Search results for ""Author Jörg Rüpke""

Provocative reading for anyone interested in Roman culture in the late Republic and early Empire.― Religious Studies Review Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? Jörg Rüpke, one of the world’s leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his new book that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, Rüpke highlights the dynamic character of Rome’s religious institutions and traditions. In Rüpke’s view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. Rüpke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. Rüpke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.

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Gegenstand dieses Bandes sind die Feste der antiken Gesellschaften. Die Beiträge blicken auf das Fest als Ort von religiösem Austausch auch über die Grenzen einer politischen oder religiösen Gemeinschaft hinweg. Die Diffusion von Festen und Festpraktiken gerät in den Blick. Große öffentliche Feste waren der Ort, an der religiöse Kommunikation an einem Ort besonders intensiv und breitenwirksam wurde. Die ständig vorhandenen Zeichen - Kultstätten oder gar Kultstatuen, religiöse Rollen - wurden ins Licht gerückt, wurden für wenigstens ein Fest im Jahr aktualisiert. Die Dramaturgie des Festes machte viele zu Akteuren, mehr Personen noch zu Zuschauern: Rituelle Elemente wie Schauspiele, Zirkusspiele oder Prozessionen ermöglichten eine solche Beteiligung für viele in Städten und wurden zum Anziehungspunkt für Festgäste von außerhalb, 'Touristen'. Professionelle Athleten, Schauspieler und Festredner verbreiteten neue Praktiken und Standards. Der Wettbewerb zwischen den Städten und in den städtischen Eliten war ein wichtiger Motor von Innovationen und der Neuerfindung von Festen. Beiträge über auswärtige Festbesucher, Kalenderexporte und über Feste zu Ehren des römischen Herrscherhauses lassen diese Funktionen wie die Realität antiker Feste greifbar werden, die Weinkulte wie Mysterien einschlossen.

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Provocative reading for anyone interested in Roman culture in the late Republic and early Empire.― Religious Studies Review Was religious practice in ancient Rome cultic and hostile to individual expression? Or was there, rather, considerable latitude for individual initiative and creativity? Jörg Rüpke, one of the world’s leading authorities on Roman religion, demonstrates in his new book that it was a lived religion with individual appropriations evident at the heart of such rituals as praying, dedicating, making vows, and reading. On Roman Religion definitively dismantles previous approaches that depicted religious practice as uniform and static. Juxtaposing very different, strategic, and even subversive forms of individuality with traditions, their normative claims, and their institutional protections, Rüpke highlights the dynamic character of Rome’s religious institutions and traditions. In Rüpke’s view, lived ancient religion is as much about variations or even outright deviance as it is about attempts and failures to establish or change rules and roles and to communicate them via priesthoods, practices related to images or classified as magic, and literary practices. Rüpke analyzes observations of religious experience by contemporary authors including Propertius, Ovid, and the author of the "Shepherd of Hermas." These authors, in very different ways, reflect on individual appropriation of religion among their contemporaries, and they offer these reflections to their readership or audiences. Rüpke also concentrates on the ways in which literary texts and inscriptions informed the practice of rituals.

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A comprehensive treatment of the significant symbols and institutions of Roman religion, this companion places the various religious symbols, discourses, and practices, including Judaism and Christianity, into a larger framework to reveal the sprawling landscape of the Roman religion. An innovative introduction to Roman religion Approaches the field with a focus on the human-figures instead of the gods Analyzes religious changes from the eighth century BC to the fourth century AD Offers the first history of religious motifs on coins and household/everyday utensils Presents Roman religion within its cultural, social, and historical contexts

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Die Autoren der Beiträge in diesem Band, der aus einem Kolloquium des Schwerpunktprogramm "Römische Reichs- und Provinzialreligion" erwachsen ist, konzentrieren sich auf eine besondere Sozialform von Religion, nämlich auf Religionen, die sich über das Prinzip der Mitgliedschaft oder "Einweihung" als dauerhafte Kultgruppen organisieren. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Fragen nach der internen Strukturierung und der kultischen Intensivierung: Wie werden die Sozialbeziehungen in religiösen Gruppen strukturiert, strukturieren Mitgliedschaften und Einweihungen religiöse Biographien? Welche Rolle spielen Kulträume einerseits, die Frequenz von Kultakten und gemeinsamen Banketten andererseits? Dabei richtet sich der Blick auf das Verhältnis von Gruppenreligionen zu anderen traditionellen, öffentlichen oder krisenorientierten Kulten in lokalen Kontexten. Es wird deutlich, wie stark die scheinbar exklusiven religiösen Gruppierungen in lokale Religion integriert sind und zugleich auf der Basis geteilter Annahmen das kultische wie theologische Spektrum vergrößern. Ein wichtiges Ergebnis gegenüber der jüngeren Forschung zu religiösen Vereinen ist, daß der Organisationsgrad viel wechselhafter war, oft auch niedriger, die Lebensdauer der religiöse Gruppen viel kürzer, als unterstellt. Das Spektrum begann bei Kulten von Familien und Haussklaven; "Dachorganisationen", die örtliche Gruppen zusammenfassten, kamen nur selten und nicht immer dauerhaft zustande.

