The Gods The State And The Individual

Author : John Scheid
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2015-10-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812291988

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The Gods, the State, and the Individual by John Scheid Pdf

Roman religion has long presented a number of challenges to historians approaching the subject from a perspective framed by the three Abrahamic religions. The Romans had no sacred text that espoused its creed or offered a portrait of its foundational myth. They described relations with the divine using technical terms widely employed to describe relations with other humans. Indeed, there was not even a word in classical Latin that corresponds to the English word religion. In The Gods, the State, and the Individual, John Scheid confronts these and other challenges directly. If Roman religious practice has long been dismissed as a cynical or naïve system of borrowed structures unmarked by any true piety, Scheid contends that this is the result of a misplaced expectation that the basis of religion lies in an individual's personal and revelatory relationship with his or her god. He argues that when viewed in the light of secular history as opposed to Christian theology, Roman religion emerges as a legitimate phenomenon in which rituals, both public and private, enforced a sense of communal, civic, and state identity. Since the 1970s, Scheid has been one of the most influential figures reshaping scholarly understanding of ancient Roman religion. The Gods, the State, and the Individual presents a translation of Scheid's work that chronicles the development of his field-changing scholarship.

Author : Craige B. Champion
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2017-05-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691174853

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The Peace of the Gods by Craige B. Champion Pdf

The Peace of the Gods takes a new approach to the study of Roman elites' religious practices and beliefs, using current theories in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, as well as cultural and literary studies. Craige Champion focuses on what the elites of the Middle Republic (ca. 250–ca. 100 BCE) actually did in the religious sphere, rather than what they merely said or wrote about it, in order to provide a more nuanced and satisfying historical reconstruction of what their religion may have meant to those who commanded the Roman world and its imperial subjects. The book examines the nature and structure of the major priesthoods in Rome itself, Roman military commanders' religious behaviors in dangerous field conditions, and the state religion's acceptance or rejection of new cults and rituals in response to external events that benefited or threatened the Republic. According to a once-dominant but now-outmoded interpretation of Roman religion that goes back to the ancient Greek historian Polybius, the elites didn't believe in their gods but merely used religion to control the masses. Using that interpretation as a counterfactual lens, Champion argues instead that Roman elites sincerely tried to maintain Rome's good fortune through a pax deorum or "peace of the gods." The result offers rich new insights into the role of religion in elite Roman life.

Author : Tim Whitmarsh
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2015-11-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307958334

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Battling the Gods by Tim Whitmarsh Pdf

How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities. Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well known: Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata. Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright disbelief: the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries. As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.

Author : Britannica Educational Publishing
Publisher : Britannica Educational Publishing
Page : 175 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2014-01-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781622751594

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Roman Gods & Goddesses by Britannica Educational Publishing Pdf

While the ancient Roman pantheon in many ways resembles that of ancient Greece, there is much that sets apart Roman mythology. Romans also borrowed from the religions of ancient Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Middle East, and legendary figures such as Romulus and Remus, tied closely to the history of Rome, feature prominently in ancient stories. The major and lesser figures of Roman mythology are presented in this vibrant volume with sidebars spotlighting related facts and concepts about Roman mythology and religion.

Author : Edward J Larson
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2020-06-16
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781541646025

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Summer for the Gods by Edward J Larson Pdf

The Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Scopes Trial and the battle over evolution and creation in America's schools In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the twentieth century's most contentious courtroom dramas, pitting William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes, represented by Clarence Darrow and the ACLU, in a famous debate over science, religion, and their place in public education. That trial marked the start of a battle that continues to this day-in cities and states throughout the country. Edward Larson's classic Summer for the Gods -- winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History -- is the single most authoritative account of this pivotal event. An afterword assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.

Author : Edward J Larson
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2008-07-31
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780786721931

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Summer for the Gods by Edward J Larson Pdf

The Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Scopes Trial and the battle over evolution and creation in America's schools In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the twentieth century's most contentious courtroom dramas, pitting William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes, represented by Clarence Darrow and the ACLU, in a famous debate over science, religion, and their place in public education. That trial marked the start of a battle that continues to this day-in cities and states throughout the country. Edward Larson's classic Summer for the Gods -- winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History -- is the single most authoritative account of this pivotal event. An afterword assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.

