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The Cambridge Companion to ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN RELIGIONS

In antiquity, the Mediterranean region was linked by sea and land routes that facilitated the spread of religious beliefs and practices among the civilizations of the ancient world. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions provides an introduction to the major religions of this area and explores current research regarding the simi-larities and differences among them. The period covered is from the prehistoric period to late antiquity, that is, c. 4000 BCE to 600 CE . Part I of the volume offers nine essays providing an overview of the character-istics and historical developments of the major religions of the region, including those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria-Canaan, Israel, Anatolia, Iran, Greece, Rome, and early Christianity. Part II contains fi ve essays dealing with key topics in current research on these religions, including violence, identity, the body, gender, and visuality, taking an explicitly comparative approach and presenting recent theoretical and method-ological advances in contemporary scholarship.

Barbette Stanley Spaeth is Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Co-Director of the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies at the College of William and Mary. Her specialty is Greek and Roman religion. She is the author of The Roman Goddess (1996) and of articles in Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World (forthcoming), Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult (2011), and Sub Imagine Somni: Nighttime Phenomena in Greco-Roman Culture (2010). Her work has been published in the American Journal of Archaeology , Hesperia , Historia , and Classical World . Spaeth has held fellowships at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and the American Academy in Rome. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Memoria Romana Project of the Max-Planck Society. She is co-founder and past president of the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions, as well as past president of the Alumni/ae Association of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

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CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS TO RELIGION This is a series of companions to major topics and key fi gures in theology and religious studies. Each volume contains specially commissioned chapters by international scholars, which provide an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for new readers and nonspecialists.

Other Titles in the Series

AMERICAN ISLAM Edited by Juliane Hammer and Omid Safi AMERICAN JUDAISM Edited by Dana Evan Kaplan AMERICAN METHODISM Edited by Jason E. Vickers KARL BARTH Edited by John Webster THE BIBLE, 2nd edition Edited by Bruce Chilton BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Edited by John Barton DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Edited by John de Gruchy JOHN CALVIN Edited by Donald K. McKim CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE Edited by Colin Gunton CHRISTIAN ETHICS Edited by Robin Gill CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM Edited by Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY Edited by Charles Taliaferro and

Chad V. Meister CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY Edited by Tim Winter JONATHAN EDWARDS Edited by Stephen J. Stein FEMINIST THEOLOGY Edited by Susan Frank Parsons THE JESUITS Edited by Thomas Worcester JESUS Edited by Markus Bockmuehl C. S. LEWIS Edited by Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward LIBERATION THEOLOGY Edited by Chris Rowland MARTIN LUTHER Edited by Donald K. McKim MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman MODERN JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Edited by Michael L. Morgan and Peter

Eli Gordon MOHAMMED Edited by Jonathan E. Brockup POSTMODERN THEOLOGY Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer PURITANISM Edited by John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim THE QUR’AN Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe KARL RAHNER Edited by Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines REFORMATION THEOLOGY Edited by David Bagchi and David Steinmetz RELIGIOUS STUDIES Edited by Robert A. Orsi FREIDRICK SCHLEIERMACHER Edited by Jacqueline Mari ñ a SCIENCE AND RELIGION Edited by Peter Harrison ST. PAUL Edited by James D. G. Dunn THE TALMUD AND RABBINIC LITERATURE Edited by Charlotte E. Fonrobert

and Martin S. Jaffee HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Edited by Edward T. Oakes and David Moss JOHN WESLEY Edited by Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers






The Cambridge Companion to

ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN RELIGIONS

Edited by Barbette Stanley Spaeth College of William and Mary






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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Spaeth, Barbette Stanley. The Cambridge companion to ancient Mediterranean religions / Barbette Stanley Spaeth, College of William and Mary. pages cm. – (Cambridge companions to religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-11396-0 – ISBN 978-0-521-13204-6 (pbk.) 1. Mediterranean Region – Religion. I. Title. BL687.S63 2013 200.937–dc23 2012049271

