Daniel McCool not only chronicles the history of water development agencies in America and the way in which special interests have abused rather than preserved the country's rivers, he also narrates the second, brighter act in this ongoing story: the surging, grassroots movement to bring these rivers back to life and ensure they remain pristine for future generations. The culmination of ten years of research and observation, McCool's book confirms the surprising news that America's rivers are indeed returning to a healthier, free-flowing condition. The politics of river restoration demonstrates how strong grassroots movements can challenge entrenched powers and win. Through passion and dedication, ordinary people are reclaiming the American landscape, forming a "river republic" of concerned citizens from all backgrounds and sectors of society. As McCool shows, the history, culture, and fate of America is tied to its rivers, and their restoration is a microcosm mirroring American beliefs, livelihoods, and an increasing awareness of what two hundred years of environmental degradation can do. McCool profiles the individuals he calls "instigators," who initiated the fight for these waterways and, despite enormous odds, have succeeded in the near-impossible task of challenging and changing the status quo. Part I of the volume recounts the history of America's relationship to its rivers; part II describes how and why Americans "parted" them out, destroying their essence and diminishing their value; and part III shows how society can live in harmony with its waterways while restoring their well-being-and, by extension, the well-being of those who depend on them.

In this beautifully illustrated gift edition, you'll discover more than 240 mythological tales from around the world, featuring gods, heroes, princesses, villains, magicians and monsters, as well as animals with extraordinary powers. Let this collection guide you through stories from every corner of the globe, from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome through the Vikings to the Slavic East, Japan and China and the Americas. Each culture is rich in folklore and magical tales, and this book offers a fascinating introduction to them all. This is a radical collection of stories, filled with voltage. Whether ninety or nine, there's something in these tales that wants to speak directly to you. From tales of creation and the first humans to apocalyptic battles at the end of time, explore the most thrilling tales in all mythology: thunder god Thor losing his hammer, Theseus callously abandoning Ariadne after defeating the Minotaur, Hindu god Shiva destroying his rival Kama with a blast of flame, Egyptian goddess Isis forcing the sun god to reveal his name ... and much more.

Volume 12 in the edition of the complete Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Sanhedrin and Makkot belong together as one tractate, covering procedural law for panels of arbitration, communal rabbinic courts (in bare outline) and an elaborate construction of hypothetical criminal courts supposedly independent of the king's administration. Tractate Horaiot, an elaboration of Lev. 4:1-26, defines the roles of High Priest, rabbinate, and prince in a Commonwealth strictly following biblical rules.

The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life-and even invented real automated machines The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life-and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, "life through craft." In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements-and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines. Revealing how science has always been driven by imagination, and how some of today's most advanced tech innovations were foreshadowed in ancient myth, Gods and Robots is a gripping new story of mythology for the age of AI.

The basis of Chinese religious culture, and with that many aspects of daily life, was the threat and fear of demonic attacks. These were inherently violent and could only be counteracted by violence as well - even if this reactive violence was masked by euphemisms such as execution, expulsion, exorcisms and so on. At the same time, violence was a crucial dimension of the maintenance of norms and values, for instance in sworn agreements or in beliefs about underworld punishment. Violence was also an essential aspect of expressing respect through sacrificial gifts of meat (and in an earlier stage of Chinese culture also human flesh) and through a culture of auto-mutilation and ritual suicide. At the same time, conventional indigenous terms for violence such as bao were not used for most of these practices since they were not experienced as such, but rather justified as positive uses of physical force.

