Description
Book SynopsisIn the first century, the Jewish Jesus, his followers, and the Pythagorean Apollonius journeyed widely, each to spread their good news. Spectral Lives by Luke and Philostratus: Journeying of Holy Men studies their biographers, Luke and Philostratus, and how they felt ethically compelled to tell their stories of good news to help their world. Post Enlightenment developments in historiography have expanded understanding of ancient texts with a “third dimension,” a transhuman habitat evident in ancient texts. In this book, Robert Lee Williams investigates how affect theory has sensitized interpreters to inner awareness of humans to their world, both beneficial and harmful, recorded in emotional responses. Survey of biographers from 500 BCE to 300 CE shows Luke and Philostratus particularly attuned to the journeying impelled by the deities and their spectral agents, forces active in their world ethically for good. Journeying from ghostly influences proves to be both more evident in texts than noticed since the Enlightenment and more indispensable for spreading the good and the right to our world, ethically and equitably.
Table of ContentsList of Maps
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Biographical Writings: 500 BCE to 300 CE
Part I First Century Biographies: Jewish and Christian
Chapter 2: Philo: Ancient Jewish Lives
Chapter 3: Luke: The Gospel
Chapter 4: Luke: The Acts of the Apostles
Part II: Third Century Biographies: Pythagorean
Chapter 5: Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Chapter 6: Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Way of Life
Conclusion
Bibliography
