Download or read book Religious Innovation in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods written by Olav Hammer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-10 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scholarly study of new religious movements focuses on the contemporary period, but religious innovation is nothing new. This Element explores a historical epoch characterized by a multitude of emergent religious concepts and practices – the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A precondition for the intense degree of religious innovation during this time was a high level of cultural exchange. Religious elements crossed porous cultural borders and were adapted to suit new purposes. The resulting amalgams were presented in a vast corpus of texts, largely produced by a literate elite. Charismatic leaders played a particularly important role in creating new religious options and were described in genres that were infused with ideological agendas. Novel religious developments were accepted by the Roman authorities unless suspected of undermining the social order. The rise of one of the many new religions of the period, Christianity, ultimately changed the religious landscape in profound ways.
Download or read book Beyond Priesthood written by Richard L. Gordon and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last decade has seen a surge of scholarly interest in these religious professionals and a good number of high quality publications. Our volume, however, with its unique intercultural character and its explicit focus on appropriation and contestation of religious expertise in the Imperial Era is substantially different. Unlike the rather narrow focus of earlier studies of civic priests, the papers presented here examine a wider range of religious professionals, their dynamic interaction with established religious authorities and institutions, and their contributions to religious innovation in the ancient Mediterranean world, from the late Hellenistic period through to Late Antiquity, from the City of Rome to mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, from Greek civic practice to ancient Judaism. A further advantage of our volume is the wide range of media of transmission taken into account. Our contributors look at both old and new materials, which derive not only from literary sources but also from papyri, inscriptions, and material culture. Above all, this volume assesses critically convenient terminological usage and offers a unique insight into a rich gamut of ancient Mediterranean religious specialists.
Download or read book Religious Networks in the Roman Empire written by Anna Collar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first three centuries AD saw the spread of new religious ideas through the Roman Empire, crossing a vast and diverse geographical, social and cultural space. In this innovative study, Anna Collar explores both how this happened and why. Drawing on research in the sociology and anthropology of religion, physics and computer science, Collar explores the relationship between social networks and religious transmission to explore why some religious movements succeed, while others, seemingly equally successful at a certain time, ultimately fail. Using extensive epigraphic data, Collar provides new interpretations of the diffusion of ideas across the social networks of the Jewish Diaspora and the cults of Jupiter Dolichenus and Theos Hypsistos, and in turn offers important reappraisals of the spread of religious innovations in the Roman Empire. This study will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, archaeology, ancient religion and network theory.
Download or read book Empire and Religion written by Elena Muñiz Grijalvo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-07-10 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empire and religion reflects on the nature of religious change in the Greek cities under Roman rule. The fascinating and fluid process of religious transformation is interpreted in this book in line with the logics of empire.
Download or read book Religion in Hellenistic Athens written by Jon D. Mikalson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until now, there has been no comprehensive study of religion in Athens from the end of the classical period to the time of Rome's domination of the city. Jon D. Mikalson provides a chronological approach to religion in Hellenistic Athens, disproving the widely held belief that Hellenistic religion during this period represented a decline from the classical era. Drawing from epigraphical, historical, literary, and archaeological sources, Mikalson traces the religious cults and beliefs of Athenians from the battle of Chaeroneia in 338 B.C. to the devastation of Athens by Sulla in 86 B.C., demonstrating that traditional religion played a central and vital role in Athenian private, social, and political life. Mikalson describes the private and public religious practices of Athenians during this period, emphasizing the role these practices played in the life of the citizens and providing a careful scruntiny of individual cults. He concludes his study by using his findings from Athens to call into question several commonly held assumptions about the general development of religion in Hellenistic Greece.
Download or read book Religions of the Hellenistic Roman Age written by Antonia Tripolitis and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This insightful read traces the development of the principal Western religions and their philosophical counterparts from the beginnings of Alexander the Great's empire in 331 B.C.E. to the emergence of the Christian world in the fourth century C.E.