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What is a religion? What triggered the spontaneous development of distinct religions throughout the ancient world? How do religions evoke the ultimate realities they claim to address? Such questions are as evergreen as belief itself. The Hellenistic and Roman worlds were a fertile seedbed of the monotheistic faiths that dominate today's western image of religion, as well as many global conflicts. In this concise and elegant overview, Jorg Rupke addresses the similarities and differences of religions in antiquity, tracing their sometimes complex lineage into modern systems of belief. Greek and Roman religion is discussed not in isolation, but in the broader context of western Asia and Egypt. The author also addresses developments relating to early Islam on the south-eastern margins of the Byzantine Empire. Examining such topics as the functions of priests and religious functionaries; religious individualism; the relationship between religion and political identity; the acceptance of the pagan Julian calendar by Christians; and contrasting ancient and modern understandings of divination, Rupke shows that study of pre-modern culture enables us more daringly to explore the contemporary religious world.

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A comprehensive treatment of the significant symbols and institutions of Roman religion, this companion places the various religious symbols, discourses, and practices, including Judaism and Christianity, into a larger framework to reveal the sprawling landscape of the Roman religion. An innovative introduction to Roman religion Approaches the field with a focus on the human-figures instead of the gods Analyzes religious changes from the eighth century BC to the fourth century AD Offers the first history of religious motifs on coins and household/everyday utensils Presents Roman religion within its cultural, social, and historical contexts

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A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity, primarily in the Greco-Roman world. • Features readings that focus on religious experience and expression in the ancient world rather than solely on religious belief • Places a strong emphasis on domestic and individual religious practice • Represents the first time that the concept of “lived religion” is applied to the ancient history of religion and archaeology of religion • Includes cutting-edge data taken from top contemporary researchers and theorists in the field • Examines a large variety of themes and religious traditions across a wide geographical area and chronological span • Written to appeal equally to archaeologists and historians of religion

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To understand the past, we necessarily group people together and, consequently, frequently assume that all of its members share the same attributes. In this ground-breaking volume, Éric Rebillard and Jörg Rüpke bring renowned scholars together to challenge this norm by seeking to rediscover the individual and to explore the dynamics between individuals and the groups to which they belong.Instead of taking religious groups as their point of departure, the authors in Group Identity and Religious Individuality in Late Antiquity address the methodological challenges attached to a rescaling of the analysis at the level of the individual. In particular, they explore the tension between looking for evidence about individuals and taking individuals into account when looking at evidence. Too often, the lack of direct evidence on individuals is used as a justification for taking the group as the unit of analysis. However, evidence on group life can be read with individuals as the focal point. What it reveals is how complex is the interaction of group identity and religious individuality.The questions examined by these authors include the complex relationships between institutional religions and religious individuals, the possibility of finding evidence on individual religiosity and exploring the multiplicity of roles and identities that characterizes every individual. Shifting the attention towards individuals also calls into question the assumption of groups and invites the study of group-making process. The result is a picture that makes room for dynamic tension between group identity and religious individuality.

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This book provides a definitive account of the history of the Roman calendar, offering new reconstructions of its development that demand serious revisions to previous accounts. Examines the critical stages of the technical, political, and religious history of the Roman calendar Provides a comprehensive historical and social contextualization of ancient calendars and chronicles Highlights the unique characteristics which are still visible in the most dominant modern global calendar

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Die Beiträger und Beiträgerinnen dieses Bandes fragen nach den Formen und der Veränderung von Autorkonzepten speziell in religiösen Texten griechisch-römischer, frühjüdischer und frühchristlicher Provenienz im antiken Mittelmeerraum. In zwölf Fallstudien, die zeit- und literaturgeschichtlich von Ben Sira bis zu Tertullian reichen, werden die Vorstellungen von individueller Produktion von und Verantwortung für literarische Texte und die Selbstinszenierung des Verfassers als eines orthonym, anonym oder pseudepigraph tätigen Autors untersucht. Der Autor sieht sich zugleich als religiöser Akteur. So stellt sich die Frage: Was können wir über einen antiken literarisch wie religiös ambitionierten Autor und sein Selbstverständnis in Erfahrung bringen? Die in diesem Band im Rahmen der antiken Religionsgeschichte erprobte Autorforschung, die literarische Texte als auktorial geformte "religiöse Texte" wahrnimmt, ermöglicht zugleich wertvolle Einsichten in die Erzeugung von religiösem Wissen und in die individuelle literarische Tätigkeit von "religiösen" Akteuren.