Before invasion, Turtle Island-or North America-was home to vibrant cultures that shared long-standing philosophical precepts. The most important and wide-spread of these was the view of reality as a collaborative binary known as the Twinned Cosmos of Blood and Breath. This binary system was built on the belief that neither half of the cosmos can exist without its twin; both halves are, therefore, necessary and good. Western anthropologists typically shorthand the Twinned Cosmos as "Sky and Earth," but this erroneously saddles it with Christian baggage and, worse, imposes a hierarchy that puts sky quite literally above earth. None of this Western ideology legitimately applies to traditional Indigenous American thought, which is about equal cooperation and the continual recreation of reality. Spirits of Blood, Spirits of Breath examines traditional historical concepts of spirituality among North American Indians both at and, to the extent it can be determined, before contact. In doing so, Barbara Mann rescues the authentically indigenous ideas from Western, and especially missionary, interpretations. In addition to early European source material, she uses Indian oral traditions, traced as much as possible to early sources, and Indian records, including pictographs, petroglyphs, bark books, and wampum. Moreover, Mann respects each Native culture as a discrete unit, rather than generalizing them as is often done in Western anthropology. To this end, she collates material in accordance with actual historical, linguistic, and traditional linkages among the groups at hand, with traditions clearly identified by group and, where recorded, by speaker. In this way she provides specialists and non-specialists alike a window into the seemingly lost, and often caricatured world of Indigenous American thought.

"Gnosticism" has become a problematic category in the study of early Christianity. It obscures diversity, invites essentialist generalisations, and is a legacy of ancient heresiology. However, simply to conclude with "diversity" is unsatisfying, and new efforts to discern coherence and to synthesise need to be made. The present work seeks to make a fresh start by concentrating on Irenaeus' report on a specific group called the "Gnostics" and on his claim that Valentinus and his followers were inspired by their ideas. Following this lead, an attempt is made to trace the continuity of ideas from this group to Valentinianism. The study concludes that there is more continuity than has previously been recognised. Irenaeus' "Gnostics" emerge as the predecessors not only of Valentinianism, but also of Sethianism. They represent an early, philosophically inspired form of Christ religion that arose independently of the New Testament canon. Christology is essential and provides the basis for the myth of Sophia. The book is relevant for all students of Christian origins and the early history of the Church.

Whereas many books in this field deal with individual aspects or texts of the study of family laws, Leviticus: The Priestly Laws and Prohibitions from the Perspective of Ancient Near East and Africa examines extensively biblical texts, ancient Near Eastern text, and oral traditions from Africa. Thus, three different cultures converge: the world of the Hebrew Bible, the world of the ancient Near East, and the world of Africa. This volume examines in detail the history of the development of ancient laws in general and family laws in particular, especially the laws relating to marriages between close relatives. Furthermore, Johnson M. Kimuhu looks at prohibitions and taboos in Africa and the problems they pose with regard to the interpretation and translation of difficult biblical concepts into African languages. In that sense, Kimuhu provides an example of how to contextualize or integrate African traditions into the study of biblical Hebrew, and he also offers insights into the current debate on the study of kinship from the point of view of social/cultural anthropology and the Hebrew Bible legal system. Teachers, students, and researchers in biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, African traditions, and social/cultural anthropology will find this book helpful in their quest to understand family laws, prohibitions, and taboos.

This book examines the fragmentary and contradictory evidence for Orpheus as the author of rites and poems to redefine Orphism as a label applied polemically to extra-ordinary religious phenomena. Replacing older models of an Orphic religion, this richer and more complex model provides insight into the boundaries of normal and abnormal Greek religion. The study traces the construction of the category of 'Orphic' from its first appearances in the Classical period, through the centuries of philosophical and religious polemics, especially in the formation of early Christianity and again in the debates over the origins of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A paradigm shift in the study of Greek religion, this study provides scholars of classics, early Christianity, ancient religion and philosophy with a new model for understanding the nature of ancient Orphism, including ideas of afterlife, cosmogony, sacred scriptures, rituals of purification and initiation, and exotic mythology.

The Odyssey's larger plot is composed of a number of distinct genres of myth, all of which are extant in various Near Eastern cultures (Mesopotamian, West Semitic, and Egyptian). Unexpectedly, the Near Eastern culture with which the Odyssey has the most parallels is the Old Testament. Consideration of how much of the Odyssey focuses on non-heroic episodes - hosts receiving guests, a king disguised as a beggar, recognition scenes between long-separated family members - reaffirms the Odyssey's parallels with the Bible. In particular the book argues that the Odyssey is in a dialogic relationship with Genesis, which features the same three types of myth that comprise the majority of the Odyssey: theoxeny, romance (Joseph in Egypt), and Argonautic myth (Jacob winning Rachel from Laban). The Odyssey also offers intriguing parallels to the Book of Jonah, and Odysseus' treatment by the suitors offers close parallels to the Gospels' depiction of Christ in Jerusalem.

