"Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries" focuses on religion during the period of Roman imperial rule and its significance in women's lives. Discussing the rich variety of religious expression, from pagan cults and classical mythology to ancient Judaism and early Christianity, and the wide array of religious functions fulfilled by women, the author analyzes key examples from each context, creating a vivid image of this crucial period which laid the foundations of Western civilization.
This study challenges the concepts of religion and of women in the light of post-modern critique. As such, it is an important contribution to contemporary gender theory. In its broad and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to students of early religion as well as those interested in cultural theory.

this work examines some of the major and less well known Greek sanctuaries from a new light. The traditional approach to Greek sanctuaries and especially temples has been descriptive. Much emphasis is commonly placed on architectural features but only rarely is there an attempt to look at the totality of functions that a Greek sanctuary might encompass. This collection of articles addresses the critical questions which related to the diverse purposes of the sanctuaries: what was their social function? and who were their clients? Regional links and variations are stressed, while some sanctuaries are shown to have had particular uses such as dining and initiation. Among the cults discussed are the Eleusinian mysteries for which a new reconstruction is proposed.

The object of this book, first published in 1928, is a study of the ways in which those who were once called 'primitives' conceive of their own individuality. The author inquires into the notions they possess of their life-principle, their soul, and their personality, often encountering that many peoples only had 'pre-notions' of such concepts.

This book is a comprehensive reference guide and outline of Greco-Roman and Jewish and Christian history and literature for the period between 200 BCE and 260 CE. The author examines generations of scholarship in classical, biblical, historical, and religious studies. No other single text in classical or historical or religious studies provides the amount of information this text provides on Greco-Roman and Jewish and Christian history and literature. Contents: Sigla and Abbreviations; Preface; Acknowledgments; A Chronological Outline of Greco-Roman and Jewish and Christian History and Literature; General Bibliography of References; Bibliography of English Translations of Greco-Roman and Jewish and Christian Literature; Index of Persons.

Reading the Sacred Scriptures: From Oral Tradition to Written Documents and their Reception examines how the scriptures came to be written and how their authority has been constructed and reinforced over time. Highlighting the measures taken to safeguard the stability of oral accounts, this book demonstrates the care of religious communities to maintain with reverence their assembled parchments and scrolls. Written by leading experts in their fields, this collection chronicles the development of the scriptures from oral tradition to written documents and their reception. It features notable essays on the scriptures of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Shinto, and Baha'i. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the belief systems of the featured religions. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate religious studies students, teachers and lecturers can explore religious traditions from their historical beginnings.

The late Platonist philosopher Damascius both resumed and rejuvenated the long Greek thinking about time. In distinguishing between different takes on time, by Plato, Aristotle and his Neoplatonist predecessors, Damascius offered novel perspectives on time, which can be seen as anticipating modern and contemporary theories, such as the distinction between the A and B series of McTaggart's analysis and presentism. The greatest merit of his philosophy of time, however, is his deep reflection on what it is for a living being to have its being in becoming3/4 as it happens with us human beings3/4 and how this relates to stillness, temporality and temporalization. Time is interpreted by Damascius not merely as a concomitant of the celestial motions, nor as an abstract entity existing in the human soul, but as a power of ordering, which is active at different levels. Damascius' time comprises the biological and the historical time but is also the time that pertains to the essence and the activity of heaven, in which there is neither past nor future. The present book explores the richness of Damascius' thought by going into the fundamental concepts of his philosophy of time: the indivisible now and the present time, the flowing now and the non-flowing now, the flowing time and the whole of time, in which past, present and future coincide. Damascius fully developed his thoughts about time in his treatise On Time, which is lost. The preserved fragments of this treatise are translated and annotated in an Appendix.

Light from the East collates letters between Hon. P. Arunachalam of the legislative council of Ceylon and Edward Carpenter, which expand on issues of the Gnanam or divine knowledge. Carpenter edited these letters for publication in 1927 as well as writing additional articles on issues such as desire, birth control and bisexuality in relation to the customs of Ceylon and religious laws of Hinduism to give the reader a broad insight into the religion. This title will be of interest to students of sociology, anthropology and religious studies.

The Druid Animal Oracle is designed to give you a hands-on, immediate and practical experience of the power of Celtic and Druidic lore.

