Wow! eBook
Belief and Unbelief in the Ancient World
Author(s): Taylor O. Gray (Editor), Ethan R. Johnson (Editor), Martina Vercesi (Editor)
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: July 31, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 288 pages
- ISBN-10: 0802878970
- ISBN-13: 9780802878977
Book Description
Discover what “belief” and “unbelief” meant in the ancient world
Popular portrayals of the ancient world often give the impression that the ancients held uniform views of the gods. Recent scholarship, however, has started to challenge such a reductive characterization. To that end, this volume brings together top scholars from a variety of disciplines to create a more nuanced picture of the diverse spectrum of belief and unbelief in the ancient world.
The contributors to this volume examine belief as it existed throughout the Mediterranean over the span of approximately a thousand years―a broader scope than most comparable studies, which tend to focus on a single period. The book’s breadth is evident not only in its chronology but also in its subject matter. The authors examine religious belief and unbelief in biblical and classical sources, material culture, and iconography, all within the contexts of ancient Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman religious culture.
Readers will come away with a better understanding of how diverse ancient belief was, how ancient communities expressed their faith through texts and translation, and how people in antiquity connected art and religion. Expansive and interdisciplinary, this book will be of interest to students and scholars working in classics, biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, and Greek and Roman iconography.
Contributors
Edward Armstrong
Erin Darby
Stefano De Feo
Michael Anthony Fowler
Thomas Harrison
David J. Johnston
Theodore J. Lewis
Teresa Morgan
Camilla Recalcati
Matthew T. Sharp
Brent A. Strawn
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This volume offers a refreshing and ambitious foray into the complex landscape of belief and unbelief across the ancient Mediterranean. . . . The interdisciplinary range and consistently high quality of scholarship make this a rewarding resource. It will appeal to readers interested in the intersections of religion, philosophy, and culture in antiquity.”
―CHOICE
“Cautious and well-evidenced scholarship on ancient belief matters, if only to save us from loading the exiguous record with more interpretative weight than it can bear.”
―Church Times
“What is the relation of belief, faith, and knowledge in antiquity? What was unbelief? Is it anachronistic to speak of belief and unbelief in ancient religion? Is un/belief in God/the gods a modern invention? Was ancient religion a matter of doing things with the gods rather believing in them? This collection of essays invites a reappraisal of ancient religion―Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian―under several aspects of belief and practice: material, cognitive, anthropological, textual, ritual, visual, spatial, and lived, to name only a few. In doing so it offers an expansive account of ancient religion, illuminating what its practitioners believed about the gods and about divine activity in the world. I recommend this book as a timely contribution to the discussion of the nature and practice of ancient religion and the beliefs that were associated with it.”
―Harry O. Maier, Vancouver School of Theology
“This new volume is a welcome contribution to current discussions of ancient religions, questions of belief and praxis, boundaries of admissible evidence, and methodologies for assessing what survives in language, symbol, and artefact. In the spirit of open dialogue and cross-pollination, the editors have granted contributors broad freedom to set both the material and parameters of their studies―inquiries spanning more than a thousand years of human experience across various cultures and periods. Various disciplines are represented, including philology, archaeology, theology, philosophy, hermeneutics, and art history. What results is a refreshingly nondogmatic collection of discrete character studies on the inner and external lives of people making sense of their world in the messy and not-so-distant past. Whether intended or by happy coincidence, a sequential reading of the essays will actively prevent audiences from drawing any convenient or safe conclusion, as is right in a conversation over belief and its opposites.”
―Mike Pope, Brigham Young University
“Compiled by a creative group of emerging scholars, this book offers fresh perspectives on ancient discourses on belief and unbelief, Christian and beyond. A fascinating collection that discusses interesting sources, offers innovative approaches, and provides new insights.”
―Tobias Nicklas, University of Regensburg
