The Bible Homer And The Search For Meaning In Ancient Myths

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The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths

Author : John Heath
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2019-04-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429663741

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The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths by John Heath Pdf

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility – almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible—for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh’s Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don’t live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer’s polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer’s tragic world – an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad – one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have – especially between disciplines – about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths

Author : JOHN. HEATH
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 430 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2020-12-18
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 036772992X

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The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths by JOHN. HEATH Pdf

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility - almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible--for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh's Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don't live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer's polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer's tragic world - an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad - one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have - especially between disciplines - about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

Greek Myth and the Bible

Author : Bruce Louden
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2018-11-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429828041

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Greek Myth and the Bible by Bruce Louden Pdf

Since the nineteenth-century rediscovery of the Gilgamesh epic, we have known that the Bible imports narratives from outside of Israelite culture, refiguring them for its own audience. Only more recently, however, has come the realization that Greek culture is also a prominent source of biblical narratives. Greek Myth and the Bible argues that classical mythological literature and the biblical texts were composed in a dialogic relationship. Louden examines a variety of Greek myths from a range of sources, analyzing parallels between biblical episodes and Hesiod, Euripides, Argonautic myth, selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Homeric epic. This fascinating volume offers a starting point for debate and discussion of these cultural and literary exchanges and adaptations in the wider Mediterranean world and will be an invaluable resource to students of the Hebrew Bible and the influence of Greek myth.

Greek Myth

Author : Lowell Edmunds
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2021-04-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9783110696240

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Greek Myth by Lowell Edmunds Pdf

This new series aims to provide state of the art guides to research in Classical Studies (across the fields of Language and Literature, Ancient History, Archaeology, and Ancient Philosophy and Science) that explore the key themes and ideas shaping previous scholarship on individual authors, genres, and topics. Each volume is authored by a prominent scholar in the respective field and offers a critical reappraisal of research conducted in recent decades that illuminates the state of contemporary scholarship. With its paperback volumes, the series is perfectly designed to offer students and scholars reliable, stimulating guides to what really matters in important fields of classical research today, as well as suggestions for future lines of study.

Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era

Author : Courtney J. P. Friesen
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2023-07-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000910285

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Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era by Courtney J. P. Friesen Pdf

While many ancient Jewish and Christian leaders voiced opposition to Greek and Roman theater, this volume demonstrates that by the time the public performance of classical drama ceased at the end of antiquity the ideals of Jews and Christians had already been shaped by it in profound and lasting ways. Readers are invited to explore how gods and heroes famous from Greek drama animated the imaginations of ancient individuals and communities as they articulated and reinvented their religious visions for a new era. In this study, Friesen demonstrates that Greek theater’s influence is evident within Jewish and Christian intellectual formulations, narrative constructions, and practices of ritual and liturgy. Through a series of interrelated case studies, the book examines how particular plays, through texts and performances, scenes, images, and heroic personae, retained appeal for Jewish and Christian communities across antiquity. The volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving classical, Jewish, and Christian studies, and brings together these separate avenues of scholarship to produce fresh insights and a reevaluation of theatrical drama in relation to ancient Judaism and Christianity. Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era allows students and scholars of the diverse and evolving religious landscapes of antiquity to gain fresh perspectives on the interplay between the gods and heroes—both human and divine—of Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians as they were staged in drama and depicted in literature.

Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity

Author : Richard Evans,Martine De Marre
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2019-08-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429803031

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Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity by Richard Evans,Martine De Marre Pdf

Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity explores appropriation in its broadest terns in the ancient world, from brigands, mercenaries and state-sponsored "piracy", to literary appropriation and the modern plundering of antiquities. The chronological extent of the studies in this volume, written by an international group of experts, ranges from about 2000 BCE to the 20th century. The geographical spectrum in similarly diverse, encompassing Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mesopotamia, allowing readers to track this phenomenon in various different manifestations. Predatory behaviour is a phenomenon seen in all walks of life. While violence may often be concomitant it is worth observing that predation can be extremely nuanced in its application, and it is precisely this gradation and its focus that occupies the essential issue in this volume. Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity will be of great interest to those studying a range of topics in antiquity, including literature and art, cities and their foundations, crime, warfare, and geography.

Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature

Author : Graham Anderson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2019-07-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429639173

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Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature by Graham Anderson Pdf

Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature offers an overview of Greek and Roman excursions into fantasy, including imaginary voyages, dream-worlds, talking animals and similar impossibilities. This is a territory seldom explored and extends to rarely read texts such as the Aesop Romance, The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, and The Pumpkinification of the Emperor Claudius. Bringing this diverse material together for the first time, Anderson widens readers’ perspectives on the realm of fantasy in ancient literature, including topics such as dialogues with the dead, Utopian communities and fantastic feasts. Going beyond the more familiar world of myth, his examples range from The Golden Ass to the Late Antique Testament of a Pig. The volume also explores ancient resistance to the world of make-believe. Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature is an invaluable resource not only for students of classical and comparative literature, but also for modern writers on fantasy who want to explore the genre’s origins in antiquity, both in the more obvious and in lesser-known texts.

The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities

Author : David B. Hollander,Thomas R. Blanton IV,John T. Fitzgerald
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2019-04-16
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781351004800

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The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities by David B. Hollander,Thomas R. Blanton IV,John T. Fitzgerald Pdf

Recent work on the ancient economy has tended to concentrate on market exchange, but other forces also caused goods to change hands. Such nonmarket transfers ranged from small private gifts to the wholesale confiscation of cities, lands, and their peoples. The papers presented in this volume examine aspects of this extramercantile economy, particularly benefaction and the role of associations, as well as their impact on the market economy. This volume brings together ancient historians, New Testament scholars, and classicists to assess critically the New Institutional Economics framework. Combining theoretical approaches with detailed investigations of particular regions and topics, its chapters examine Greek economic thought, the benefits of membership in private associations, and the economic role of civic euergetism from classical Athens to the municipalities of Roman Spain. The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities will be of use to those interested in the economic context of ancient religions, the role of associations in the economy, theoretical approaches to the study of the ancient economy, labor and politics in the ancient city, as well as how Greek philosophers, from Xenophon to Philodemus, developed ethical ideas about economic behavior.

The Study of Greek and Roman Religions

Author : Nickolas P. Roubekas
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2022-07-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781350102637

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The Study of Greek and Roman Religions by Nickolas P. Roubekas Pdf

How should ancient religious ideas be approached? Is "religion" an applicable term to antiquity? Should classicists, ancient historians, and religious studies scholars work more closely together? Nickolas P. Roubekas argues that there is a disciplinary gap between the study of Greek and Roman religions and the study of “religion” as a category-a gap that has often resulted in contradictory conclusions regarding Greek and Roman religion. This book addresses this lack of interdisciplinarity by providing an overview, criticism, and assessment of this chasm. It provides a theoretical approach to this historical period, raising the issue of the relationship between “theory of religion” and “history of religion,” and explores how history influences theory and vice versa. It also presents an in-depth critique of some crucial problems that have been central to the discussions of scholars who work on Graeco-Roman antiquity, encouraging us to re-examine how we approach the study of ancient religions.

The Discourse of Kingship in Classical Greece

Author : Carol Atack
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780429557125

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The Discourse of Kingship in Classical Greece by Carol Atack Pdf

This book examines how ancient authors explored ideas of kingship as a political role fundamental to the construction of civic unity, the use of kingship stories to explain the past and present unity of the polis and the distinctive function or status attributed to kings in such accounts. It explores the notion of kingship offered by historians such as Herodotus, as well as dramatists writing for the Athenian stage, paying particular attention to dramatic depictions of the unique capabilities of Theseus in uniting the city in the figure of the ‘democratic king’. It also discusses kingship in Greek philosophy: the Socratics’ identification of an ‘art of kingship’, and Xenophon and Isocrates’ model of ‘virtue monarchy’. In turn, these allow a rereading of explorations of kingship and excellence in Plato’s later political thought, seen as a critique of these models, and also in Aristotle’s account of total kingship or pambasileia, treated here as a counterfactual device developed to explore the epistemic benefits of democracy. This book offers a fascinating insight into the institution of monarchy in classical Greek thought and society, both for those working on Greek philosophy and politics, and also for students of the history of political thought.

Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome

Author : Andromache Karanika,Vassiliki Panoussi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2019-11-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351243391

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Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome by Andromache Karanika,Vassiliki Panoussi Pdf

This volume examines emotional trauma in the ancient world, focusing on literary texts from different genres (epic, theatre, lyric poetry, philosophy, historiography) and archaeological evidence. The material covered spans geographically from Greece and Rome to Judaea, with a chronological range from about 8th c. bce to 1st c. ce. The collection is organized according to broad themes to showcase the wide range of possibilities that trauma theory offers as a theoretical framework for a new analysis of ancient sources. It also demonstrates the various ways in which ancient texts illuminate contemporary problems and debates in trauma studies.

The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel

Author : William M. Owens
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2019-12-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000754643

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The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel by William M. Owens Pdf

This volume offers the first comprehensive treatment of how the five canonical Greek novels represent slaves and slavery. In each novel, one or both elite protagonists are enslaved, and Owens explores the significance of the genre’s regular social degradation of these members of the elite. Reading the novels in the context of social attitudes and stereotypes about slaves, Owens argues for an ideological division within the genre: the earlier novelists, Xenophon of Ephesus and Chariton, challenge and undermine elite stereotypes; the three later novelists, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus, affirm them. The critique of elite thinking about slavery in Xenophon and Chariton opens the possibility that these earlier authors and their readers included literate ex-slaves. The interests and needs of these authors and their readers shaped the emerging genre and not only made the protagonists’ slavery a key motif but also made slavery itself a theme that helped define the genre. The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel will be of interest not only to students of the ancient novel but also to anyone working on slavery in the ancient world.

Romans at War

Author : Jeremy Armstrong,Michael P. Fronda
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 403 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2019-10-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351063487

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Romans at War by Jeremy Armstrong,Michael P. Fronda Pdf

This volume addresses the fundamental importance of the army, warfare, and military service to the development of both the Roman Republic and wider Italic society in the second half of the first millennium BC. It brings together emerging and established scholars in the area of Roman military studies to engage with subjects such as the relationship between warfare and economic and demographic regimes; the interplay of war, aristocratic politics, and state formation; and the complex role the military played in the integration of Italy. The book demonstrates the centrality of war to Rome’s internal and external relationships during the Republic, as well as to the Romans’ sense of identity and history. It also illustrates the changing scholarly view of warfare as a social and cultural construct in antiquity, and how much work remains to be done in what is often thought of as a "traditional" area of research. Romans at War will be of interest to students and scholars of the Roman army and ancient warfare, and of Roman society more broadly.

De-demonising the Old Testament

Author : Judit M. Blair
Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Religion
ISBN : 3161501314

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De-demonising the Old Testament by Judit M. Blair Pdf

Judit M. Blair challenges the common view that azazel, lilith, deber, qeteb and reshef are names of 'demons' in the Hebrew Bible, claiming that major works on the subject proceed from the assumption that these terms were demons in the ancient Near East and /or later, or that they were deities who became 'demonised' by the authors of the Hebrew Bible. Without questioning the validity of traditional methods she supplements the existing works by making an exegesis based on a close reading of all the relevant texts of the Hebrew Bible in which these five terms occur. Close attention is paid to the linguistic, semantic, and structural levels of the texts. The emphasis is on a close examination of the immediate context in order to determine the function of each term. The author notes different signals within the texts, especially the use of the various poetical/rhetorical devices: personification, parallelism, similes, irony, and mythological elements.

Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East

Author : Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 445 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004164734

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Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East by Jan N. Bremmer Pdf

This book greatly enhances our knowledge of the interrelationship of Greek religion & culture and the Ancient Near East by offering important analyses of Greek myths, divinities and terms like a ~magica (TM) and 'paradise', but also of the Greek contribution to the Christian notion of atonement.