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Seeing the God

Ways of Envisioning the Divine in Ancient Mediterranean Religion


Edited by Jeffrey B. Pettis
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"When people prayed, they expected their gods to come," wrote Robin Lane Fox, providing the impetus for this volume of collected essays exploring the concept of how the ancients “envisioned” the deities within various ancient religious traditions. The perspectives of Judaism, Gnosticism, Syriac Christianity, Byzantium, and Classical Greco-Roman religion and philosophy are considered. Specific emphasis is given to phenomena such as dreams, visions, and initiatory rites mediating the divine encounter.
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Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Availability: In stock
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-61143-251-0
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Publication Status: In Print
Series: Perspectives on Philosophy and Religious Thought5
Publication Date: Jan 10,2013
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 240
Languages: English
ISBN: 978-1-61143-251-0
$143.00 (USD)
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Seeing the God: Ways of Envisioning the Divine in Ancient Mediterranean Religion is a collection of scholarly essays exploring the concept of how the ancients “envisioned” the deities within various religious traditions, including Judaism, Gnosticism, Syriac Christianity, Byzantium, and Classical Greco-Roman religion and philosophy.
In this book, specific attention is given to phenomena such as dreams, day or night-time visions, and initiation rites perceived as mediums of divine encounter. The work derives from an idea of Robin Lane Fox, who, in his Pagans and Christians writes, “When people prayed, they expected their gods to come, from the age of Homer to the last Platonists in the fifth century A.D.”

Seeing the God: Ways of Envisioning the Divine in Ancient Mediterranean Religion is a collection of scholarly essays exploring the concept of how the ancients “envisioned” the deities within various religious traditions, including Judaism, Gnosticism, Syriac Christianity, Byzantium, and Classical Greco-Roman religion and philosophy.
In this book, specific attention is given to phenomena such as dreams, day or night-time visions, and initiation rites perceived as mediums of divine encounter. The work derives from an idea of Robin Lane Fox, who, in his Pagans and Christians writes, “When people prayed, they expected their gods to come, from the age of Homer to the last Platonists in the fifth century A.D.”

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ContributorBiography

JeffreyPettis

Jeffrey B. Pettis teaches in the Department of Theology at Fordham University. He holds a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary, New York, and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has contributed entries on ancient dreams in various academic encyclopedias and journals.

Jared Calaway

Todd French

Celene Lillie

John McGuckin

John A McGuckin is the Nielsen Professor of Early Christian History at Union Theological Seminary, and Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University,in the city of New York. He is an Orthodox ArchPriest, and a leading international patristic theologian with extensive publications in the fields of New Testament Studies and Early Christian culture.

SergeyTrostyanskiy

Sergey Trostyanskiy is currently a Research Fellow of the Sophia Institute of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox studies, New York and Union Theological Seminary, New York. He holds a PhD from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. His research interests include Byzantine history and philosophy. His monograph on St. Cyril of Alexandria is appearing in the Studies in Church History Series of Peter Lang Press.

  • Table of Contents (page 5)
  • Preface - Jeffrey B. Pettis (page 7)
  • Introduction - Jeffrey B. Pettis (page 9)
  • Seeing the God in the Greco-Roman World - Jeffrey B. Pettis (page 21)
  • Visions and Violence: Seeing God in the Nag Hammadi Codices - Celene Lillie (page 45)
  • Seeing the Divine in Platonism; Plato and Plotinus - Sergey Trostyanskiy (page 69)
  • Seeing the God and Early Christian Literature - John A. McGuckin and Jeff Pettis (page 107)
    • The Ambivalences of Seeing in the Gospel Narratives - John A. McGuckin (page 107)
    • Seeing the God and Paul - Jeffrey B. Pettis (page 131)
  • To See God and Live in Late Antique Judaism - Jared C. Calaway (page 147)
  • Seeing the God in the Syriac Tradition - Todd French (page 189)
  • Seeing Divine Things in Byzantine Christianity - John A. McGuckin (page 225)
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