The role of human sacrifice in the ancient Mediterranean world and its implications continue to be topics that fire the popular imagination and engender scholarly discussion and controversy. This volume aims to advance the discussion by providing balanced and judicious treatments of the various facets of these topics from a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural perspective. It provides nuanced examinations of ancient ritual, exploring the various meanings that human sacrifice held for antiquity, and examines its varied repercussions up into the modern world. The book explores evidence to shed new light on the origins of the rite, to whom these sacrifices were offered, and by whom they were performed. It presents fresh insights into the social and religious meanings of this practice in its varied biblical landscape and ancient contexts, and demonstrates how human sacrifice has captured the imagination of later writers who have employed it in diverse cultural and theological discourses to convey their own views and ideologies. It provides valuable perspectives for understanding key cultural, theological and ideological dimensions, such as the sacrifice of Christ, scapegoating, self-sacrifice and martyrdom in post-biblical and modern times.

Ancient Magic and the Supernatural in the Modern Visual and Performing Arts examines the impact of ancient religious, mythological and magical models on modern mentalities and ideologies as expressed in the visual and performing arts.To what extent did mythological figures such as Circe and Medea influence the representation of the powerful "oriental" enchantress in modern Western art? What role did the ancient gods and heroes play in the construction of the imaginary worlds of the modern fantasy genre? What is the role of undead creatures like zombies and vampires in mythological films? The heroes, gods and demons of the ancient world always played a prominent role in the post-classical imagination.Similarly, the great adventures and the love affairs between gods and mortals have always influenced the reception of Classical culture and still features prominently in modern constructions of antiquity. Examples such the use of magic in Medea's myth as a symbol of cultural and political strangeness, the transformation of Circe in a femme fatale, the reshaping of the oriental cults of the Roman Empire as a menace to new-born Christianity and the revival and adaptation of ancient myths and religion in the arts provide an important backdrop for the exploration of contemporary fears, hopes and ideals across centuries. The volume further aims to deconstruct certain scholarly traditions by proposing original interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations and to show to what extent the visual and performing arts of different periods interlink and shape cultural and social identities.This book offers an original approach to different media - from comics to film, from painting to opera - by authors from different fields and countries. The volume provides the reader with a clear insight into mechanisms of re-elaboration and reception which can be steadily seen at work in artistic and commercial productions. It also supplies new approaches to the most debated questions of the relationship between magic, religion and superstition in the ancient and in the modern worlds. It shows and discusses the shifting and biased interpretations of these concepts in modern visual culture.

Aelius Aristides' Hieroi Logoi present a unique first-person narrative from the ancient world-a narrative that seems at once public and private, artful and naive. While scholars have embraced the Logoi as a rich source for Imperial-era religion, politics, and elite culture, the style of the text has presented a persistent stumbling block to literary analysis. Setting this dream-memoir of illness and divine healing in the context of Aristides' professional concerns as an orator, this book investigates the text's rhetorical aims and literary aspirations. At the Limits of Art argues that the Hieroi Logoi are an experimental work. Incorporating numerous dream accounts and narratives of divine cure in a multi-layered and open text, Aristides works at the limits of rhetorical convention to fashion an authorial voice that is transparent to the divine. Reading the Logoi in the context of contemporary oratorical practices, and in tandem with Aristides' polemical orations and prose hymns, the book uncovers the professional agendas motivating this unusual self-portrait. Aristides' sober view of oratory as a sacred pursuit was in conflict with a widespread contemporary preference for spectacular public performance. In the Hieroi Logoi, Aristides claims a place in the world of the Second Sophistic on his own terms, offering a vision of his professional inspiration in a style that pushes the limits of literary convention.

