Religion And the Self in Antiquity

by Brakke, David; Satlow, Michael L.; Weitzman, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780253217967
• ISBN10: 0253217962
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

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.David Brakke is Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of History at Indiana University. He is the author of Athanasius and Asceticism and co-editor of Reading in Christian Communities: Essays on Interpretation in the Early Church. He serves as co-editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies.Michael Satlow is an Associate Professor in the Program in Judaic Studies and the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University, and specializes in the study of early Judaism. He has written extensively on issues of Jewish marriage and sexuality in antiquity, the Dead Sea scrolls, and Jewish history and theology.Steven Weitzman is the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and Director of the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University. He is the author of Song and Story in Biblical Narrative, Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity (forthcoming from Harvard University Press in 2005), and has written articles published in the Journal of Religion, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, the Harvard Theological Review, and the Journal of Biblical Literature. He is also Associate Director of the Tel Beth Shemesh excavations.

Author Biography

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 is the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and Director of the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(14)
Part I SEEKING RELIGIOUS SELVES
Shifting Selves in Late Antiquity	15	(25)
Patricia Cox Miller
The Search for the Elusive Self in Texts of the Hebrew Bible	40	(11)
Saul M. Olyan
Paul and the Slave Self	51	(19)
J. Albert Harrill
Prayer of the Queen: Esther's Religious Self in the Septuagint	70	(21)
Esther Menn
Giving for a Return: Jewish Votive Offerings in Late Antiquity	91	(18)
Michael L. Satlow
The Self in Artemidorus' Interpretation of Dreams	109	(14)
Peter T. Struck
Part II SENSING RELIGIOUS SELVES
Sensory Reform in Deuteronomy	123	(17)
Steven Weitzman
Locating the Sensing Body: Perception and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity	140	(23)
Susan Ashbrook Harvey
Dialogue and Deliberation: The Sensory Self in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist	163	(20)
Georgia Frank
Part III TEACHING RELIGIOUS SELVES
From Master of Wisdom to Spiritual Master in Late Antiquity	183	(14)
Guy G. Stroumsa
The Beastly Body in Rabbinic Self-Formation	197	(25)
Jonathan Schofer
Making Public the Monastic Life: Reading the Self in Evagrius Ponticus' Talking Back	222	(12)
David Brakke
The Student Self in Late Antiquity	234	(19)
Edward Watts
Contributors	253	(2)
Subject Index	255	(6)
Source Index	261