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The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed
perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or
public character. This volume applies and further develops these
methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The
religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in
new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the
integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by
specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish
Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with
the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and
European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early)
Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point
of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors
engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and
experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of
theoretical debate, which are "Experiencing the Religious",
"Switching the Code", "A Thing Called Body" and "Commemorating the
Moment".
Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social
expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the
internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals,
religious communities, and local as well as global society. The
contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion
in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious
Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and
Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious
transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society;
Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the
Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic
Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life
Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in
Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in
Today's Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4.
Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation
of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History
and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.
This volume will concentrate its search for religious individuality
on texts and practices related to texts from Classical Greece to
Late Antiquity. Texts offer opportunities to express one's own
religious experience and shape one's own religious personality
within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Inscriptions in public
or at least easily accessible spaces might substantially differ in
there range of expressions and topics from letters within a
sectarian religious group (which, at the same time, might put
enormous pressure on conformity among its members, regarded as
deviant by a majority of contemporaries). Furthermore, texts might
offer and advocate new practices in reading, meditating,
remembering or repeating these very texts. Such practices might
contribute to the development of religious individuality,
experienced or expressed in factual isolation, responsibility,
competition, and finally in philosophical or theological
reflections about "personhood" or "self". The volume develops its
topic in three sections, addressing personhood, representative and
charismatic individuality, the interaction of individual and groups
and practices of reading and writing. It explores Jewish,
Christian, Greek and Latin texts.
History is one of the most important cultural tools to make sense
of one's situation, to establish identity, define otherness, and
explain change. This is the first systematic scholarly study that
analyses the complex relationship between history and religion,
taking into account religious groups both as producers of
historical narratives as well as distinct topics of historiography.
Coming from different disciplines, the authors of this volume ask
under which conditions and with what consequences religions are
historicised. How do religious groups employ historical narratives
in the construction of their identities? What are the biases and
elisions of current analytical and descriptive frames in the
History of Religion? The volume aims at initiating a comparative
historiography of religion and combines disciplinary competences of
Religious Studies and the History of Religion, Confessional
Theologies, History, History of Science, and Literary Studies. By
applying literary comparison and historical contextualization to
those texts that have been used as central documents for histories
of individual religions, their historiographic themes, tools and
strategies are analysed. The comparative approach addresses
circum-Mediterranean and European as well as Asian religious
traditions from the first millennium BCE to the present and deals
with topics such as the origins of religious historiography, the
practices of writing and the transformation of narratives.
Urban Religion is an emerging research field cutting across various
social science disciplines, all of them dealing with "lived
religion" in contemporary and (mainly) global cities. It describes
the reciprocal formation and mutual influence of religion and
urbanity in both their material and ideational dimensions. However,
this approach, if duly historicized, can be also fruitfully applied
to antiquity. Aim of the volume is the analysis of the entanglement
of religious communication and city life during an arc of time that
is characterised by dramatic and even contradicting developments.
Bringing together textual analyses and archaelogical case studies
in a comparative perspective, the volume zooms in on the historical
context of the advanced imperial and late antique Mediterranean
space (2nd-8th centuries CE).
Religion and its History offers a reflection of our operative
concept of religion and religions, developing a set of approaches
that bridge the widely assumed gulf between analysing present
religion and doing history of religion. Religious Studies have
adapted a wide range of methodologies from sociological tool kits
to insights and concepts from disciplines of social and cultural
studies. Their massive historical claims, which typically idealize
and reify communities and traditions, and build normative claims
thereupon, lack a critical engagement on the part of the
researchers. This book radically rethinks and critically engages
with these biases. It does so by offering neither an abridged
global history of religion nor a small handbook of methodology.
Instead, this book presents concepts and methods that allow the
analysis of contemporary and past religious practices, ideas, and
institutions within a shared framework.
All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the
entire world', investing considerable human and material resources
in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop
expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy.
This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires'
expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and
military considerations to changing composition of the imperial
elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading
specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires
- from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the
Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans,
Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is
a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in
Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns
both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial
trajectories.