Download or read book New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion written by Olav Hammer and published by . This book was released on 2024-02-28 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element provides an introduction to a number of less frequently explored approaches based upon the comparative study of religions. New religions convey origin myths, present their particular views of history, and craft Endtime scenarios. Their members carry out a vast and diverse array of ritual activities. They produce large corpuses of written texts and designate a subset of these as a sacrosanct canon. They focus their attention on material objects that can range from sacred buildings to objects from the natural world that are treated in ritualized fashion. The reason for this fundamental similarity between older and newer religions is briefly explored in terms of the cognitive processes that underlie religious concepts and practices. A final section returns to the issue of how such shared processes take specific shapes in the context of modern, Western societies.
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 New Religious Movements and Communal Societies written by Cheryl Coulthard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular understanding of communal societies tends to focus on the 1960s hippie colonies and ignores the rich and long history of communalism in the United States. This Element corrects that misperception by exploring the synergy between new religious movements and communal living, including the benefits and challenges that grow out of this connection. It introduces definitions of key terms and vocabulary in the fields of new religious movements and communal studies. Discussion of major theories of communal success and the role of religion follows. The Element includes historical examples to demonstrate the ways in which new religious movements used communalism as a safe space to grow and develop their religion. The Element also analyzes why these groups have tended to experience conflicts with mainstream society.
Download or read book Pantheon written by Joerg Ruepke and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 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 Roman religion and of a crucial period in Western religion—one that influenced Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even the modern idea of religion itself.
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 Anticultism in France written by Donald A. Westbrook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element introduces readers to the problem of anticultism and antireligious movements in France. The first section offers an overview of anticultism in France, including the paradoxical place of modern French secularism (laïcité) that has shaped a culture prejudiced against minority religions and new religions (sectes or 'cults') and impacted Europe more broadly. This includes state-sponsored expressions, in particular MIVILUDES, an organization funded by the French government to monitor cultic or sectarian deviances. The second section takes up the case of the American-born Church of Scientology, tracing its history in the country since the late 1950s and how it has become a major focus of anticultists in France. The Element concludes with reflections on the future of new and minority religions in France. A timeline provides major dates in the history of anticultism in modern French history, with a focus on items of relevance to Scientology in France.
Download or read book Greek Religion Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide written by Oxford University Press and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In classics, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is just one of many articles from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Classics, a continuously updated and growing online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through the scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of classics. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.
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 Black Hebrew Israelites written by Michael T. Miller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Black Hebrew Israelite movement claims that African Americans are descendants of the Ancient Israelites and has slowly become a significant force in African American religion. This Element provides a general overview of the BHI movement, its diverse history/ies, ideologies, and practices. The Element shows how different factions and trends have taken the forefront at different periods over its 140-year history, leading to the current situation where diverse iterations of the movement exist alongside each other, sharing some core concepts while differing widely. In particular, the questions of how and why BHI has become a potent and attractive movement in recent years are addressed, arguing that it fulfils a specific religious need to do with identity and teleology, and represents a new and persistent form of Abrahamic religion.
Download or read book Contextualizing the Sacred in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East written by Rubina Raja and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of religion and religious identities in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East has been a focus within archaeology and ancient history for centuries. Yet the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman period remains difficult to grasp from the archaeological and epigraphic evidence. This volume brings together contributions by leading scholars working on religious identity and religion in the Hellenistic and Roman periods in the Roman Near East. For this volume they have been asked to address a variety of questions concerning religion, religious development, and religious identities from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. These research questions have resulted in a suite of contributions which draw upon a wide range of empirical evidence, from epigraphical material to literary and archaeological sources. In the ancient Near East we cannot speak of a common religion, nor of a common literary tradition, but when seen through the lens of contextualization, the material and textual evidence brings forward new narratives about the great variations in worship, myths, and identities, as well as the different religious systems of the region and of the people inhabiting it. The contributions offer concretized ideas about and research on various aspects of religion within a framework of very different settings, of local, regional, or imperial character. This volume is a must for any scholar or student of the Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Roman Near East, and the contributions provide new insights into the ways in which we may approach this region, offering complex but plentiful material to be studied.
