Travel and Religion in Antiquity

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.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 08 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554583447
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TRAVEL AND RELIGION IN ANTIQUITY
Studies in Christianity and and Judaism / tudes sur le christianisme et le juda sme : 21
Studies in Christianity and Judaism / tudes sur le christianisme et le juda sme publishes monographs on Christianity and Judaism in the last two centuries before the common era and the first six centuries of the common era, with a special interest in studies of their interrelationships or the cultural and social context in which they developed.
S ERIES E DITOR : Terence L. Donaldson, Wycliff College
Studies in Christianity and and Judaism / tudes sur le christianisme et le juda sme : 21
TRAVEL AND RELIGION IN ANTIQUITY
PHILIP A. HARLAND
EDITOR
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through its Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Travel and religion in antiquity / Philip A. Harland, editor.
(Studies in Christianity and Judaism ; 21)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55458-222-8
1. Travel - Religious aspects - History - To 1500. 2. Travel - Religious aspects - Christianity - History - To 1500. 3. Travel - Religious aspects - Judaism - History - To 1500. 4. Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages - Mediterranean Region - History - To 1500. 5. Jewish pilgrims and pilgrimages - Mediterranean Region - History - To 1500. 6. Mediterranean Region - Religious life and customs. 7. Greece - Religious life and customs. 8. Mediterranean Region - Antiquities. 9. Greece - Antiquities. I. Harland, Philip A. (Philip Alan), 1969 - II. Series: Studies in Christianity and Judaism ; 21
DF121.T73 2011 203 .50938 C2010-907859-4
Electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55458-240-2 (PDF), ISBN 978-1-55458-344-7 (EPUB)
1. Travel - Religious aspects - History - To 1500. 2. Travel - Religious aspects - Christianity - History - To 1500. 3. Travel - Religious aspects - Judaism - History - To 1500. 4. Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages - Mediterranean Region - History - To 1500. 5. Jewish pilgrims and pilgrimages - Mediterranean Region - History - To 1500. 6. Mediterranean Region - Religious life and customs. 7. Greece - Religious life and customs. 8. Mediterranean Region - Antiquities. 9. Greece - Antiquities. I. Harland, Philip A. (Philip Alan), 1969- II. Series: Studies in Christianity and Judaism ; 21
DF121.T73 2011a 203 .50938 C2010-907860-8
Published for the Canadian Corporation for the Studies in Religion/Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
2011 Lincoln Blumell, Karlj rgen G. Feuerherm, Susan Haber, Philip A. Harland, Jack N. Lightstone, Wayne O. McCready, Steven Muir, Michele Murray, James Rives, Ryan S. Schellenberg, and Ian W. Scott
Cover design by Sandra Friesen. Cover photo: Altar erected by Titus Albanius Principianus for the imperial household with reference to safety in travel ( CIL VI 25155, now in the Capitoline museum in Rome). Photo 2011 Philip Harland. Text design by Daiva Villa, Chris Rowat Design.
This book is printed on FSC recycled paper and is certified Ecologo. It is made from 100% post-consumer fibre, processed chlorine free, and manufactured using biogas energy.
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this publication and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
In memory of Susan Haber
Contents
Map: The Ancient Mediterranean
Preface
I Pausing at the Intersection of Religion and Travel Philip A. Harland
HONOURING THE GODS
II Religion on the Road in Ancient Greece and Rome Steven Muir
III Going Up to Jerusalem: Pilgrimage, Purity, the Historical Jesus Susan Haber
IV Pilgrimage, Place, and Meaning Making by Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt Wayne O. McCready
V Have Horn, Will Travel: The Journeys of Mesopotamian Deities Karlj rgen G. Feuerherm
PROMOTING A DEITY OR WAY OF LIFE
VI The Divine Wanderer: Travel and Divinization in Late Antiquity Ian W. Scott
VII Journeys in Pursuit of Divine Wisdom: Thessalos and Other Seekers Philip A. Harland
VIII Danger in the wilderness, danger at sea : Paul and the Perils of Travel Ryan S. Schellenberg
ENCOUNTERING FOREIGN CULTURES
IX Roman Translation: Tacitus and Ethnographic Interpretation James B. Rives
MIGRATING
X Migration and the Emergence of Greco-Roman Diaspora Judaism Jack N. Lightstone
MAKING A LIVING
XI Religion and the Nomadic Lifestyle: The Nabateans Michele Murray
XII Christians on the Move in Late Antique Oxyrhynchus Lincoln H. Blumell
Works Cited
The Ancient Mediterranean
Map base copyright 2010, Ancient World Mapping Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill www.unc.edu/awmc . Used by permission. Map prepared by Philip A. Harland.
Preface
The chapters in this volume represent the first fruits of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Travel and Religion in Antiquity seminar, which began in the Spring of 2005. I would like to thank the members of that seminar and others in the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS) who made the seminar a success during my years coordinating it. Several research assistants provided valuable assistance at various stages of this project: Angela Brkich, Sacha Mathew, and Daniel Bernard (Concordia University); Agnes Choi (University of Toronto); and William den Hollander II (York University). This volume is dedicated to Susan Haber, whose untimely passing in July 2006 deeply affected all who knew her, including her colleagues in the CSBS. Her contribution to the seminar shortly before her death, which appears in this volume, begins to show how we have lost a promising scholar.
I would like to thank the Society of Biblical Literature for permission to include a revised version of Susan Haber s contribution, Going up to Jerusalem, which originally appeared in Susan Haber and Adele Reinhartz, eds., They Shall Purify Themselves : Essays on Purity in Early Judaism (Early Judaism and Its Literature, 24; Leiden: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008).
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
I Pausing at the Intersection of Religion and Travel
Philip A. Harland YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO
In Lucian s satirical dialogue, The Ship , several men travel from Athens to the Piraeus to witness a large vessel, the Isis , that had lost her course and docked there on her way from Egypt to Italy. Subtle yet significant throughout this fictional dialogue are the connections between travel and religion, or honouring and soliciting the gods. The vessel personifies Isis, whose image is displayed on both sides ( Nav . 5). The captain speaks of the terrors encountered in rough waters and of how the gods were moved by [the shippers ] lamentations and showed them the way in the pitch dark. Furthermore, one of the Dioscuri put a bright star on the masthead, and guided the ship in a turn to port into the open sea, just as it was driving on to the cliff ( Nav . 8-9). Discussion of the whole incident reminds the men of a pilgrimage they had made to Aegina two days earlier (in a contrastingly small boat) to take part in the rites of Enodia (Hecate), guardian of the crossroads.
These passing references in one of Lucian s writings pale in comparison to an abundance of untapped evidence concerning the intersection of mobility and human activities relating to the gods in the ancient Mediterranean. Pausing at this intersection to reflect on its significance may provide a new vantage point on aspects of cultural life in the ancient world, including but not limited to Judaism and Christianity. Scholarly studies have looked at realities of travel in antiquity, and some have begun to consider issues pertaining to pilgrimage and ethnography, for instance. Lacking, however, has been a concerted effort to consider the ways in which realities of travel and discourses of travel played a role in religious life.
This volume of essays, representing the first fruits of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Travel and Religion in Antiquity Seminar, begins to address this need. Here in the introduction I begin to map out the territory where mobility and religion intersect and provide some direction on our journey into this largely uncharted territory. After surveying some scholarship in this field, I outline five main areas where travel and religion intersect, with a focus on the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Roman Empire.
Trajectories in Scholarship
Recent work on mobility and transportation is beginning to offer many useful tools for this project, even though the subject of religion and travel specifically has been addressed in only limited, albeit useful, ways.