Author : Wisconsin State Conference of Social Work
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 142 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 1898
Category : Electronic
ISBN : MINN:31951002483411L

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Proceedings by Wisconsin State Conference of Social Work Pdf

Author : Clifford Ando
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015058870018

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Roman Religion by Clifford Ando Pdf

Historiography and method -- Religious institutions and religious authority -- Ritual and myth -- Theology -- Roman and alien -- Continuity and change from Republic to Empire.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 140 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1898
Category : Charities
ISBN : UIUC:30112071863671

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Proceedings of the Wisconsin Conference of Charities and Corrections, Held at ... by Anonim Pdf

Author : Jon D. Mikalson
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2014-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469617183

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Honor Thy Gods by Jon D. Mikalson Pdf

In Honor Thy Gods Jon Mikalson uses the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to explore popular religious beliefs and practices of Athenians in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. and examines how these playwrights portrayed, manipulated, and otherwise represented popular religion in their plays. He discusses the central role of honor in ancient Athenian piety and shows that the values of popular piety are not only reflected but also reaffirmed in tragedies. Mikalson begins by examining what tragic characters and choruses have to say about the nature of the gods and their intervention in human affairs. Then, by tracing the fortunes of diverse characters -- among them Creon and Antigone, Ajax and Odysseus, Hippolytus, Pentheus, and even Athens and Troy -- he shows that in tragedy those who violate or challenge contemporary popular religious beliefs suffer, while those who support these beliefs are rewarded. The beliefs considered in Mikalson's analysis include Athenians' views on matters regarding asylum, the roles of guests and hosts, oaths, the various forms of divination, health and healing, sacrifice, pollution, the religious responsibilities of parents, children, and citizens, homicide, the dead, and the afterlife. After summarizing the vairous forms of piety and impiety related to these beliefs found in the tragedies, Mikalson isolates "honoring the gods" as the fundamental concept of Greek piety. He concludes by describing the different relationships of the three tragedians to the religion of their time and their audience, arguing that the tragedies of Euripides most consistently support the values of popular religion.

Author : Plato
Publisher : The Floating Press
Page : 720 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781775413660

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The Republic by Plato Pdf

The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier. They are the philosopher-kings of imagined cities and they also discuss the nature of philosophy and the soul among other things.

Author : Michael Hundley
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 421 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022-01-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781108582278

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Yahweh among the Gods by Michael Hundley Pdf

In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, from deified doors and diseases to the masters of the universe. Using data from Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, and non-priestly Genesis and Exodus, Hundley explains their context-specific approach to deity, which produces complex and seemingly contradictory portraits. He suggests that ancient deities gained prominence primarily by co-opting the attributes of other deities, rather than by denying their existence or inventing new powers. He demonstrates that the primary difference between biblical and ancient Near Eastern presentations lies in their rhetorical goals, not their conceptions of gods. While others promote divine supremacy, Genesis and Exodus promote exclusive worship. Hundley argues that this monolatry redefined the biblical divine sphere and paved the way for the later development of monotheism and monotheistic explanations of evil.

Author : Robert Blumetti
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2010-08-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781450236959

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Vril: the Life Force of the Gods by Robert Blumetti Pdf

In Vril, the Life Force of the Gods is Blumetti explores the relevancy of our heathen, Germanic esoteric tradition in the 21st century, the nature of Vril as the Life Force of the Gods and how Odin revealed to us how to harness this power. He refers to Odins gift as Vrilology and explains how we can use Vrilology to transform our lives and the world around us, explores the Norse cosmology and cosmogony, the nature of the Gods, their relationship with quantum physics, how Vrilology can improve your health, luck, wealth, relationships and success by drawing on the power of Vril. Blumetti gives a thorough explanation how, by aligning yourself with Odin and the Norse Gods, you can draw on their life force and transform yourself into a Vril Being. This is what he means by Balder Rising.

Author : William Guthrie
Publisher : Beacon Press
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 1971-06-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0807057932

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Greeks and Their Gods by William Guthrie Pdf

Designed to serve as a religious companion to the Greek classics.

Author : John Greco
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2013-06-26
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781475995978

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God and the Gods by John Greco Pdf

God and the Gods presents the results of a personal journey to uncover the multifaceted pieces of information not covered in national news and hidden from the public for reasons unknown. Volumes of additional information—with stories and artifacts—that are off limits to mankind. Th is manuscript touches merely a few of the many secrets that society is hiding for its own benefit. They are small pieces of a multidimensional puzzle in unraveling the real origin of mankind—something that could change the history of who we are and where we came from. Author John Greco opens our eyes to the possibilities that have accumulated over the years through the facts, findings, and scientific studies of the human body, religious proof, and archaeological discoveries being made throughout the world today. The Bible is fact, in most cases, but there is much more to know. The truth is out there, and most of it is staring us in the face every day. We as humans, who worship a God we cannot see, need to look in the right places and tie the many pieces of this amazing puzzle together. God and the Gods gives you the opportunity to question the basic teachings of all religions, including their exclusions, and begin to consider what the answers truly are. The city of Troy was a myth until it was found. The truth is out there and waiting to be discovered.