Download or read book Religious and Philosophical Conversion in the Ancient Mediterranean Traditions written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-03-07 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores conversion experience in the ancient Mediterranean with attention to early Judaism, early Christianity, and philosophy in the Roman empire from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Download or read book Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World written by Valentino Gasparini and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-04-06 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or public character. This volume applies and further develops these methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early) Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of theoretical debate, which are “Experiencing the Religious”, “Switching the Code”, „A Thing Called Body“ and “Commemorating the Moment”.

Download or read book Ancient Mediterranean Religions written by John C. Stephens and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-06-22 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a clear and concise historical overview of the major religious movements of the ancient Mediterranean world existing from the time of the second millennium BCE up until the fourth century CE, including both the Judeo-Christian and pagan religious traditions. Recognizing the significant role of religious institutions in human history and acknowledging the diversity of religious ideas and practices in the ancient Mediterranean world, “religion” is defined as a collection of myths, beliefs, rituals, ethical practices, social institutions and experiences related to the realm of the sacred cosmos. Without focusing too much attention on technicalities and complex vocabulary, the book provides an introductory road map for exploring the vast array of religious data permeating the ancient Mediterranean world. Through an examination of literary and archeological evidence, the book summarizes the fundamental religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Near Eastern world, including the religious traditions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel. Turning westward, the fascinating world of ancient Greek and Roman religion is considered next. The discussion begins with a description of Minoan-Mycenaean religion, followed by a consideration of classical Roman and Greek religion. Next, the numerous religious movements that blossomed during Hellenistic-Roman times are discussed. In addition, the fundamental theological contributions of various Greco-Roman philosophical schools of thought, including Orphism, Stoicism, Pythagoreanism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, are described. Greco-Roman philosophy functioned as a quasi-religious outlook for many, and played a decisive role in the evolution of religion in the classical and Hellenistic period. The theological speculations of the philosophers regarding the nature of God and the soul made a huge impact in religious circles during the classical and Hellenistic era. Moving forward in history from archaic and classical times to the later Hellenistic-Roman period, the old religious order of the past falls by the wayside and a new updated religious paradigm begins to develop throughout the Mediterranean world, with a greater emphasis being placed upon the religious individual and the expression of personal religious feelings. There are several important social and historical reasons for this shift in perspective and these factors are explained in the chapter focusing upon personal religion in Hellenistic times. Since the entire religious topography of the ancient Mediterranean world is rarely outlined in a single volume, this book will be a welcome addition to anyone’s library.

Download or read book Religious Conversion written by Ira Katznelson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious conversion - a shift in membership from one community of faith to another - can take diverse forms in radically different circumstances. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, conversion can be protracted or sudden, voluntary or coerced, small-scale or large. It may be the result of active missionary efforts, instrumental decisions, or intellectual or spiritual attraction to a different doctrine and practices. In order to investigate these multiple meanings, and how they may differ across time and space, this collection ranges far and wide across medieval and early modern Europe and beyond. From early Christian pilgrims to fifteenth-century Ethiopia; from the Islamisation of the eastern Mediterranean to Reformation Germany, the volume highlights salient features and key concepts that define religious conversion, particular the Jewish, Muslim and Christian experiences. By probing similarities and variations, continuities and fissures, the volume also extends the range of conversion to focus on matters less commonly examined, such as competition for the meaning of sacred space, changes to bodies, patterns of gender, and the ways conversion has been understood and narrated by actors and observers. In so doing, it promotes a layered approach that deepens inquiry by identifying and suggesting constellations of elements that both compose particular instances of conversion and help make systematic comparisons possible by indicating how to ask comparable questions of often vastly different situations.

Download or read book History and the Study of Religion written by Stanley Kent Stowers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is religion? How is religion constituted as a social entity? Is religion a useful category for historians, anthropologists, and sociologists? In History and the Study of Religion Stanley Stowers addresses these questions and discusses examples from ancient Greek, Roman, Judean and especially early Christian religion to illustrate a theory of religion as a social kind. He explains how ancient Mediterranean religion consisted of four sub-kinds: the religion of everyday social exchange, civic religion, the religion of literate and literary experts, and the religion of literate experts with political power. Through these categories he shows how Christianity arose and succeeded.