The last decade has seen a surge of scholarly interest in these
religious professionals and a good number of high quality
publications. Our volume, however, with its unique intercultural
character and its explicit focus on appropriation and contestation
of religious expertise in the Imperial Era is substantially
different. Unlike the rather narrow focus of earlier studies of
civic priests, the papers presented here examine a wider range of
religious professionals, their dynamic interaction with established
religious authorities and institutions, and their contributions to
religious innovation in the ancient Mediterranean world, from the
late Hellenistic period through to Late Antiquity, from the City of
Rome to mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, from Greek
civic practice to ancient Judaism. A further advantage of our
volume is the wide range of media of transmission taken into
account. Our contributors look at both old and new materials, which
derive not only from literary sources but also from papyri,
inscriptions, and material culture. Above all, this volume assesses
critically convenient terminological usage and offers a unique
insight into a rich gamut of ancient Mediterranean religious
specialists.
The public/private distinction is fundamental to modern theories of
the family, religion and religious freedom, and state power, yet it
has had different salience, and been understood differently, from
place to place and time to time. The volume brings together essays
from an international array of experts in law and religion, in
order to examine the public/private distinction in comparative
perspective. The essays focus on the cultures and religions of the
ancient Mediterranean, in the formative periods of Greece and Rome
and the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Particular
attention is given to the private exercise of religion, the
relation between public norms and private life, and the division
between public and private space and the place of religion therein.
Religion and its History offers a reflection of our operative
concept of religion and religions, developing a set of approaches
that bridge the widely assumed gulf between analysing present
religion and doing history of religion. Religious Studies have
adapted a wide range of methodologies from sociological tool kits
to insights and concepts from disciplines of social and cultural
studies. Their massive historical claims, which typically idealize
and reify communities and traditions, and build normative claims
thereupon, lack a critical engagement on the part of the
researchers. This book radically rethinks and critically engages
with these biases. It does so by offering neither an abridged
global history of religion nor a small handbook of methodology.
Instead, this book presents concepts and methods that allow the
analysis of contemporary and past religious practices, ideas, and
institutions within a shared framework.
What is a religion? What triggered the spontaneous development of
distinct religions throughout the ancient world? How do religions
evoke the ultimate realities they claim to address? Such questions
are as evergreen as belief itself. The Hellenistic and Roman worlds
were a fertile seedbed of the monotheistic faiths that dominate
today's western image of religion, as well as many global
conflicts. In this concise and elegant overview, Jorg Rupke
addresses the similarities and differences of religions in
antiquity, tracing their sometimes complex lineage into modern
systems of belief. Greek and Roman religion is discussed not in
isolation, but in the broader context of western Asia and Egypt.
The author also addresses developments relating to early Islam on
the south-eastern margins of the Byzantine Empire. Examining such
topics as the functions of priests and religious functionaries;
religious individualism; the relationship between religion and
political identity; the acceptance of the pagan Julian calendar by
Christians; and contrasting ancient and modern understandings of
divination, Rupke shows that study of pre-modern culture enables us
more daringly to explore the contemporary religious world.
This volume will concentrate its search for religious individuality
on texts and practices related to texts from Classical Greece to
Late Antiquity. Texts offer opportunities to express one's own
religious experience and shape one's own religious personality
within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Inscriptions in public
or at least easily accessible spaces might substantially differ in
there range of expressions and topics from letters within a
sectarian religious group (which, at the same time, might put
enormous pressure on conformity among its members, regarded as
deviant by a majority of contemporaries). Furthermore, texts might
offer and advocate new practices in reading, meditating,
remembering or repeating these very texts. Such practices might
contribute to the development of religious individuality,
experienced or expressed in factual isolation, responsibility,
competition, and finally in philosophical or theological
reflections about "personhood" or "self". The volume develops its
topic in three sections, addressing personhood, representative and
charismatic individuality, the interaction of individual and groups
and practices of reading and writing. It explores Jewish,
Christian, Greek and Latin texts.
This magisterial compilation personalizes and historicizes the
history of religion in the city of Rome. After introductory essays
on the documentary sources for the various Greek, Roman, Oriental,
Jewish, and Christian cults in question, there are yearly lists of
religious office-holders of various kinds, followed by 4,000
biographies of individuals who fulfilled ritual, organizational, or
doctrinal roles. Concluding chapters discuss important aspects of
Roman religion and its relationship with the state. The data
assembled here will open up many new perspectives: on the social
place of religion and certain cults, on the interplay between
different religious groups, and on the organizational history of
individual cults. The volume as a whole signifies a major advance
in our understanding of ancient religions.
Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to
individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude
for individual initiative and creativity? Joerg Rupke, one of the
world's leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his
new book that it was a lived religion with individual
appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying,
dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion
definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious
practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different,
strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with
traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional
protections, Rupke highlights the dynamic character of Rome's
religious institutions and traditions. In Rupke's view, lived
ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright
deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or
change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods,
practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary
practices. Rupke analyzes observations of religious experience by
contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of
the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways,
reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their
contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their
readership or audiences. Rupke also concentrates on the ways in
which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of
rituals.
The history of Roman imperial religion is of fundamental importance
to the history of religion in Europe. Emerging from a decade of
research, From Jupiter to Christ demonstrates that the decisive
change within the Roman imperial period was not a growing number of
religions or changes in their ranking and success, but a
modification of the idea of 'religion' and a change in the social
place of religious practices and beliefs. Religion is shown to be
transformed from a medium serving the individual necessities -
dealing with human contingencies like sickness, insecurity, and
death - and a medium serving the public formation of political
identity, into an encompassing system of ways of life, group
identities, and political legitimation. Instead of offering an
encyclopaedic presentation of religious beliefs, symbols, and
practices throughout the period, the volume thematically presents
the media that manifested and diffused religion (institutions,
texts, and law), and analyses representative cases. It asks how
religion changed in processes of diffusion and immigration, how
fast (or how slow) practices and institutions were appropriated and
modified, and reveals how these changes made Roman religion
'exportable', creating those forms of intellectualisation and
enscripturation which made religion an autonomous area, different
from other social fields.
Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to
individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude
for individual initiative and creativity? Joerg Rupke, one of the
world's leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his
new book that it was a lived religion with individual
appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying,
dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion
definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious
practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different,
strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with
traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional
protections, Rupke highlights the dynamic character of Rome's
religious institutions and traditions. In Rupke's view, lived
ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright
deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or
change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods,
practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary
practices. Rupke analyzes observations of religious experience by
contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of
the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways,
reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their
contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their
readership or audiences. Rupke also concentrates on the ways in
which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of
rituals.
Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political
phenomena and, apart from a few towering figures, the individual
religious agent has fallen out of view. Addressing this gap, the
essays in this volume focus on the individual and individuality in
ancient Mediterranean religion. Even in antiquity, individual
religious action was not determined by traditional norms handed
down through families and the larger social context, but rather
options were open and choices were made. On the part of the
individual, this development is reflected in changes in
'individuation', the parallel process of a gradual full integration
into society and the development of self-reflection and of a notion
of individual identity. These processes are analysed within the
Hellenistic and Imperial periods, down to Christian-dominated late
antiquity, in both pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish
monotheistic settings. The volume focuses on individuation in
everyday religious practices in Phoenicia, various Greek cities,
and Rome, and as identified in institutional developments and
philosophical reflections on the self as exemplified by the Stoic
Seneca.
All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the
entire world', investing considerable human and material resources
in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop
expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy.
This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires'
expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and
military considerations to changing composition of the imperial
elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading
specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires
- from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the
Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans,
Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is
a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in
Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns
both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial
trajectories.
Religious individuality is not restricted to modernity. This book
offers a new reading of the ancient sources in order to find
indications for the spectrum of religious practices and intensified
forms of such practices only occasionally denounced as
'superstition'. Authors from Cicero in the first century BC to the
law codes of the fourth century AD share the assumption that
authentic and binding communication between individuals and gods is
possible and widespread, even if problematic in the case of
divination or the confrontation with images of the divine. A change
in practices and assumptions throughout the imperial period becomes
visible. It might be characterised as 'individualisation' and
informed the Roman law of religions. The basic constellation - to
give freedom of religion and to regulate religion at the same time
- resonates even into modern bodies of law and is important for
juridical conflicts today.
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