Ancient Mediterranean sacrifice
Journal Data
| Type | SOURCE_BOOK |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (GB) |
| ISBN-13 | 9780199738960 |
| Open Library | OL16296200W |
| Total publications | 4 |
| Coverage period | 2011 - 2011 |
| Language | EN |
Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice reappraises the diverse religious texts and practices of the late Hellenistic and Roman periods, investigating the meanings and functions of sacrifice in the ancient world. Gathering together essays that address sacrificial acts, ancient theories of sacrifice, and literary as well as artistic depictions of sacrifice, the connections between Mediterranean religions are highlighted, as are the significant differences among them. The attempt to identify a single underlying significance of sacrifice, this collection demonstrates, is futile. It is simply not adequate to define sacrifice solely as a primal expression of violence, despite the frequent equation of sacrifice-religion and sacrifice-violence in many modern scholarly works, nor is it sufficient to suggest that all sacrifice can be explained by guilt, by the need to prepare and distribute animal flesh, or by the communal function of both the sacrificial ritual and the meal. Sacrifice may be invested with all of these meanings, or none of them: the killing of the animal, for example, may take place off stage and the practical, day-to-day routine of plant and animal offerings may have been invested with little meaning at all. Still, sacrificial acts, or discourses about these acts, did offer an important site of contestation for many ancient writers, even when the religions they were defending no longer participated in sacrifice. Negotiations over the meaning of sacrifice remained central to the competitive machinations of the literate elite, and their sophisticated theological arguments did not so much undermine sacrificial practice as continue to assume its essential validity.
Bonds of Flesh and Blood
Philippa Townsend places the theories of sacrifice put forward by the Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry within a complex of ethnic tradition, sacrificial ritual and imperial rule developed during the consolidation of the Roman Empire. Porphyry’s own critique of sacrifice, which included an extension of shared kinship to all of humanity and to non-human animals as well, attenuated boundaries based on birth or race even as conventional distinctions…
The Embarrassment of Blood
Laura Nasrallah analyzes first- and second-century discourses concerning human sacrifice, both in contemporary Roman art and in the language of Roman and Christian writings. She identifies four major discursive sites in which sacrifice was thematized: first, in polemical accusations of human sacrifice; second, in discussions of humans as appropriate living, rational sacrifices to the gods, if those humans are philosophically and theologically tra…
Political Murder and Sacrifice
Ancient Mediterranean sacrifice
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Bonds of Flesh and Blood
Philippa Townsend places the theories of sacrifice put forward by the Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry within a complex of ethnic tradition, sacrificial ritual and imperial rule developed during the consolidation of the Roman Empire. Porphyry’s own critique of sacrifice, which included an extension of shared kinship to all of humanity and to non-human animals as well, attenuated boundaries based on birth or race even as conventional distinctions…
The Embarrassment of Blood
Laura Nasrallah analyzes first- and second-century discourses concerning human sacrifice, both in contemporary Roman art and in the language of Roman and Christian writings. She identifies four major discursive sites in which sacrifice was thematized: first, in polemical accusations of human sacrifice; second, in discussions of humans as appropriate living, rational sacrifices to the gods, if those humans are philosophically and theologically tra…
Political Murder and Sacrifice
Ancient Mediterranean sacrifice