Actualities: Travel and Religion in Antiquity

The volume edited by Philip A. Harland, Travel and Religion in Antiquity. (Waterloo:  Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011.  Pp. xii, 289) is a part of the famous series of Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaisme. As every book or article of the named scholar, this volume has also a webpage too, with very useful information (HERE). 

A short description of the book and the topic: "Travel and Religion in Antiquity is a book by a group of scholars that explores the ways in which travel and mobility influenced, constrained, and facilitated religious activity and cultural interaction in antiquity, especially in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This encompasses issues pertaining to ancient travel literature, ethnography, pilgrimage, topography of sacred space, occupational travelers, and migration. Discourses of travel and the function of journey motifs within narrative and other sources also occupy the contributions in this study. Although certainly not limited to studies of early Judaism and Christianity, the contributions shed light on how such topics relating to travel affected adherents, leaders, authors, and movements within these traditions.  The book is the outcome of a multi-year seminar within the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS)". 

Content: 

INTRODUCTION

1 Pausing at the Intersection of Religion and Travel (Philip A. Harland)

HONOURING THE GODS

2 Religion on the Road in Ancient Greece and Rome (Steven Muir)
3 Going Up to Jerusalem: Pilgrimage and the Historical Jesus (Susan Haber)
4 Pilgrimage, Place, and Meaning-Making by Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt (Wayne O. McCready)
5 Have Horn, Will Travel: The Journeys of Mesopotamian Deities (Karljürgen G. Feuerherm)

PROMOTING A DEITY OR WAY OF LIFE

6 The Divine Wanderer: Travel and Divinization in Late Antiquity (Ian W. Scott)
7 Journeys in Pursuit of Divine Wisdom: Stories of Thessalos and Other Seekers(Philip A. Harland)

8 “Danger in the Wilderness, Danger at Sea”: Paul and Perils of Travel (Ryan Schellenberg)

ENCOUNTERING FOREIGN CULTURES

9 Roman Translation: Tacitus and Ethnographic Interpretation (James Rives)

MIGRATING

10 Migration and the Emergence of Greco-Roman Diaspora Judaism (Jack N. Lightstone)

MAKING A LIVING

11 Religion and the Nomadic Lifestyle: The Nabateans (Michele Murray)
12 Christians on the Move in Late Antique Oxyrhynchus (Lincoln Blumell)

Detailed review of the book: HERE.

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