Ancient Greek Religion

Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Jon D. Mikalson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119565626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Provides undergraduate students with a vibrant account of the religious world of ancient Greece, now in its third edition Ancient Greek Religion offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to the beliefs, myths, rituals, and deities of Greek religion. Author Jon D. Mikalson provides a vivid depiction of Greek religious practice in Athens, Delphi, and Olympia during the Classical period and in select other cities during the Hellenistic period. This reader-friendly textbook explains basic concepts of Greek polytheism, describes major deities and cults, and discusses various aspects of Greek religious life in the context of the city-state, the village, the family, and the individual. The revised third edition features new contributions by Andrej and Ivana Petrovic. It has two new chapters: one highlighting Roman, Christian, and modern scholars’ approaches to Greek religion and one identifying the types of sources used to understand and reconstruct ancient Greek religion. This edition also expands discussion of magic and personal practices and includes an updated and expanded bibliography for each chapter. This popular textbook: Offers thorough coverage of major Greek gods, heroes, myths, and cults Presents translations of ancient texts to promote reflection and discussion Features a glossary of recurring Greek terms and a wealth of high-quality color maps, images, figures, and illustrations Describes Greek religious practice from the perspectives of different worshippers, such as priests, slaves, family members, and public officials Discusses various interpretations of the gods and the afterlife, the nature of piety and impiety, and the larger social and political context of ancient Greece Ancient Greek Religion, Third Edition, remains the ideal introductory textbook for undergraduate courses including Greek Civilization, Greek Religion, Greek and Roman Religion, Ancient Religions, and Greek History. It is also an excellent source of reference for graduate students, instructors, and scholars studying religious life in Classical Greece.

Ancient Greek Religion

Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Jon D. Mikalson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119565626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book

Book Description
Provides undergraduate students with a vibrant account of the religious world of ancient Greece, now in its third edition Ancient Greek Religion offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to the beliefs, myths, rituals, and deities of Greek religion. Author Jon D. Mikalson provides a vivid depiction of Greek religious practice in Athens, Delphi, and Olympia during the Classical period and in select other cities during the Hellenistic period. This reader-friendly textbook explains basic concepts of Greek polytheism, describes major deities and cults, and discusses various aspects of Greek religious life in the context of the city-state, the village, the family, and the individual. The revised third edition features new contributions by Andrej and Ivana Petrovic. It has two new chapters: one highlighting Roman, Christian, and modern scholars’ approaches to Greek religion and one identifying the types of sources used to understand and reconstruct ancient Greek religion. This edition also expands discussion of magic and personal practices and includes an updated and expanded bibliography for each chapter. This popular textbook: Offers thorough coverage of major Greek gods, heroes, myths, and cults Presents translations of ancient texts to promote reflection and discussion Features a glossary of recurring Greek terms and a wealth of high-quality color maps, images, figures, and illustrations Describes Greek religious practice from the perspectives of different worshippers, such as priests, slaves, family members, and public officials Discusses various interpretations of the gods and the afterlife, the nature of piety and impiety, and the larger social and political context of ancient Greece Ancient Greek Religion, Third Edition, remains the ideal introductory textbook for undergraduate courses including Greek Civilization, Greek Religion, Greek and Roman Religion, Ancient Religions, and Greek History. It is also an excellent source of reference for graduate students, instructors, and scholars studying religious life in Classical Greece.

Religion in the Ancient Greek City

Religion in the Ancient Greek City PDF Author: Louise Bruit Zaidman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied in individual, social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources.

Ancient Greek Beliefs

Ancient Greek Beliefs PDF Author: Perry L. Westmoreland
Publisher: LEE AND VANCE PUBLISHING CO
ISBN: 0979324815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 829

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Book Description
Ancient Greek Beliefs explores the mysteries of the ancient myths and religious beliefs of a great people. The text is divided into three sections, Greek mythology, the ancient Greeks, and conclusions. A brief history and lengthy glossary are included. The book is designed as a basic text for the introduction to ancient Greek mythology and beliefs, and the text muses about the religious lessons we might learn from them. It contains abridged stories of Greek mythology, including the extant Greek plays, and considers portions of the works of the great writers, including Aeschylus, Euripides Hesiod, Homer, Plato, and Sophocles. It opens a comprehensive window into the lives of these great ancient people.

Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion

Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Esther Eidinow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316715213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
Studied for many years by scholars with Christianising assumptions, Greek religion has often been said to be quite unlike Christianity: a matter of particular actions (orthopraxy), rather than particular beliefs (orthodoxies). This volume dares to think that, both in and through religious practices and in and through religious thought and literature, the ancient Greeks engaged in a sustained conversation about the nature of the gods and how to represent and worship them. It excavates the attitudes towards the gods implicit in cult practice and analyses the beliefs about the gods embedded in such diverse texts and contexts as comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, philosophy, ancient Greek blood sacrifice, myth and other forms of storytelling. The result is a richer picture of the supernatural in ancient Greece, and a whole series of fresh questions about how views of and relations to the gods changed over time.

