiology, psychology, brain research and evolutionary research will widen this horizon and allow new approaches. This volume provides in depth insides into this Archaeology of Mind in 22 contributions.
Download or read book Individuality in Late Antiquity written by Alexis Torrance and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars documents and analyses this development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.
Download or read book TRAC 2015 written by Matthew Mandich and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2015 TRAC proceedings feature a selection of 14 papers summing up some of the key sessions presented at the conference held at the University of Leicester in March 2015, which drew over 180 delegates of 17 nationalities from a variety of universities, museums, and research institutions in the UK, Europe, and North America. As this conference marked the 25th anniversary of TRAC, the volume opens with a preface commemorating the last 25 years with an eye toward the future direction of both conference and community. The proceedings begin with Dr Andrew Gardner’s keynote paper on the topic of ‘Debating Roman Imperialism: Critique, Construct, Repeat?’. This is followed by an array of papers with topics ranging in geographic scope and period, from small finds in early Roman Britain to bathing practices Late Antique North Africa, and from the investigation of deviant burials to the application of urban scaling theory in Roman contexts. Because of this diversity the volume is not broken into specific sections, however, papers with similar themes are grouped accordingly, allowing the text to flow and be read as a whole. The range of contributing authors is also of note, as papers were submitted by PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and university faculty, all helping to make the 25th anniversary of this series one that continues to emphasis and reflect the aims of TRAC, both as a conference and as a conduit for exploring more theory-driven approaches to the Roman past.
Download or read book Religious Individualisation written by Martin Fuchs and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 1058 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together key findings of the long-term research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ (Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University). Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in different religious environments and historical periods, in particular in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past. Contrary to standard theories of modernisation, which tend to regard religious individualisation as a specifically modern or early modern as well as an essentially Western or Christian phenomenon, the chapters reveal processes of religious individualisation in a large variety of non-Western and pre-modern scenarios. Furthermore, the volume challenges prevalent views that regard religions primarily as collective phenomena and provides nuanced perspectives on the appropriation of religious agency, the pluralisation of religious options, dynamics of de-traditionalisation and privatisation, the development of elaborated notions of the self, the facilitation of religious deviance, and on the notion of dividuality.
Download or read book Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings written by Jennifer Otto and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings investigates portrayals of the first-century philosopher and exegete Philo of Alexandria, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius. It argues that early Christian invocations of Philo are best understood not as attempts simply to claim an illustrious Jew for the Christian fold, but as examples of ongoing efforts to define the continuities and distinctive features of Christian beliefs and practices in relation to those of the Jews. This study takes as its starting point the curious fact that none of the first three Christians to mention Philo refer to him unambiguously as a Jew. Clement, the first in the Christian tradition to openly cite Philo's works, refers to him twice as a Pythagorean. Origen, who mentions Philo by name only three times, makes far more frequent reference to him in the guise of an anonymous "one who came before us." Eusebius, who invokes Philo on many more occasions than does Clement or Origen, most often refers to Philo as a Hebrew. These epithets construct Philo as an alternative "near-other" to both Christians and Jews, through whom ideas and practices may be imported to the former from the latter, all the while establishing boundaries between the "Christian" and "Jewish" ways of life. The portraits of Philo offered by each author reveal ongoing processes of difference-making and difference-effacing that constituted not only the construction of the Jewish "other," but also the Christian "self."
Download or read book Luxury and Wealth in Sparta and the Peloponnese written by Chrysanthi Gallou and published by Classical Press of Wales. This book was released on 2022-10-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Spartan lifestyle proverbially describes austerity; ancient Greek luxury was associated with Ionia and the oriental world. The contributions to this book, first presented at a conference held by the University of Nottingham's Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, reverse the stereotype and explore the role of luxury and wealth at Sparta and among its Peloponnesian neighbors from the Iron Age to the Hellenistic period. Using literary, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, an international team of specialists investigates the definition and changing meanings of the term luxury and its nearest ancient Greek equivalents, providing new insights into Sparta's supposed abstention from luxury, and the way that this was portrayed by ancient writers. They analyse wealth production and private and public spending, emphasising features that were distinctive to Sparta and the Peloponnese compared with other parts of ancient Greece. Other chapters investigate issues still familiar in the contemporary world: economic crisis and debt, austerity measures, and relief provisions for the poor.