This is an insightful guide to the history, development and beliefs of this ancient religion, and its continuation as a lived religion today. The history of the development of Zoroastrianism spans over 3000 years, beginning in prehistory as an oral tradition, with roots in a common Indo-Iranian mythology. It then became established as part of an imperial Iranian ideology within an Ancient Near Eastern setting, and eventually emerged in variant forms in Iran, Central Asia and India in late antiquity. Zoroastrianism continues as a living faith for an estimated 150,000 adherents in the world today. Most Zoroastrians, if asked the question, 'In a nutshell, what do Zoroastrians believe?' would begin their answer with 'Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds'. "Zoroastrianism: A Guide for the Perplexed" takes this foundational trifold ethic to form the framework for discussing the ideological complexities and ethical underpinning of the religion; the current discussion concerning text and 'author'; and, the practical outworking and historical impact of the religion. "Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

Since the 1990s there has been an emphasis on the study of ancient Israelite prophecy in its ancient Near East context. Prophecy in the Ancient Near East is the first book-length study that compares prophecy in the ancient Near East by focusing on texts from Mari, the Neo-Assyrian State Archives, and the Hebrew Bible. The author analyzes prophecy in each culture independently before comparisons are made. This method demonstrates how prophecy is a part of the wider system of divination, but also shows where scholarship has unduly imported concepts found in one corpus to the other two. This method, for example, calls into question the supposed link between music and prophecy from the Hebrew Bible to the ancient Near East. This work provides an up-to-date analysis of ancient Near Eastern, including Israelite and Judean, prophecy to scholars and students alike. "I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, and I can highly recommend it to anyone interested in prophecy in Israel and the ancient Near East." Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, University of Aberdeen, Review of Biblical Literature "The content of Jonathan Stoekl's book...testifies to the value of the book for the studies of prophecy in the ancient Near East." Wojciech Pikor, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, The Biblical Annals

This study provides a fresh look at the debate between science and religion that documents how the experiences produced by spiritual practice are surprisingly consistent with the findings of modern biology, despite the difficulty in reconciling scientific theories and religious dogma. This book is unique in its focus on bodily experience as an independent source of knowledge and insight, an important aspect of recent discoveries in neurology and psychology. By rethinking what it is to be human and what role self-consciousness plays, it finds striking points of intersection between science and religion and challenges readers to rediscover their spiritual connections to the physical world. Combining scientific rigor with the spiritual quest, A New Biology of Religion: Spiritual Practice and the Life of the Body reframes the science-religion debate. This profound work examines how all things are connected-both scientifically and spiritually-and shows how religious practices mirror the biological processes of life.

Practiced today by more than 500 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from India between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Based around the original teachings of the Buddha, key texts emerged to promote a true understanding of Buddhist ethics and spiritual practices. The Buddhist traditions created a vast body of mythological literature, much of it focused on the life of the Buddha. For example, the 550 Jataka Tales tell of Buddha's early life and renunciation, as well as his previous human and animal incarnations. The stories also tell of Gautama Buddha's family, such as his mother Mara, and her dream of a white elephant preceding his birth; as well as his cousin, Devadatta, a disciple monk who rebelled against Buddha and tried to kill him. Buddhist literature includes numerous parables - such as the Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking - as well as recounting scenes from the Indian epic the Ramayana. History and myth intermingle in texts such as Ashokavadana, where the Mauryan emperor Ashoka is portrayed as a model of Buddhist kingship. Illustrated with 120 photographs and artworks, Buddhist Myths is an accessible, engaging and highly informative exploration of the fascinating mythology underlying one of the world's oldest and most influential religions.

Singing for the Gods develops a new approach towards an old question in the study of religion - the relationship of myth and ritual. Focusing on ancient Greek religion, Barbara Kowalzig exploits the joint occurrence of myth and ritual in archaic and classical Greek song-culture. She shows how choral performances of myth and ritual, taking place all over the ancient Greek world in the early fifth century BC, help to effect social and political change in their own time. Religious song emerges as integral to a rapidly changing society hovering between local, regional, and panhellenic identities and between aristocratic rule and democracy. Drawing on contemporary debates on myth, ritual, and performance in social anthropology, modern history, and theatre studies, this book establishes Greek religion's dynamic role and gives religious song-culture its deserved place in the study of Greek history.