Download or read book Christianity Empire and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity written by Jeremy M. Schott and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity, Jeremy M. Schott examines the ways in which conflicts between Christian and pagan intellectuals over religious, ethnic, and cultural identity contributed to the transformation of Roman imperial rhetoric and ideology in the early fourth century C.E. During this turbulent period, which began with Diocletian's persecution of the Christians and ended with Constantine's assumption of sole rule and the consolidation of a new Christian empire, Christian apologists and anti-Christian polemicists launched a number of literary salvos in a battle for the minds and souls of the empire. Schott focuses on the works of the Platonist philosopher and anti- Christian polemicist Porphyry of Tyre and his Christian respondents: the Latin rhetorician Lactantius, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and the emperor Constantine. Previous scholarship has tended to narrate the Christianization of the empire in terms of a new religion's penetration and conquest of classical culture and society. The present work, in contrast, seeks to suspend the static, essentializing conceptualizations of religious identity that lie behind many studies of social and political change in late antiquity in order to investigate the processes through which Christian and pagan identities were constructed. Drawing on the insights of postcolonial discourse analysis, Schott argues that the production of Christian identity and, in turn, the construction of a Christian imperial discourse were intimately and inseparably linked to the broader politics of Roman imperialism.

Download or read book Dictionary of Paul and His Letters written by Scot McKnight and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2023-04-11 with total page 1883 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters is a one-of-a-kind reference work. No other resource presents as much information focused exclusively on Pauline theology, literature, background, and scholarship. This second edition is a thoroughly revised and updated version of the acclaimed 1993 publication. Since that groundbreaking volume was published, developments in Pauline studies have continued at a rapid pace, with diverse new scholars entering the conversation, new ideas and methods gaining attention, and fresh expressions of old topics shaping the present discussion. Those who enjoyed and benefited from the wealth in the first edition will find this new edition an equally indispensable and freshly up-to-date companion to study and research. Classic topics such as Christology, justification, hermeneutics, and book studies of individual epistles receive careful treatment by specialists in the field. Topics new to this edition—including Paul and politics, patronage, and interpretations from various historical and cultural perspectives—expand the volume's breadth and usefulness. Over 95% of the articles have been written specifically for this edition. This work bridges the gap between scholars and pastors, teachers and students, and all interested readers who want a thorough treatment of key topics in a summary format. In curating and compiling these articles, the editors have sought to make them comprehensive, accessible, and useful for those pursuing further research on particular subjects. Each article's bibliography, in addition, will serve a new generation of readers for years to come. The updated Dictionary of Paul and His Letters takes its place alongside the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed., and the other volumes in the IVP Bible Dictionary Series as a unique presentation of the fruit of biblical studies—committed to Scripture, using the best of critical methods, and maintaining dialogue with both contemporary scholarship and the challenges facing the church. The reference volumes in the series provide in-depth treatment of biblical and theological topics in an accessible encyclopedia format, including cross-sectional themes, methods of interpretation, significant historical or cultural background, and each Old and New Testament book as a whole.

Download or read book Simon of Samaria and the Simonians written by M. David Litwa and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who were the Simonians? Beginning in the mid-second century CE, heresiologists depicted them as licentious followers of the first “gnostic,” a supposedly Samarian self-deifier called Simon, who was thought to practice “magic” and became known as the father of all heresies. Litwa examines the Simonians in their own literature and in the literature used to refute and describe them. He begins with Simonian primary sources, namely The Declaration of Great Power (embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies) and The Concept of Our Great Power (Nag Hammadi codex VI,4). Litwa argues that both are early second-century products of Simonian authors writing in Alexandria or Egypt. Litwa then moves on to examine the heresiological sources related to the Simonians (Justin, the book of Acts, Irenaeus, the author of the Refutation of All Heresies, Pseudo-Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Filaster). He shows how closely connected Justin's report is to the portrait of Simon in Acts, and offers an extensive exegesis and analysis of Simonian theology and practice based on the reports of Irenaeus and the Refutator. Finally, Litwa examines Simonianism in novelistic sources, namely the Acts of Peter and the Pseudo-Clementines. By the time these sources were written, Simon had become the father of all heresies. Accordingly, virtually any heresy could be attributed to Simon. As a result-despite their alluring portraits of Simon-these sources are mostly unusable for the historical study of the Simonian Christian movement. Litwa concludes with a historical profile of the Simonian movement in the second and third centuries. The book features appendices which contain Litwa's own translations of primary Simonian texts.

Download or read book The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the Hellenistic and Imperial periods in both pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish monotheistic settings, this edited collection focuses on individuation in everyday religious practices across the ancient Mediterranean as identified in institutional developments and philosophical reflections on the self.

Download or read book Reconceptualising Conversion written by Zeba A. Crook and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Die Studie nimmt die bisherige Diskussion der Konversion in der Antike neu auf durch eine Verknüpfung von klassischen, epigraphischen und biblischen Quellen mit einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Methodologie. Der Autor hinterfragt dabei die bisher vorausgesetzte psychologische Kontinuität zwischen antiken und modernen Menschen und bietet statt dessen ein Modell, welches an den Denkvoraussetzungen der Antike selbst gebildet wurde. Die griechisch-römischen und mediterranen Religionen und Philosophien - also auch das hellenistische Judentum und das Christentum - orientierten sich an den Modellen von Patronat und Loyalität. Das Verständnis der antiken Konversion muss also hier ansetzen. In diesem Zusammenhang wird auch die "Bekehrung" des Paulus neu gedeutet.

