Synopses & Reviews
Religious beliefs and practices, which permeated all aspects of life in antiquity, traveled well-worn routes throughout the Mediterranean: itinerant charismatic practitioners journeying from place to place peddled their skills as healers, purifiers, cursers, and initiators; and vessels decorated with illustrations of myths traveled with them. New gods encountered in foreign lands by merchants and conquerors were sometimes taken home to be adapted and adopted. This collection of essays by a distinguished international group of scholars, drawn from the groundbreaking reference work Religion in the Ancient World, offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.
About the Author
Sarah Iles Johnston is Professor of Greek and Latin at Ohio State University.
Ohio State University
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sarah Iles Johnston Note on Translation and Transliteration
Abbreviations
Maps
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 W. Attridge
Epilogue
Bruce Lincoln
Contributors
Index