In Celtic mythology and in the teaching of the Druids, animals are understood as sacred, and they each offer a special kind of gift to us: of healing, of inspiration, of teaching, of power. Here in this Oracle we have taken 33 of the most sacred animals of the Celtic and Druid tradition, and have interpreted their gifts for the modern reader, so that even in this busy and stressful modern world we can be helped and guided with this ancient lore.

The authors have included as well the stories, folklore and myths associated with each animal, and practical suggestions for how you can work with the animals and the oracle to transform your life. Bill Worthington has produced the most stunning pictures of each of the animals, drawn with incredible detail and precision, using sacred geometry, and has also created the silver artwork that adorns the divination cloth included with each oracle.

• 33 sacred animal cards
• Divination cloth for cards spreads
• 176 page illustrated book
• Interpretations and traditional lore of the sacred animals

First published in 1993. This is a new edition of Akhaenaten's boundary stelae, which now includes information about most of the boundary markers, the tablets were accompanied by statues of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and two of their daughters, all of which stood on low platforms that were raised above the level of the floor. In addition was the awareness that the statues at the site of Stela A were elevated to a greater degree than were the corresponding statues at other sites (insofar as this could be judged from published photographs). The evidence in the publication indicated, moreover, that Stela A, along with Stela B (some two miles south) were the latest of the boundary monuments to be inscribed, since both concluded with a colophon, dated to the end of Akhenaten's eighth regnal year, added to the standard text of the Later Proclamation found on these and other stelae of this series.

When they discover Celtic spirituality, many Christians feel that in some sense they have come home. As they begin to explore the people and places significant in the early centuries of Christianity in the British Isles, they find an expression of faith that weaves together strands of being and belonging, worship and witness in a unique and powerful way. Restoring the Woven Cord takes 15 leading figures from that era - ranging from Patrick of Ireland to John of Beverley - and shares something of their stories, showing their burning love for the Bible, their depth of prayer, their radical commitment to the poor and to caring for creation. Reflecting on their lives and works, we can find powerful inspiration for our own walk with God and rich resources for the ministry of the local church.

Recent scholarship on ancient Judaism, finding only scattered references to messiahs in Hellenistic- and Roman-period texts, has generally concluded that the word ''messiah'' did not mean anything determinate in antiquity. Meanwhile, interpreters of Paul, faced with his several hundred uses of the Greek word for ''messiah, '' have concluded that christos in Paul does not bear its conventional sense. Against this curious consensus, Matthew V. Novenson argues in Christ among the Messiahs that all contemporary uses of such language, Paul's included, must be taken as evidence for its range of meaning. In other words, early Jewish messiah language is the kind of thing of which Paul's Christ language is an example.
Looking at the modern problem of Christ and Paul, Novenson shows how the scholarly discussion of christos in Paul has often been a cipher for other, more urgent interpretive disputes. He then traces the rise and fall of ''the messianic idea'' in Jewish studies and gives an alternative account of early Jewish messiah language: the convention worked because there existed both an accessible pool of linguistic resources and a community of competent language users. Whereas it is commonly objected that the normal rules for understanding christos do not apply in the case of Paul since he uses the word as a name rather than a title, Novenson shows that christos in Paul is neither a name nor a title but rather a Greek honorific, like Epiphanes or Augustus.
Focusing on several set phrases that have been taken as evidence that Paul either did or did not use christos in its conventional sense, Novenson concludes that the question cannot be settled at the level of formal grammar. Examining nine passages in which Paul comments on how he means the word christos, Novenson shows that they do all that we normally expect any text to do to count as a messiah text. Contrary to much recent research, he argues that Christ language in Paul is itself primary evidence for messiah language in ancient Judaism.

Numerous ancient texts describe human sacrifices and other forms of ritual killing: in 480 BC Themistocles sacrifices three Persian captives to Dionysus; human scapegoats called "pharmakoi" are expelled yearly from Greek cities and, according to some authors, they are killed. Many texts speak of human sacrifices performed regularly in the cult of the gods or during emergencies such as war and plague. Archaeologists have also frequently proposed human sacrifice as an explanation for their discoveries. If the archaeologists' interpretations and the claims in the ancient sources are accepted, they present a bloody and violent picture of the religious life of the Ancient Greeks, from the Bronze Age well into historical times. The author of this study, however, counsels caution. Following an examination of the written and archaeological evidence of ritual human killings, he argues that many of the archaeological findings are uncertain, and in many cases alternative explanations are possible.