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vii

List of Illustrations page ix List of Contributors xi

Introduction 1 Barbette Stanley Spaeth

Part I

1 Egypt 13 Emily Teeter

2 Mesopotamia 33 Beate Pongratz-Leisten

3 Syria-Canaan 55 Shawna Dolansky

4 Israel 76 Mayer I. Gruber

5 Anatolia 95 Billie Jean Collins

6 Iran 116 W. W. Malandra

7 Greece 136 Jennifer Larson

8 Rome 157 Celia E. Schultz

9 Early Christianity 177 H. Gregory Snyder

Part II

10 Violence 199 Bruce Lincoln

Contents






viii Contents

11 Identity 220 Kimberly B. Stratton

12 The Body 252 Elizabeth A. Castelli

13 Gender 281 Ross Shepard Kraemer

14 Visuality 309 Robin M. Jensen

Index 345






ix

Figures

1.1 Ramesses IV offering food to the god Khonsu. Relief from the Khonsu Temple, c. 1153–1147 BCE . page 24

8.1 So-called Tellus Relief of the Ara Pacis Augustae, 13–9 BCE . 161

10.1 Graph of conquest as divinely sanctioned. 206

10.2 Graph of defeat as humiliation. 207

10.3 Graph of millennarian revolt. 207

10.4 Graph of mortifi cation of the fl esh. 208

14.1 Statue of Minerva, known as the Athena Giustiniani. Antonine era copy of a fourth-century BCE Greek original. 321

14.2 Vision of Ezekiel. Wall painting from the Dura Europos Synagogue, c. 239 CE . 325

14.3 Jesus enthroned with apostles. Apse mosaic from the Church of Sta. Pudenziana, c. 400–410 CE . 327

14.4 Jesus walking on the water. Wall painting from the Christian baptistery in Dura Europos, c. 240 CE . 330

14.5 Apse mosaic from the Church of Ss. Cosmas and Damian, c. 526–30 CE . 331

14.6 West wall and Torah niche from the Dura Europos Synagogue, c. 239 CE . 332

14.7 Zodiac mosaic fl oor panel from the Beth Alpha Synagogue, sixth century CE . 333

14.8 Wall paintings from the Villa of the Mysteries, fi rst century CE . Pompeii. 335

14.9 Abraham’s hospitality, offering of Isaac. Sanctuary mosaic from the Church of San Vitale, c. 547 CE . Ravenna. 337

List of Illustrations






x List of Illustrations

14.10 The so-called Two Brothers Sarcophagus, mid-fourth century CE . 338

14.11 Ara Pacis Augustae, 13–9 BCE . 339

Table

10.1 Martyrological inversion of imperial narratives. 211

Map

Map of the Mediterranean world. xii






xi

Elizabeth A. Castelli , Professor, Department of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University

Billie Jean Collins , Instructor, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University

Shawna Dolansky , Adjunct Research Professor, College of the Humanities, Carleton University, Canada

Mayer I. Gruber , Professor, Department of Bible Archaeology and the Ancient Near East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Robin M. Jensen , Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian Art and Worship, Vanderbilt University

Ross Shepard Kraemer , Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies, Brown University

Jennifer Larson , Professor, Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies, Kent State University

Bruce Lincoln , Caroline E. Haskell Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions, University of Chicago

W. W. Malandra , Professor Emeritus, Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota

Beate Pongratz-Leisten , Professor, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

Celia E. Schultz , Associate Professor, Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan

H. Gregory Snyder , Professor, Department of Religion, Davidson College

Barbette Stanley Spaeth , Associate Professor, Department of Classical Studies, College of William and Mary

Kimberly B. Stratton , Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Humanities, Carleton University, Canada

Emily Teeter , Egyptologist and Research Associate, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

List of Contributors






Map of the Mediterranean world.






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