Ritualistic Formulae In Greek Dramatic Texts

1982 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-234
Author(s):  
Howard Jacobson
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman

Ritualistic formulae and acts pervade the political, legal, societal and religious life of the ancient world. In many instances there are striking similarities between the formulae of the Greco-Roman world and those of the Near East. Often illumination exists from one to the other. Here I wish to notice a few passages in Greek drama where I think such illumination is possible.

The World of Ancient Greco­Roman Magic

2019 ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The World ◽  
Ritual Activity

This chapter discusses the world of ancient Greco-Roman magic. When approaching the evidence from the ancient Greco-Roman world for ritualized action, one must analyze not only what kind of evidence one is examining but also what sort of action is depicted in the evidence. One must also analyze who is performing it and for whom, where and when it is performed, why it is being performed, and how the performance works. In this study, the chapters are organized primarily by what sort of practice is involved, but the analysis probes each of the other factors as well to determine when a ritualized action may be labeled “magic.” The survey of different varieties within the discourse of magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world provides one with a better sense of the categories and criteria by which the Greeks and Romans evaluated normative and non-normative ritual activity in the ancient world.

Paul against Empire

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-176
Author(s):  
Ole Jakob Løland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
European Thought ◽  
Political Thinker

The image of a political thinker that arises from Taubes’s readings of Paul is the result of Taubes’s peculiar method of reading Paul through key thinkers of the twentieth-century European thought, such as Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Barth. The political aspects of the philosophers’ readings are brought to the fore by Taubes’s intertwinement of historical and philosophical perspectives, but also of the crossing of the Jewish and the Christian. Taubes’s political Paul is drawn from contradictory meanings within the Pauline epistles, primarily Romans. On one hand Taubes’s Paul is anti-imperial as the apostle’s message amplifies a seething antagonism toward the values of the Greco-Roman world and “declares war” against the Emperor himself. On the other, Taubes’s Paul develops a “nihilism” which is actually “quietist” and withdrawn in relation to direct contestation of actually existing authority. This nihilistic view of the apostle can be further argued for through affinities between readings of biblical scholars of our day and Friedrich Nietzsche, building further upon Taubes’s interpretations of Paul.

New Testament

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wheeler-Reed
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Thessalonians 1 ◽  
The New Testament

This chapter maintains that two ideologies concerning marriage and sex pervade the New Testament writings. One ideology codifies a narrative that argues against marriage, and perhaps, sexual intercourse, and the other retains the basic cultural values of the upper classes of the Greco-Roman world. These two ideologies are termed “profamily” and “antifamily.” The chapter proceeds in a chronological fashion starting with 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, and Mark. It concludes by examining Matthew, Luke, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla.

Introduction. La technê et la connaissance des causes : Aristote et le modèle de la médecine

Elenchos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Cristina Viano
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Four Causes

Abstract The theme of the specificity of medical causes in the Greco-Roman world is part of a wider research project on the notion of causality, the starting point of which is Aristotle and his seminal theorisation of the four causes. It therefore seemed useful to introduce this collection with a synthetic presentation of the Aristotelian conception of medicine, which is characterised by the knowledge of causes and represents a paradigm for the other arts and practical knowledge.

Healing and Protective Magic: Defense against the Dark Arts

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-148
Author(s):  
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
Potential Harm ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Special Knowledge ◽  
Everyday Problems ◽  
Extraordinary Means

This chapter looks at the tradition of protective and healing magic in the Greco-Roman world. While normal strategies of defense and protection against one's enemies and the ordinary perils of life in the ancient world could be employed in everyday problems, for extraordinary crises, extraordinary means with extraordinary efficacy were needed. Such means were needed not only to ward off potential harm but also to heal the damage already done. Special knowledge might be required to determine the necessary remedy for an unusual or serious problem, whether that knowledge was transmitted in the traditional lore about various plants and minerals or in systematic treatises that compiled the arcane lore for scholarly minded philosophers and doctors. Either the traditional lore or the occult knowledge might be labeled as “magic.” Protective and curative magic channeled divine power in special ways to achieve its extraordinary effects, and so, like other forms of magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world, it was at times viewed askance as superstition and at other times eagerly sought as the only solution to otherwise insuperable problems.

Laying Out the Fleece

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Near East ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Different Cultures

Chapter 3 approaches Gideon’s story in three different ways: the role of divine signs in the ancient Near East; the portrait of Gideon as a hesitant solider in need of divine assurance in the biblical stories of Judg 6:36–40, 7:1–8, and 7:9–15; and the ways that early Christian exegetes interpreted Gideon’s requests for divine assurance. The chapter continues to trace how masculinity is constructed in different cultures, including the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity, where men were encouraged to fight spiritual battles rather than physical battles. These interpretations serve as a powerful reminder that masculinity is always “in crisis,” tending toward transformation and change, depending on cultural context.