"They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses... They embalm the heads... [and]... display them with pride to strangers." - Diodorus Siculus Before the Vikings, before the Anglo-Saxons, before the Roman Empire, the Celts dominated central and western Europe. Today we might think of the Celts only inhabiting parts of the far west of Europe - Ireland, Great Britain, France and Spain - but these were the extremities in which their culture lasted longest. In fact, they had originated in Central Europe and settled as far afield as present day Turkey, Poland and Italy. From their emergence as an Iron Age people around 800 BC to the early centuries AD, Celts reveals the truth behind the stories of naked warriors, ritual beheadings, druids, magic and accusations of human sacrifice. The book examines the different tribes, the Hallstatt and La Tene periods, as well as Celtic survival in western Europe, the Gallic Wars, military life, spiritual life, slavery, sexuality and Celtic art. Celts is an expertly written account of a people who have long captured the popular imagination.

There are very few accounts of the afterlife across the period from Homer to Dante. Most traditional studies approach the classical afterlife from the point of view of its "evolution" towards the Christian afterlife. This book tries to do something different: to explore afterlife narratives in spatial terms and to situate this tradition within the ambit of a fundamental need in human psychology for the synthesis of soul (or "self") and universe. Drawing on the works of Homer, Plato, Cicero, Virgil, and Dante, among others, as well as on modern works on psychology, cartography, and music theory, Mapping the Afterlife argues that the topography of the afterlife in the Greek and Roman tradition, and in Dante, reflects the state of "scientific" knowledge at the time of the various contexts in which we find it. The book posits that there is a dominant spatial idiom in afterlife landscapes, a "journey-vision paradigm"-the horizontal journey of the soul across the afterlife landscape, and a synoptic vision of the universe. Many scholars have argued that the vision of the universe is out of place in the underworld landscape. However, looking across the entire tradition, we find that afterlife landscapes, almost without exception, contain these two kinds of space in one form or another. This double vision of space brings the underworld, as the landscape of the soul, into contact with the "scientific" universe; and brings humanity into line with the cosmos.

They may be coated in layers of myth and pious anecdote but dig deep enough and the pioneering leaders of Celtic Christianity are revealed as reassuringly human individuals, responding to their faith by deliberately living on the edges of society. From the goddess-nun Brigid and absent-minded Cainnech to severe ascetics such as Columbanus and Baldred, together they demonstrate a close connection with the natural world, an astonishing self-discipline and, above all, a rigorous commitment to what it meant to be 'pilgrims for Christ'. Establishing a network of influential monastic communities, they travelled from the territories of the Atlantic seaboard - Ireland, Wales and Cornwall - across Scotland, the north of England and deep into continental Europe, transforming the religious experience of all they encountered.

Understanding Greek Religion is one of the first attempts to fully examine any religion from a cognitivist perspective, applying methods and findings from the cognitive science of religion to the ancient Greek world. In this book, Jennifer Larson shows that many of the fundamentals of Greek religion, such as anthropomorphic gods, divinatory procedures, purity beliefs, reciprocity, and sympathetic magic arise naturally as by-products of normal human cognition. Drawing on evidence from across the ancient Greek world, Larson provides detailed coverage of Greek theology and local pantheons, rituals including processions, animal sacrifice and choral dance, and afterlife beliefs as they were expressed through hero worship and mystery cults. Eighteen in-depth essays illustrate the theoretical discussion with primary sources and include case studies of key cult inscriptions from Kyrene, Kos, and Miletos. This volume features maps, tables, and over twenty images to support and expand on the text, and will provide conceptual tools for understanding the actions and beliefs that constitute a religion. Additionally, Larson offers the first detailed discussion of cognition and memory in the transmission of Greek religious beliefs and rituals, as well as a glossary of terms and a bibliographical essay on the cognitive science of religion. Understanding Greek Religion is an essential resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of Greek culture and ancient Mediterranean religions.

