Der Band enthält dreizehn Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1990-97, die teils in deutscher und teils in englischer Sprache verfaßt sind. Der Titel zeigt die schwerpunktmäßige Thematik der Einzelstudien an: die urchristliche Literatur in der Auseinandersetzung mit Antike und Christentum. Eine erste Gruppe ist der Erforschung des historischen Jesus gewidmet, eine zweite den Problemen der Entstehung des Christentums, eine dritte der nichtchristlichen religiösen Welt des Hellenismus (besonders Magie, Heroenkult, Hermetik). Im vierten Teil erörtert Hans Dieter Betz die berühmten orphischen Goldplättchen und lenkt zu Paulus zurück. Den Abschluß bildet eine grundsätzliche Darstellung der Problematik von Antike und Christentum.

Professor Dihle sees the Greek and Latin literature between the 1st century B.C. and the 6th century A.D. as an organic progression. He builds on Schlegel's observation that art, customs and political life in classical antiquity are inextricably entwined and therefore should not be examined separately. Dihle does not simply consider narrowly defined `literature', but all works of cultural socio-historical significance, including Jewish and Christian literature, philosophy and science. Despite this, major authors like Seneca, Tacitus and Plotinus are considered individually. This work is an authoritative yet personal presentation of seven hundred years of literature.

Concepts of voluntary death and martyrdom versus the ideal of preserving human life are an essential component of the Ethics of the Abrahamite religions throughout their history. The studies collected in this volume focus on concepts of voluntary death and martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Period Judaism, Early Christianity and its pagan environment, Rabbinic Judaism as well as in Islam. The contributions of scholars of different background present a broad panorama of the varied perspectives of the Abrahamite religions on this phenomenon. The established concepts of martyrdom are challenged as too schematic. Betrachtungen über das Ideal eines freiwilligen Todes für den eigenen Glauben oder eines Martyriums, das in scharfem Gegensatz zum Gebot der Lebensbewahrung steht, ziehen sich durch die Geschichte der abrahamitischen Religionen. Der vorliegende interdisziplinäre Band versammelt Forschungen zu den Vorstellungen eines religiös begründeten freiwilligen Todes oder Martyriums in der Hebräischen Bibel, im Judentum des Zweiten Tempels, im Frühchristentum und seiner paganen Umwelt, im rabbinischen Judentum und im Islam. Die Beiträge verdeutlichen die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven der abrahamitischen Religionen auf dieses Phänomen. Es zeigt sich, dass die übergreifende, verallgemeinernde Charakterisierung jedes religiös bedingten freiwilligen Sterbens als 'Martyrium' der Komplexität des Phänomens nicht gerecht wird.

"This book centers on The Gospel of the Lots of Mary, a previously unknown text preserved in a fifth- or sixth-century Coptic miniature codex. It presents the first critical edition and translation of this new text. My book is also a project about religious praxis and authority, as I situate the manuscript within the context of practices of and debates around divination in the ancient Mediterranean world."--Preface, p. [vii].

This volume provides an annotated bibliography of the Western and Chinese literature on Jesus Christ in China. It is a sequel to the interdisciplinary collection on the manifold faces and images of Jesus throughout Chinese history, from the Tang dynasty (618 907) to the present time.The present bibliography broadens and deepens the above-mentioned subject matter, and also points out aspects which have been addressed in the contributions and anthologies of the previous volumes of The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ, but which have not been treated thoroughly. Another aim of this bibliography is to initiate and enable further research, particularly in China. It includes bibliographical data from the beginning of the introduction of Christianity to China until the year 2013, occasionally also until 2014. A list ofKey References enables the reader to identify important works on main topics related to Jesus Christ in China. Some examples of book covers and title pages are included in the section ofIllustrations.Other volumes of the collection The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ are in preparation: Vol. 3c will present longer quotations from the sources listed in the present bibliography, Vol. 4b will contain a general index with glossary, and Vol. 5 will deal with the iconography of Jesus Christ in China.

The late antique and the early medieval periods witnessed the flourishing of bishops in the West as the main articulators of social life. This influential position exposed them to several threats, both political and religious. Researchers have generally addressed violence, rebellions or conflicts to study the dynamics related to secular powers during these periods. They haven’t paid similar attention, however, to those analogous contexts that had bishops as protagonists. This book proposes an approach to bishops as threatened subjects in the late antique and early medieval West. In particular, the volume pursues three main goals. Firstly, it aims to identify the different types of threats that bishops had to deal with. Then it sets out to frame these situations of adversity in their own contexts. Finally, it will address the episcopal strategies deployed to deal with such contexts of adversity. In sum, we aim to underline the impact that these contexts had as a dynamiting factor of episcopal action. Thus the episcopal threats may become a useful approach to study the bishops’ relationships with other agents of power, the motivations behind their actions and – last but not least – for understanding the episcopal rising power

The perception of demons in late antiquity was determined by the cultural and religious contexts. Therefore the authors of this volume take into consideration a wide variety of texts stemming from different religious milieus ranging from spells, apocalypses, martyrdom literature to hagiography and focus specifically on the literary aspects of the transformation of the demonic in this period of transition.

The comparative study of empires has traditionally been addressed in the widest possible global historical perspective with comparison of New World empires such as the Aztecs and Incas side by side with the history of imperial Rome and the empires of China and Russia in the medieval and modern periods. Surprisingly little work has been carried out focusing on the evolution of state control and imperial administration in the same territory; approached in a rigorous and historically grounded fashion over a wide extent of historical time from late antiquity to the twentieth century. The empires of Rome, Byzantium, the Ottomans and the latter-day imperialists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all inherited or seized and sought to develop overlapping parts of a common territorial base in the Eastern Mediterranean and all struggled to contain, control or otherwise alter the political, cultural and spiritual allegiances of the same indigenous population groups that were brought under their rule and administration. The task undertaken in Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean is to investigate the balance between continuity and change adopted at various historical conjunctures when new imperial regimes were established and to expose common features and shared approaches to the challenge of imperial rule that united otherwise divergent societies and imperial administrations. The work incorporates the contributions by twelve scholars, each leading practitioners in their respective fields and each contributing their particular insights on the shared theme of imperial identity and legacy in the Mediterranean World of the pagan, Christian and Muslim eras.

The history of Roman imperial religion is of fundamental importance to the history of religion in Europe. Emerging from a decade of research, From Jupiter to Christ demonstrates that the decisive change within the Roman imperial period was not a growing number of religions or changes in their ranking and success, but a modification of the idea of 'religion' and a change in the social place of religious practices and beliefs. Religion is shown to be transformed from a medium serving the individual necessities - dealing with human contingencies like sickness, insecurity, and death - and a medium serving the public formation of political identity, into an encompassing system of ways of life, group identities, and political legitimation. Instead of offering an encyclopaedic presentation of religious beliefs, symbols, and practices throughout the period, the volume thematically presents the media that manifested and diffused religion (institutions, texts, and law), and analyses representative cases. It asks how religion changed in processes of diffusion and immigration, how fast (or how slow) practices and institutions were appropriated and modified, and reveals how these changes made Roman religion 'exportable', creating those forms of intellectualisation and enscripturation which made religion an autonomous area, different from other social fields.