Description
Book SynopsisSortilege—the making of decisions by casting lots—was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity, AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.
Trade Review"The present volume with contributions from well-established scholars of the field is a timely addition to the scholarship of sortition in late antiquity and middle ages and a valuable instrument for further research." - Florin Filimon, University of Münster, in: The Byzantine Review 2019.009 "The volume offers several important correctives to prevailing scholarly biases about sortes, especially their relationship to late antique Christianity (...) the editors ought to be congratulated for producing an excellent volume that will certainly serve as an essential guide for future scholarship on late antique sortilege and its practitioners." - Joseph E. Sanzo, University of Warwick, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review, September 2019 "En conclusion, ce volume collectif présente habilement les différentes facettes de la divination par le sort." - Fabio Spadini, in: Kernos 32, 2019 "This volume offers a necessary and helpful roadmap for the study of sortilege in late antiquity. (...) It compiles ancient lot texts and bibliography and addresses the subfield’s status quaestionis from various angles." - Carson Bay, in: Review of Biblical Literature 12, 2020
Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction 1 The Literature of Lot Divination AnneMarie Luijendijk and William E. Klingshirn 2 The Instruments of Lot Divination William E. Klingshirn 3 Fateful Spasms: Palmomancy and Late Antique Lot Divination Salvatore Costanza 4 Hermēneiai in Manuscripts of John’s Gospel: an Aid to Bibliomancy Kevin Wilkinson 5 Hermeneutics and Magic: a Unique Syriac Biblical Manuscript as an Oracle of Interpretation Jeff W. Childers 6 Secondhand Homer Michael Meerson 7 Sortes Biblicae Judaicae Pieter W. van der Horst 8 The Sortes Barberinianae within the Tradition of Oracular Texts Randall Stewart 9 Oxyrhynchus and Oracles in Late Antiquity Alexander Kocar 10 Sortes, Scribality, and Syncretism: Ritual Experts and the Great Tradition in Byzantine Egypt David Frankfurter 11 Sortilege between Divine Ordeals and “Secular” Justice: Aspects of Jurisdiction in (Ritual) Texts from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt Franziska Naether 12 Freakonomika: Oracle as Economic Indicator in Roman Egypt David M. Ratzan 13 “I Do Not Wish to Be Rich”: The ‘Barbarian’ Christian Tatian Responds to Sortes Laura Salah Nasrallah 14 “Only Do Not Be of Two Minds”: Doubt in Christian Lot Divination AnneMarie Luijendijk Bibliography Index
