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Studies in Christianity and Judaism
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Order online and receive a 25% discount $85.00 Hardcover, 306 pp. ISBN13: 978-1-55458-222-8 Release Date: |
Book Description
Travel and Religion in Antiquity considers the importance of issues relating to travel for our understanding of religious and cultural life among Jews, Christians, and others in the ancient world, particularly during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to communicate the efficacy of a god or the superiority of a way of life, including the diffusion of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign peoples or cultures, including descriptions of these cultures in ancient ethnographic materials; migration; and travel to engage in an occupation or vocation.
With interdisciplinary contributions that cover a range of literary, epigraphic, and archeological materials, the volume sheds light on the importance of movement in connection with religious life among Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and others, including Judeans and followers of Jesus.
About Philip A. Harland
Philip A. Harland is an associate professor in humanities and ancient history at York University. His recent books on social and religious life in the Greco-Roman world include Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (2003) and Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians (2009). He also runs a group of websites, a podcast, and a blog on religions of the ancient Mediterranean at philipharland.com.
Reviews
“This interdisciplinary collection of essays tackles the complicated and significant role of travel and movement in ancient Mediterranean religions. Its chapters address issues of pilgrimage, travel narratives, ethnography, migration and occupational travel through the examination of literary, epigraphic, papyrological and archaeological sources. Focusing primarily on the eastern Mediterranean, it explores travel in the religious lives of ancient Mesopotamians, Judeans, Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and Christians. Its chronological, geographic and methodological range is impressive and the chapters only grow stronger when seen in dialogue with one another.... Altogether...the essays succeed admirably at charting new directions and exploring new terrain. While many others have studied travel and religion, especially with regard to pilgrimage and identity, the range of this collection leads us to think about travel as an inherent and widespread component of religions in the ancient Mediterranean world.... Travel and Religion in Antiquity will surely spark future research in this important area, especially in light of its timeliness. All told it is a very welcome addition to the scholarship on ancient travel and religion.”
— Josephine Shaya, The College of Wooster, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
“The scholarship in these essays is excellent. It is evident that all of the authors know their fields well; they are well acquainted with the relevant primary and secondary literature as well as with the relevant methodologies. The manuscript as such makes an important contribution to the field. Harland’s introductory essay does a superb job of placing the volume in the broader context of the field as a whole, and of showing that while the study of travel in the ancient world has been undertaken by others, this volume is likely the first to highlight the intersection of religion and travel. The volume will make a very important contribution both to the discussion of ancient travel and, even more perhaps, to the field of religion in antiquity.”
— Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, author of Jesus of Hollywood (2007)
