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Sharing with the Gods - Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece (Hardcover)
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Sharing with the Gods - Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece (Hardcover)
Series: Oxford Classical Monographs
Expected to ship within 12 - 19 working days
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Sharing with the Gods examines one of the most ubiquitous yet
little studied aspects of ancient Greek religion, the offering of
so-called 'first-fruits' (aparchai) and 'tithes' (dekatai), from
the Archaic period to the Hellenistic. While most existing studies
of Greek religion tend to focus on ritual performance, this volume
investigates questions of religious belief and mentality: why the
Greeks presented these gifts to the gods, and what their behaviour
tells us about their religious world-view, presuppositions, and
perception of the gods. Exploiting an array of ancient sources, the
author assesses the diverse nature of aparchai and dekatai, the
complexity of the motivations underlying them, the role of
individuals in shaping tradition, the deployment of this religious
custom in politics, and the transformation of a voluntary practice
into a religious obligation. By synthesizing a century of
scholarship on 'first-fruits' practices in Greek and other
religious cultures, the author challenges prevailing
interpretations of gift-exchange with the gods in terms of do ut
des and da ut dem, which emphasize the reciprocal, obligatory, and
sometimes commercial aspects of the gift, and explores hitherto
neglected notions including gratitude and thanksgiving. Drawing on
current approaches to gift-giving in anthropology, sociology, and
economics, in particular the French anthropologist Godelier's idea
of 'debt', the volume offers new perspectives with which to
conceptualize human-divine relations, and challenges traditional
views of the nature of gift-giving between men and gods in Greek
religion.
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