Amazon.com description: Product Description: This volume contains a series of essays that explore expressions of magic and ritual power in the ancient world. The essays are written by scholars in the fields of Egyptology, ancient Near Eastern studies, the Hebrew Bible, Judaica, classical Greek and Roman studies, early Christianity and patristics, and Coptology. Throughout the book the essays examine the terms employed in descriptions of ancient magic. From this examination comes a clarification of magic as a polemical term of exclusion along with an understanding of the classical Egyptian and early Greek conceptions of magic as a more neutral category of inclusion. This book is intended to be of use as a foundation for further scholarly studies of ancient magic and ritual power.