Stroumsa ends his pre-history of comparative religion scholarship ( A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason , 160) with the observation that during the 19th century “the continuing degradation of the status of the Bible would dramatically weaken interest in the biblical . . . . Continue Reading »
Might Socrates and Plato have been inspired by God? Why not? asks Edwards ( The Miscellanies, 1153-1360 , #1162). After all, “Inspiration is not so high an honor and privilege as some are ready to think. It is no peculiar privilege of God’s special favorites. Many very bad men have been . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Edwards ( Notes on Scripture , 170-1), the conquest of Canaan sent shocks throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Joshua 11:8 states that Joshua chased Canaanites to Zidon, and they didn’t stop there: “Bedford . . . supposes that great numbers of them made their escape from . . . . Continue Reading »
Walter Burkert’s The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age and his Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture , along with ML West’s massive The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Discourses on Livy , Machiavelli pointed to the place of sacrifice in the establishment of Roman order. Sheehan ( Representations , 2009) summarizes the argument: “The Samnites knew that ‘it was necessary to induce obstinacy in the spirits of the soldiers, and that to induce it . . . . Continue Reading »
In a TLS review of several books on ancient perception, material, and architecture Peter Thonemann notes the dominance of circular architecture in “prehistoric” Europe, and asks whether this form carried some kind of symbolic weight. He cites an Athenian example: “The best-known . . . . Continue Reading »
Richard Jenkyns reviews Susan Ruden’s The Golden Ass in the current TLS . He highlights the oddity of Apuleius’s Latin style: “He did the things that classic Latin style had eschewed. He liked loosely hanging clauses, symmetries, echoing phrases, rocking rhythms and hints of . . . . Continue Reading »
Why did the Greeks and Romans sacrifice? The TLS reviewer of two new books on the subject, Smoke Signals for the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacrifice from the Archaic through Roman Periods and Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observers , summarizes the main theories, which come . . . . Continue Reading »
A typically rich passage from Milbank ( Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason ): “Augustine’s critique of pagan religion concerns also its many gods and the ritual relations of the city to these gods. A diversity of gods, governing different areas of cultural life, implies . . . . Continue Reading »
Athenian democracy was an effort to dislodge political power from the tangles of patronage. Athenians viewed dependence as virtual slavery, and created institutional structures to prevent indebtedness - real and symbolic. Many of these structures ensured rule by the demos in their various citizen . . . . Continue Reading »
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