Book 18 of the Iliad is an outstanding example of the range and power of Homeric epic. It describes the reaction of the hero Achilles to the death of his closest friend, and his decision to re-enter the conflict even though it means he will lose his own life. The book also includes the forging of the marvellous shield for the hero by the smith-god Hephaestus: the images on the shield are described by the poet in detail, and this description forms the archetypal ecphrasis, influential on many later writers. In an extensive introduction, R. B. Rutherford discusses the themes, style and legacy of the book. The commentary provides line-by-line guidance for readers at all levels, addressing linguistic detail and larger questions of interpretation. A substantial appendix considers the relation between Iliad 18 and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which has been prominent in much recent discussion.

A compelling account of Christianity's Jewish beginnings, from one of the world's leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus's prophecy-"The Kingdom of God is at hand!"-they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians. In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group's hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement's midcentury missions, to the city's fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

Despite considerable scholarly efforts for many years, the last two decades of the Kingdom of Israel are still beneath the veil of history. What was the status of the Kingdom after its annexation by Assyria in 732 BCE? Who conquered Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom? When did it happen? One of the primary reasons for this situation lies in the discrepancies found in the historical sources, namely the Hebrew Bible and the Assyrian texts. Since biblical studies and Assyriology are two distinct disciplines, the gaps in the sources are not easy to bridge. Moreover, recent great progress in the archaeological research in the Southern Levant provides now crucial new data, independent of these textual sources. This volume, a collection of papers by leading scholars from different fields of research, aims to bring together, for the first time, all the available data and to discuss these conundrums from various perspectives in order to reach a better and deeper understanding of this crucial period, which possibly triggered in the following decades the birth of "new Israel" in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and eventually led to the formation of the Hebrew Bible and its underlying theology.

The interpretation of animal sacrifice, now considered the most important ancient Greek and Roman religious ritual, has long been dominated by the views of Walter Burkert, the late J.-P. Vernant, and Marcel Detienne. No penetrating and general critique of their views has appeared and, in particular, no critique of the application of these views to Roman religion. Nor has any critique dealt with the use of literary and visual sources by these writers. This book, a collection of essays by leading scholars, incorporates all these subjects and provides a theoretical background for the study of animal sacrifice in an ancient context.

In analyzing the parallels between myths glorifying the Indian Great Goddess, Durga, and those glorifying the Sun, Surya, found in the Markandeya Purana, this book argues for an ideological ecosystem at work in the Markandeya Purana privileging worldly values, of which Indian kings, the Goddess (Devi), the Sun (Surya), Manu and Markandeya himself are paragons. This book features a salient discovery in Sanskrit narrative text: just as the Markandeya Purana houses the Devi Mahatmya glorifying the supremacy of the Indian Great Goddess, Durga, it also houses a Surya Mahatmya, glorifying the supremacy of the Sun, Surya, in much the same manner. This book argues that these mahatmyas were meaningfully and purposefully positioned in the Markandeya Purana, while previous scholarship has considered this haphazard interpolation for sectarian aims. The book demonstrates that deliberate compositional strategies make up the Saura-Sakta symbiosis found in these mirrored mahatmyas. Moreover, the author explores what he calls the "dharmic double helix" of Brahmanism, most explicitly articulated by the structural opposition between pravrtti (worldly) and nivrtti (other-worldy) dharmas. As the first narrative study of the Surya Mahatmya, along with the first study of the Markandeya Purana (or any Purana), as a narrative whole, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Religion, Hindu Studies, South Asian Studies, Goddess Studies, Narrative Theory and Comparative Mythology.