The Gospel According to Luke (I–IX)

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Fitzmyer , S. J.
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good News ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Book Of Acts

In this first of two volumes on the Gospel According to Luke, Joseph A. Fitzmyer provides an exhaustive introduction, a definitive new translation, and extensive notes and commentary on Luke’s Gospel. Fitzmyer brings to the task his mastery of ancient and modern languages, his encyclopedic knowledge of the sources, and his intimate acquaintance with the questions and issues occasioned by the third Synoptic Gospel. Luke’s unique literary and linguistic features, its relation to the other Gospels and the book of Acts, and its distinctive theological slant are discussed in detail by the author. The Jesus of Luke’s Gospel speaks to the Greco-Roman world of first-century Christians, giving the followers of Jesus a reason for remaining faithful. Fitzmyer’s exposition of this Gospel helps modern-day Christians hear the Good News afresh.

Epigraphy and the Historical Sciences

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Public Display ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Good Shape ◽  
Exceptional Value

This volume publishes all but three of the plenary lectures that were delivered during the XIIIth International Congress of Greek and Roman Epigraphy, held at Oxford in September 2007. Its format differs from traditional Congress Proceedings, but this is not the only innovation. The aim of the Oxford Congress, reflected in the title of the volume, was to present epigraphy as a specialism to a wider readership, both academic and other, and in that way to embed it more firmly within the wider discourse of ancient world studies in general. So to this end, a number of scholars were invited to give plenary lectures of two kinds. Some reported on the various ways in which epigraphic information is helping to reshape and extend our knowledge of the religious life, the languages, the populations, the governmental systems and the economies of the Graeco-Roman world. Others reported on the ways in which new techniques and technologies are helping to make epigraphically based information more accessible, whether in terms of public display or in terms of the ever-widening possibilities of information technology. In addition, the more wide-ranging addresses that opened and closed the Congress showed how the act of looking at the Graeco-Roman world through the window provided by the epigraphic record offers a distinctive gaze of unique and exceptional value. The Congress thereby gave the impression of a discipline that knew what it wanted to do, have the tools with which to move forward and in general was in very good shape. The volume is intended to communicate that zest and impetus to as wide a readership as possible. To that end, all contributions that were originally delivered in other languages have been translated into English, and translations have also been inserted for all but the briefest citations of Greek and Latin.

Slavery

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Byron
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Accepted Part ◽  
Insight Into

Slavery was an accepted part of the world in which the biblical authors lived and wrote. It was a vital part of the empires in the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman West. The Hebrew Bible condones slavery, contains laws regulating it, and even uses it as a metaphor to describe God’s relationship with Israel. The New Testament, entrenched in the Greco-Roman world, accepts the fact of slavery, commands slaves to obey their masters, and even recounts the return of a slave to his master. But as attitudes began to change and abolitionism became a motivating force, biblicists were challenged to reexamine the Bible in light of the new worldview. The Bible was used both to support and to condemn slavery. More recently, the descendants of former slaves have asked how the Bible, used to subjugate their ancestors, can still be a valuable religious text. These shifts in attitude have led to a reevaluation of how slavery is studied. Scholars have moved away from legal definitions of slavery, which view the institution from the owner’s perspective, to sociological definitions that provide insight into how the institution was experienced by the enslaved.

The Most Silent Women of Greece and Rome: Rural Labour and Women's Life in The Ancient World (II)

1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Scheidel
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Status ◽  
Of Greece

How can these ideas be linked to the ancient sources? Focusing first of all on women's contribution to arable cultivation and arboriculture, we immediately face the first of many blanks. To the best of my knowledge, we do not have any explicit evidence of ploughing by women in the Greco-Roman world. Only two lines from Hesiod's Works and Days seem to establish a connection between women and ploughing: according to Hesiod, a proper head of a household would need ‘first of all a house, and then a woman and oxen for ploughing – a slave woman, not a wife, to follow the oxen [or: to care for the oxen]’ (405 f.). In the fourth century B.C., however, the second line that specifies the status and the function of the desired woman was apparently not yet part of the received text, since Aristotle could still regard her as a free woman (Pol. 1252a llff). Not until the first century B.C. did Philodemos of Gadara quote and defend the reading that defined Hesiod's woman as a slave labourer. Even so, the wording does not make it clear whether this woman was meant to follow the harnessed oxen, that is, to do the ploughing, or to care for the oxen in the stable.

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