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Esther Eidinow
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199642036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 737

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Book Description
This handbook offers both students and teachers of ancient Greek religion a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship in the subject, from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. It not only presents key information, but also explores the ways in which such information is gathered and the different approaches that have shaped the area. In doing so, the volume provides a crucial research and orientation tool for students of the ancient world, and also makes a vital contribution to the key debates surrounding the conceptualization of ancient Greek religion. The handbook's initial chapters lay out the key dimensions of ancient Greek religion, approaches to evidence, and the representations of myths. The following chapters discuss the continuities and differences between religious practices in different cultures, including Egypt, the Near East, the Black Sea, and Bactria and India. The range of contributions emphasizes the diversity of relationships between mortals and the supernatural - in all their manifestations, across, between, and beyond ancient Greek cultures - and draws attention to religious activities as dynamic, highlighting how they changed over time, place, and context.

Animals in Ancient Greek Religion

Animals in Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Julia Kindt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429754590
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This book provides the first systematic study of the role of animals in different areas of the ancient Greek religious experience, including in myth and ritual, the literary and the material evidence, the real and the imaginary. An international team of renowned contributors shows that animals had a sustained presence not only in the traditionally well-researched cultural practice of blood sacrifice but across the full spectrum of ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices. Animals played a role in divination, epiphany, ritual healing, the setting up of dedications, the writing of binding spells, and the instigation of other ‘magical’ means. Taken together, the individual contributions to this book illustrate that ancient Greek religion constituted a triangular symbolic system encompassing not just gods and humans, but also animals as a third player and point of reference. Animals in Ancient Greek Religion will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek religion, Greek myth, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as for anyone interested in human/animal relations in the ancient world.

Understanding Greek Religion

Understanding Greek Religion PDF Author: Jennifer Larson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317296745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
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.

Household Gods

Household Gods PDF Author: Alexandra Sofroniew
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 1606064568
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Daily religious devotion in the Greek and Roman worlds centered on the family and the home. Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone. Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book’s emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.

On Greek Religion

On Greek Religion PDF Author: Robert Parker
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801461758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
"There is something of a paradox about our access to ancient Greek religion. We know too much, and too little. The materials that bear on it far outreach an individual's capacity to assimilate: so many casual allusions in so many literary texts over more than a millennium, so many direct or indirect references in so many inscriptions from so many places in the Greek world, such an overwhelming abundance of physical remains. But genuinely revealing evidence does not often cluster coherently enough to create a vivid sense of the religious realities of a particular time and place. Amid a vast archipelago of scattered islets of information, only a few are of a size to be habitable."—from the Preface In On Greek Religion, Robert Parker offers a provocative and wide-ranging entrée into the world of ancient Greek religion, focusing especially on the interpretive challenge of studying a religious system that in many ways remains desperately alien from the vantage point of the twenty-first century. One of the world's leading authorities on ancient Greek religion, Parker raises fundamental methodological questions about the study of this vast subject. Given the abundance of evidence we now have about the nature and practice of religion among the ancient Greeks—including literary, historical, and archaeological sources—how can we best exploit that evidence and agree on the central underlying issues? Is it possible to develop a larger, "unified" theoretical framework that allows for coherent discussions among archaeologists, anthropologists, literary scholars, and historians? In seven thematic chapters, Parker focuses on key themes in Greek religion: the epistemological basis of Greek religion; the relation of ritual to belief; theories of sacrifice; the nature of gods and heroes; the meaning of rituals, festivals, and feasts; and the absence of religious authority. Ranging across the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods, he draws on multiple disciplines both within and outside classical studies. He also remains sensitive to varieties of Greek religious experience. Also included are five appendixes in which Parker applies his innovative methodological approach to particular cases, such as the acceptance of new gods and the consultation of oracles. On Greek Religion will stir debate for its bold questioning of disciplinary norms and for offering scholars and students new points of departure for future research.

Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion

Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion PDF Author: Menelaos Christopoulos
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739139010
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion is a ground-breaking volume dedicated to a thorough examination of the well known empirical categories of light and darkness as it relates to modes of thought, beliefs and social behavior in Greek culture. With a systematic and multi-disciplinary approach, the book elucidates the light/darkness dichotomy in color semantics, appearance and concealment of divinities and creatures of darkness, the eye sight and the insight vision, and the role of the mystic or cultic.