This volume offers new insights into ancient figurations of temporality by focusing on the relationship between gender and time across a range of genres. Each chapter in this collection places gender at the center of its exploration of time, and the volume includes time in treatises, genealogical lists, calendars, prophetic literature, ritual practice and historical and poetic narratives from the Greco-Roman world. Many of the chapters begin with female characters, but all of them emphasize how and why time is an integral component of ancient categories of female and male. Relying on theorists who offer ways to explore the connections between time and gender encoded in narrative tropes, plots, pronouns, images or metaphors, the contributors tease out how time and gender were intertwined in the symbolic register of Greek and Roman thought. Narratives of Time and Gender in Antiquity provides a rich and provocative theoretical analysis of time-and its relationship to gender-in ancient texts. It will be of interest to anyone working on time in the ancient world, or students of gender in antiquity.

In this book, Angelika Neuwirth provides a new approach to understanding the founding text of Islam. Typical exegesis of the Qur'an treats the text teleologically, as a fait accompli finished text, or as a replica or summary of the Bible in Arabic. Instead Neuwirth approaches the Qur'an as the product of a specific community in the Late Antique Arabian peninsula, one which was exposed to the wider worlds of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, and to the rich intellectual traditions of rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. A central goal of the book is to eliminate the notion of the Qur'an as being a-historical. She argues that it is, in fact, highly aware of its place in late antiquity and is capable of yielding valuable historical information. By emphasizing the liturgical function of the Qur'an, Neuwirth allows readers to see the text as an evolving oral tradition within the community before it became collected and codified as a book. This analysis sheds much needed light on the development of the Qur'an's historical, theological, and political outlook. The book's final chapters analyze the relationship of the Qur'an to the Bible, to Arabic poetic traditions, and, more generally, to late antique culture and rhetorical forms. By providing a new introduction to the Qur'an, one that uniquely challenges current ideas about its emergence and development, The Qur'an and Late Antiquity bridges the gap between Eastern and Western approaches to this sacred text.

Revisiting Delphi speaks to all admirers of Delphi and its famous prophecies, be they experts on ancient Greek religion, students of the ancient world, or just lovers of a good story. It invites readers to revisit the famous Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, along with Herodotus, Euripides, Socrates, Pausanias and Athenaeus, offering the first comparative and extended enquiry into the way these and other authors force us to move the link between religion and narrative centre stage. Their accounts of Delphi and its prophecies reflect a world in which the gods frequently remain baffling and elusive despite every human effort to make sense of the signs they give.

Byzantium has recently attracted much attention, principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to philosophy and intellectual history, exploring the thought-world of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon (c.1355-1452). It argues that Plethon brought to their fulfilment latent tendencies among Byzantine humanists towards a distinctive anti-Christian and pagan outlook. His magnum opus, the pagan Nomoi, was meant to provide an alternative to, and escape-route from, the disputes over the Orthodoxy of Gregory Palamas and Thomism. It was also a groundbreaking reaction to the bankruptcy of a pre-existing humanist agenda and to aborted attempts at the secularisation of the State, whose cause Plethon had himself championed in his two utopian Memoranda. Inspired by Plato, Plethon's secular utopianism and paganism emerge as the two sides of a single coin. On another level, the book challenges anti-essentialist scholarship that views paganism and Christianity as social and cultural constructions.

When we try to make sense of pictures, what do we gain when we use a particular method - and what might we be missing or even losing? Empirical experimentation on three types of mythological imagery - a Classical Greek pot, a frieze from Hellenistic Pergamon and a second-century CE Roman sarcophagus - enables Katharina Lorenz to demonstrate how theoretical approaches to images (specifically, iconology, semiotics, and image studies) impact the meanings we elicit from Greek and Roman art. A guide to Classical images of myth, and also a critical history of Classical archaeology's attempts to give meaning to pictures, this book establishes a dialogue with the wider field of art history and proposes a new framework for the study of ancient visual culture. It will be essential reading not just for students of classical art history and archaeology, but for anyone interested in the possibilities - and the history - of studying visual culture.

A nuanced look at Maya mythology, from the literary record of the Popol Vuh to a broad range of artistic depictions by ancient Maya artists