This title deals with the role of memory in shaping religion in the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. This volume brings together scholars and researchers working on memory and religion in ancient urban environments. Chapters explore topics relating to religious traditions and memory, and the multifunctional roles of architectural and geographical sites, mythical figures and events, literary works and artefacts. Pagan religions were often less static and more open to new influences than previously understood. One of the factors that shape religion is how fundamental elements are remembered as valuable and therefore preservable for future generations. Memory, therefore, plays a pivotal role when - as seen in ancient Rome during late antiquity - a shift of religions takes place within communities. The significance of memory in ancient societies and how it was promoted, prompted, contested and even destroyed is discussed in detail. This volume, the first of its kind, will not only address the main cultures of the ancient world - Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome - but also look at urban religious culture and funerary belief, and how concepts of ethnic religion were adapted in new religious environments.

Celestial divination, in the form of omens from lunar, planetary, astral, and meteorological phenomena, was central to Mesopotamian cuneiform scholarship and science from the late second millennium BCE into the Hellenistic period. Beyond the boundaries of ancient Mesopotamia, the ideas, texts, and traditions of Babylonian celestial divination are traceable in Hellenistic sciences and philosophies. This collection of essays investigates features of Babylonian celestial divination with special focus on those aspects that influenced later Greco-Roman astronomy, astrology, and theories of signs. A multi-faceted collection of philological, historical, and philosophical investigations, In the Path of the Moon offers Assyriologists, Classicists, and historians of ancient science a wide-ranging series of studies unified around the theme of Babylonian celestial divination's legacy. "The collected essays in this volume, successive steps in an ordered path, constitute an invaluable contribution to a better understanding of Babylonian divination." Lorenzo Verderame, "Sapienza" Universita di Roma "The reader interested in the multifaceted presentation of the problems related to the explanation of Babylonian celestial divination and well equipped with the knowledge of Akkadian will certainly be rewarded by the study of Rochberg's latest publication." Henryk Drawnel, SDB

Whether you are reading Greek mythology for psychological insights or studying the classics in college, there are a number of goddesses who have been almost entirely overlooked. They are who John Sanford calls the lesser-known goddesses. However, there is nothing lesser about them. They personify the deeper elements that exist across all life, nature, and spiritual reality. Our current culture often neglects their qualities but would be wise to increase its understanding of them. Many books, including the bestseller Goddesses in Everywoman by Jean Bolen, illustrate well-known goddesses who are the main characters in their stories. But behind the scenes and often running their personalities are the lesser-known goddesses from the ancient matriarchal era of Greek culture. To bring forward their spiritual meaning, Sanford has pieced together information from various Greek stories, plays, and poems.

The Iguvine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are among the most invaluable documents of Italic linguistics and religion. Seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), they record the rites and sacral laws of a priestly brotherhood, the Fratres Atiedii, with a degree of detail unparalleled elsewhere in ancient Italy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines philological and linguistic, as well as ritual analysis, Michael Weiss not only addresses the many interpretive cruces that have puzzled scholars for a century and a half, but also constructs a coherent theory of the entire ritual performance described on Tables III and IV. In addition, Weiss sheds light on many questions of Roman ritual practice and places the Iguvine Tables in their broader Italic and Indo-European contexts.

Through a close and informative reading of seven key texts in Acts, Kauppi analyses the appearances of Graeco-Roman religion, offering evidence of practices including divination and oracles, ruler cult and civic foundation myth. "Foreign But Familiar Gods" then uses a combination of these scriptural texts and other contemporary evidence (including archaeological and literary material) to suggest that one of Luke's subsidiary themes is to contrast Graeco-Roman and Christian religious conceptualizations and practices.