The resonant ruins of Pompeii are perhaps the most direct route back to the living, breathing world of the ancient Romans. Two million visitors annually now walk the paved streets which re-emerged, miraculously preserved, from their layers of volcanic ash. Yet for all the fame and unique importance of the site, there is a surprising lack of a handy archaeological guide in English to reveal and explain its public spaces and private residences. This compact and user-friendly handbook, written by an expert in the field, helpfully fills that gap. Illustrated throughout with maps, plans, diagrams and other images, Pompeii: An Archaeological Guide offers a general introduction to the doomed city followed by an authoritative summary and survey of the buildings, artefacts and paintings themselves. The result is an unrivalled picture, derived from an intimate knowledge of Roman archaeology around the Bay of Naples, of the forum, temples, brothels, bath-houses, bakeries, gymnasia, amphitheatre, necropolis and other site buildings - including perennial favourites like the House of the Faun, named after its celebrated dancing satyr.

This original, provocative study, first published in 1973, presents a new method of interpretation of mythology, and reveals the wide-ranging implications of this universal phenomenon for many disciplines. The volume begins with a sympathetic but critical examination of Levi-Strauss's interpretation of mythology. Professor Munz points out the deficiencies in structuralist interpretations, and takes Levi-Strauss's neglect of the historicity of all myths as a starting-point for an alternative approach to mythology. Myths, he argues, come in typological series. If the whole series is read forward to the most specific version, the myths will reveal their inherent meaning typologically.

Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.

This is the first of three volumes, first published in 1906, which explore the Egyptian theology of the afterlife. It contains the complete hieroglyphic text of the Book Am-Tuat, with translations and reproductions of all the illustrations. This text, at least in the form that we have it, was produced by the priests of Amen-Ra at Thebes, with the intention of demonstrating that their god was the overlord of all the gods, and the supreme power in the universe. The object of all the Books of the Other World was to provide the dead with a 'guide' or 'handbook,' containing a description of the regions through which their souls would have to pass on their way to the Kingdom of Osiris, and which would supply them with the words of power and magical names necessary for an unimpeded journey from this world to the next.

This is the second volume of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge's narrative account of Ethiopian history, and continues the chronicle of the Kings of Abyssinia where the first volume ended: the death of Lebna Dengel in 1540. The list of kings ends with the Regent Ras Tafari, who still reigned at the time of first publication in 1928. Thereafter, the author devotes considerable attention to an overview of the cultural, social and political idiosyncrasies of the Ethiopian people: literature, spells and magic, architecture, ethnography, the alphabet, and a wide range of other engrossing topics. This material complements the narrative history, helping to situate the deeds of the kings and the fortunes of their people in a broader context.

First Published in 1984. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Gernet Centre was founded as a place where the structural method could be applied to the classics. 'Structuralists' attribute the survival, origin and function of myths to common crosscultural factors they identify as 'structures'. As this book, first published as The Structuralists on Myth in 1992 explains, these structures are bundles of information not obvious either to the narrator or to the listener. The bundles are collected features that reveal either the reasons for the survival of myths, or their origins, or their functions within their contexts. The structuralists consider themselves to have talents as the collectors from myths of these bundles of information.

This structural analysis of myth, first published in 1985, focuses on social and political problems of Indo-European mythology. Dr Jarich Oosten tells how the ancient Indo-European gods competed for supreme power and the exclusive possession of the sacred potion of wisdom and immortality. In examining the social code of the wars of the gods, he reveals that there are remarkably consistent patterns in time and space: paternal relatives, equals at first, prove unable to share power, magic goods, etc; while some gods retain their divine status as an exclusive prerogative, their brothers or paternal cousins are transformed into demons; relatives by marriage, however, who are unequal at first, succeed in sharing power and magic goods, and thus become equal partners in the pantheon. Dr Oosten describes how the ancient mythological cycles were broken down and transformed into heroic sagas and epics, and shows how many traditionally related themes - the severed head, the magic cauldron - were preserved. Gradually the political problems of kingship came to overshadow the social problems of kinship, as in the development of the myths of King Arthur. Dr Oosten argues that the social code remains basically the same, and his analysis of this code gives a fascinating perspective on the development of Indo-European mythology from the oldest written sources to the comparatively recent faitytales.