Download or read book Moment of Reckoning written by Ellen Muehlberger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late antiquity saw a proliferation of Christian texts dwelling on the emotions and physical sensations of dying, not as a heroic martyr in a public square or a judge's court, but as an individual, at home in a bed or in a private room. In sermons, letters, and ascetic traditions, late ancient Christians imagined the last minutes of life and the events that followed death in elaborate detail. The majority of these imagined scenarios linked the quality of the experience to the moral state of the person who died. Death was no longer the "happy ending," in Judith Perkins's words, it had been to Christians of the first three centuries, an escape from the difficult and painful world. Instead, death was most often imagined as a terrifying, desperate experience. This book is the first to trace how, in late ancient Christianity, death came to be thought of as a moment of reckoning: a physical ordeal whose pain is followed by an immediate judgment of one's actions by angels and demons and, after that, fitting punishment. Because late ancient Christian culture valued the use of the imagination as a religious tool and because Christian teachers encouraged Christians to revisit the prospect of their deaths often, this novel description of death was more than an abstract idea. Rather, its appearance ushered in a new ethical sensibility among Christians, in which one's death was to be imagined frequently and anticipated in detail. This was, at first glance, meant as a tool for individuals: preachers counted on the fact that becoming aware of a judgment arriving at the end of one's life tends to sharpen one's scruples. But, as this book argues, the change in Christian sensibility toward death did not just affect individuals. Once established, it shifted the ethics of Christianity as a tradition. This is because death repeatedly and frequently imagined as the moment of reckoning created a fund of images and ideas about what constituted a human being and how variances in human morality should be treated. This had significant effects on the Christian assumption of power in late antiquity, especially in the case of the capacity to authorize violence against others. The thinking about death traced here thus contributed to the seemingly paradoxical situation in which Christians proclaimed their identity with a crucified person, yet were willing to use force against their ideological opponents.
Download or read book Evolution Cognition and the History of Religion A New Synthesis written by Anders Klostergaard Petersen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution, Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis comprises 41 chapters that push for a new way of conducting the study of religion, thereby, transforming the discipline into a genuine science of religion. The recent resurgence of evolutionary approaches on culture and the increasing acknowledgement in the natural and social sciences of culture’s and religion’s evolutionary importance calls for a novel epistemological and theoretical framework for studying these two areas. The chapters explore how a new scholarly synthesis, founded on the triadic space constituted by evolution, cognition, cultural and ecological environment, may develop. Different perspectives and themes relating to this overarching topic are taken up with a main focus on either evolution, cognition, and/or the history of religion.
Download or read book The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean written by Jörg Rüpke and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political phenomena and, apart from a few towering figures, the individual religious agent has fallen out of view. Addressing this gap, the essays in this volume focus on the individual and individuality in ancient Mediterranean religion. Even in antiquity, individual religious action was not determined by traditional norms handed down through families and the larger social context, but rather options were open and choices were made. On the part of the individual, this development is reflected in changes in 'individuation', the parallel process of a gradual full integration into society and the development of self-reflection and of a notion of individual identity. These processes are analysed within the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, down to Christian-dominated late antiquity, in both pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish monotheistic settings. The volume focuses on individuation in everyday religious practices in Phoenicia, various Greek cities, and Rome, and as identified in institutional developments and philosophical reflections on the self as exemplified by the Stoic Seneca.
Download or read book Christian Teachers in Second Century Rome written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Teachers in Second-Century Rome situates second-century Christian teachers such as Marcion, Justin, Valentinus and others in the social and intellectual context of the Roman urban environment, placing their teaching and textual activity in the midst of physicians, philosophers, and other religious experts.
Download or read book Pantheon written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, an innovative and comprehensive account of religion in the ancient Roman and Mediterranean world In this ambitious and authoritative book, Jörg Rüpke provides a comprehensive and strikingly original narrative history of ancient Roman and Mediterranean religion over more than a millennium—from the late Bronze Age through the Roman imperial period and up to late antiquity. While focused primarily on the city of Rome, Pantheon fully integrates the many religious traditions found in the Mediterranean world, including Judaism and Christianity. This generously illustrated book is also distinguished by its unique emphasis on lived religion, a perspective that stresses how individuals’ experiences and practices transform religion into something different from its official form. The result is a radically new picture of both Roman religion and a crucial period in Western religion—one that influenced Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even the modern idea of religion itself. Drawing on a vast range of literary and archaeological evidence, Pantheon shows how Roman religion shaped and was shaped by its changing historical contexts from the ninth century BCE to the fourth century CE. Because religion was not a distinct sphere in the Roman world, the book treats religion as inseparable from political, social, economic, and cultural developments. The narrative emphasizes the diversity of Roman religion; offers a new view of central concepts such as “temple,” “altar,” and “votive”; reassesses the gendering of religious practices; and much more. Throughout, Pantheon draws on the insights of modern religious studies, but without “modernizing” ancient religion. With its unprecedented scope and innovative approach, Pantheon is an unparalleled account of ancient Roman and Mediterranean religion.
Download or read book Religion in the Roman Empire written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Kohlhammer Verlag. This book was released on 2021-10-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