Download or read book Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice written by Jennifer Wright Knust and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the multiple meanings and functions of sacrifice in diverse religious texts and practices from the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.

Download or read book Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism written by Christian Frevel and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on concepts, practices and images associated with purity in the ancient Mediterranean, this volume contributes new aspects to the current discussion about the forming of religious traditions, from a comparative perspective that acknowldges individual developments, mutual exchanges, as well as transcultural processes.

Download or read book Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions written by Eric Orlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 1624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions is the first comprehensive single-volume reference work offering authoritative coverage of ancient religions in the Mediterranean world. Chronologically, the volume’s scope extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E. An interdisciplinary approach draws out the common issues and elements between and among religious traditions in the Mediterranean basin. Key features of the volume include: Detailed maps of the Mediterranean World, ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, and the Hellenistic World A comprehensive timeline of major events, innovations, and individuals, divided by region to provide both a diachronic and pan-Mediterranean, synchronic view A broad geographical range including western Asia, northern Africa, and southern Europe This encyclopedia will serve as a key point of reference for all students and scholars interested in ancient Mediterranean culture and society.

Download or read book A Relational vision for Europe written by Matthew N. Williams and published by Sallux Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-05 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political landscape of Europe is more fractured today than at any time since the Second World War. There are such strong polarising forces that the rhetoric of unity sounds increasingly empty. At the same time, European Christian Democracy has lost its distinctive identity and it threatens to be incorporated into one or other of the competing sides. Is there a promising way forward? This book sets out a relational vision that can act as a revitalising and unifying force. By reaching beyond the cultural and traditional roots of Christian division, we find in the biblical text a unique source for political common ground. So often the Bible has been used in a divisive way; but at its heart is a message that establishes and sustains relationships at every level of society. With this publication we can begin to see how this relational vision becomes reality.

Download or read book From Death to Rebirth written by Thomas Macy Finn and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this fascinating study of antiquity, Thomas Finn explores the role of ritual and conversion in Judaism, Christianity, Greco-Roman Paganism, and the philosophical schools. Finn makes history come alive both by carefully delineating the historical, cultural, and social factors at work in conversion and by drawing on the stories and firsthand accounts of conversion in ancient times."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Death in the Eastern Mediterranean 50 600 A D written by Antigone Samellas and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2002 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antigone Samellas examines the modes of reception of Jesus' message of salvation. She explores the Greek and Jewish influence on Christian eschatology and traces the Hellenistic roots of Christian consolation philosophy. The author examines Christianity as a 'total therapy of grief' and highlights the differences that existed between the religious cures and the Hellenistic philosophical therapies. To gain a better understanding of the process of conversion to the new faith Antigone Samellas also investigates which aspects of Christianity were appealing and which repugnant in the eyes of pagans and Jews. Finally, she attempts to convey something of the wisdom of the East, in all its cultural and religious nuances, to the modern reader.

Download or read book Unreliable Witnesses written by Ross Shepard Kraemer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her latest book, Ross Shepard Kraemer shows how her mind has changed or remained the same since the publication of her ground-breaking study, Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (OUP 1992). Unreliable Witnesses scrutinizes more closely how ancient constructions of gender undergird accounts of women's religious practices in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. Kraemer analyzes how gender provides the historically obfuscating substructure of diverse texts: Livy's account of the origins of the Roman Bacchanalia; Philo of Alexandria's envisioning of idealized, masculinized women philosophers; rabbinic debates about women studying Torah; Justin Martyr's depiction of an elite Roman matron who adopts chaste Christian philosophical discipline; the similar representation of Paul's fictive disciple, Thecla, in the anonymous Acts of (Paul and) Thecla; Severus of Minorca's depiction of Jewish women as the last hold-outs against Christian pressures to convert, and others. While attentive to arguments that women are largely fictive proxies in elite male contestations over masculinity, authority, and power, Kraemer retains her focus on redescribing and explaining women's religious practices. She argues that - gender-specific or not - religious practices in the ancient Mediterranean routinely encoded and affirmed ideas about gender. As in many cultures, women's devotion to the divine was both acceptable and encouraged, only so long as it conformed to pervasive constructions of femininity as passive, embodied, emotive, insufficiently controlled and subordinated to masculinity. Extending her findings beyond the ancient Mediterranean, Kraemer proposes that, more generally, religion is among the many human social practices that are both gendered and gendering, constructing and inscribing gender on human beings and on human actions and ideas. Her study thus poses significant questions about the relationships between religions and gender in the modern world.