Ancient Religions

by Harvard University Press

Overview

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 Religions of the Ancient World, offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674025486
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2007
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.88(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Sarah Iles Johnston is the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Religion and Professor of Classics and Comparative Studies at The 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