Religions of the ancient world : a guide
Sarah Iles Johnston (Editor)
This guide presents, side by side, materials from ten cultures and traditions. Thus specific beliefs, cults, gods, and ritual practices that arose and developed in Mediterranean religions, of Egypt, Anatolia and the Near East, Mesopotamia, Iran, Greece, and the Roman world, from the third millennium BCE to the fourth century CE are interpreted in comparison with one another, and with reference to aspects that crisscross cultural boundaries, such as Cosmology, Myth, Law and Ethics, and Magic. Written by leading scholars of ancient religion, the essays in this guide sketch the various religious histories, raise central theoretical issues, and examine several individual topics
Print Book, English, 2004
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004
Textbooks (form)
xvii, 697 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 27 cm
9780674015173, 0674015177
55955653
Encountering Ancient Religions: What is ancient Mediterranean religion? / Fritz Graf
Monotheism and polytheism / Jan Assmann
Ritual / Jan Bremmer
Myth / Fritz Graf
Cosmology: time and history / John J. Collins
Pollution, sin, atonement, salvation / Harold W. Attridge
Law and ethics / Eckart Otto
Mysteries / Sarah Iles Johnston
Religions in contact / John Scheid
Writing and religion / Mary Beard
Magic / Sarah Iles Johnston
Histories: Egypt / Jan Assmann and David Frankfurter
Mesopotamia / Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Syria and Canaan / David P. Wright
Israel / John J. Collins
Anatolia: Hittites / David P. Wright
Iran / William Malandra and Michael Stausberg
Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations / Nanno Marinatos
Greece / Jon Mikalson
Etruria / Olivier de Cazanove
Rome / John North
Early Christianity / Harold Attridge
Key Topics: Sacred Times and Spaces
Religious Personnel
Religious Organizations and Bodies
Sacrifice, Offerings, and Votives
Prayers, Hymns, Incantations, and Curses
Divination and Prophecy
Deities and Demons
Religious Practices of the Individual and Family
Rites of Passage
Illnesses and Other Crises
Death, the Afterlife, and Other Last Things
Sin, Pollution, and Purity
Ethics and Law Codes
Theology, Theodicy, Philosophy
Religion and Politics
Controlling Religion
Myth and Sacred Narratives
Visual Representations
Sacred Texts and Canonicity
Esotericism and Mysticism