Religion and the Self in Antiquity

by David Brakke (Editor), Michael L Satlow (Editor), Steven Weitzman (Editor)

Overview

Many recent studies have argued that the self is a modern invention, a concept developed in the last three centuries. Religion and the Self in Antiquity challenges that idea by presenting a series of studies that explore the origins, formation, and limits of the self within the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world. Drawing on recent work on the body, gender, sexuality, the anthropology of the senses, and power, contributors make a strong case that the history of the self does indeed begin in antiquity, developing as Western religion itself developed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253111715
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	11/18/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	478 KB

About the Author

David Brakke is Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of History at Indiana University.

Michael L. Satlow is Associate Professor in the Program in Judaic Studies and the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University.

Steven Weitzman, the Abraham M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism whose most recent publications include Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom and a revised edition of The Jews: A History.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Introduction	1
Part I	Seeking Religious Selves
1	Shifting Selves in Late Antiquity	15
2	The Search for the Elusive Self in Texts of the Hebrew Bible	40
3	Paul and the Slave Self	51
4	Prayer of the Queen: Esther's Religious Self in the Septuagint	70
5	Giving for a Return: Jewish Votive Offerings in Late Antiquity	91
6	The Self in Artemidorus' Interpretation of Dreams	109
Part II	Sensing Religious Selves
7	Sensory Reform in Deuteronomy	123
8	Locating the Sensing Body: Perception and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity	140
9	Dialogue and Deliberation: The Sensory Self in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist	163
Part III	Teaching Religious Selves
10	From Master of Wisdom to Spiritual Master in Late Antiquity	183
11	The Beastly Body in Rabbinic Self-Formation	197
12	Making Public the Monastic Life: Reading the Self in Evagrius Ponticus' Talking Back	222
13	The Student Self in Late Antiquity	234
	Contributors	253
	Subject Index	255
	Source Index	261