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Did new senses of the self emerge in the High Roman Empire, and if so what were the religious corollaries? Were such changes connected to processes of institutional change? Could they usefully be described as "individualisation"? These are the key concerns of the authors of this volume. They address the field of Hellenistic philosophy, medical texts and the literature of the so-called Second Sophistic, which all have been recruited to this debate. Most important, however, religious phenomena are included and brought to the fore. Thus the analysis of concepts of the self in Plutarch and Epictetus is followed by studies of the "Shepherd of Hermas," Clement of Alexandria and Ptolemaeus of Rome, Justin Martyr and the Corpus Hermeticum. Notions of the "self" are traced in concepts of body and soul, I and god(s), but also in practices like dressing and ideas about political identity. Lucian of Samosata, a central author of the Second Sophistic, is shown to be involved in such discourses and practices in a sequence of studies. It is this kind of institutional setting which turns out to have been of central importance for the development of concepts of the "self" in the period under consideration. Thus, in a final section, the authors address philosophical advice on dealing with sick friends, the individuality implied in votive practices, and institutions for religious educations within the field of Christian practices.

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Welchen Einfluss hatte die Ausbildung des Imperium Romanum auf die Religionsgeschichte des dadurch integrierten Raumes? In einer Reihe von Fällen unterstützt religiöse Kommunikation die neuen Herrschaftsstrukturen, Rom kann sich hier Mechanismen zunutze machen, die schon in hellenistischer Zeit ausgebildet wurden. Der überraschende Befund der hier vorgelegten Untersuchungen reicht aber weiter: Die Diffusion von religiösen Zeichen und Praktiken wie die Ausbildung universaler Züge in den regionalen Kulturen wie der römischen Religion im besonderen legen es nahe, von einer 'Koine', von der Religion des Imperium Romanum im Singular zu sprechen. Diese Koine findet weder an den administrativen Trennlinien der Provinzen, an den Rändern ethnischer Gruppen noch an unterschiedlichen Überzeugungen und Gottheiten eine strikte Grenze, sie umschließt Kleinasien wie Nordafrika, den Donauraum wie Griechenland und Italien. In dieser Koine agieren Intellektuelle und religiöse Spezialisten, Architekten und Heilssucher. Zugleich ist, bei aller Verbreitung und Strukturähnlichkeit, die religiöse Vielfalt nicht zu übersehen. Es existieren tiefgreifende Unterschiede, die zu Konfrontationen führen. Akzeptanz und Repression, Toleranz und erzwungene Homogenität stehen nebeneinander, lokale Pluralität und gewalttätige Konfrontation lassen sich nachweisen. Historisch spannen die Beiträge in deutscher, englischer und französischer Sprache einen Bogen vom zweiten Jh. v. Chr. bis zum 4. Jh. n. Chr.

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An interdisciplinary explication of the theory of “Weltbeziehung” or “relationship to the world.” Human beings are always and essentially placed and situated in a world to which they relate, and it is this relationship that defines them. This book describes the historical and cultural variety of self-world-relations of this kind and revolves around aspects and dimensions of what Hartmut Rosa has gathered under the term “Weltbeziehung” (relationship to the world), expanding on his theory on resonance. This book starts from this innovative approach to discuss socially relevant questions and conceptions of the present, like property, progress, or markets and then contrasts them with non-Western or non-modern forms of “Weltbeziehungen” like specific conceptions of virtue or fatalistic practices. In an effort to overcome Eurocentric biases, the book also includes studies about the decolonization of research in India and the role of markets in China. In addition, comparisons across time help to further refine our understanding of “Weltbeziehungen.” Finally, the volume’s contributions discuss a number of challenges and practical problems of the contemporary world such as the migration crises, sharing practices, or knowledge production in light of this conception.

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This volume is a first attempt to investigate the impact of urban space on prayers and related religious thought and belief in ancient religions from the first to the sixth century CE. Taking its lead from the spatial turn in scholarship, methodologically it is an attempt to replace the hitherto customary focus on the forms and semantics of prayer with an urban-spatial model. This model understands prayers as performances that are embedded and embodied in urban space as well as texts producing and inspired by imaginations of space. To allow for a broader comparison, this volume covers prayers and spaces of various religions all over the ancient Mediterranean, from Roman and North African polytheisms through early Christianity to Byzantine Christianity and early Islam.

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The first inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary work of its kind, this book focuses on the importance of visual culture in the study of classical, Roman, and Christian antiquity. It explores the role of the visual in helping to create a vision of the gods and how commitment to the visibility of the divine affected ancient religious practices, rituals, and beliefs. The essays deploy a wide range of disciplines that include archaeology, iconology, cultural studies, visual anthropology, the study of ancient rhetoric, and the cognitive sciences to consider the visual aspects of ancient religion from a variety of angles. The contributors take up the role of the visual in multiple contexts including domestic art, the imperial cult, martyrology, ritual practice, and temples. This groundbreaking book, which includes essays by classicists, Roman historians, archaeologists, biblical scholars, and scholars of ancient Christian iconography, promises to advance the discussion of the importance and role of visual culture in shaping the religions of antiquity in significant new ways.

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