^Short text: The contributions to this volume give an in depth view on ancient understandings of the manifestation of divine wrath such as war, destruction and illness. There seems to be little doubt that almost all deities can get angry quite easily, but what about divine repentance? This idea is found in two penitential psalms from Mari that are published for the first time in this volume. Examples from ancient Greece also demonstrate the appeasement of divine anger, whereas in ancient Rome the situation seems to have been somewhat different. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jonah can be understood as a parable about how Yhwh can or cannot change his mind. Long text: This colloquium brought together biblical scholars, specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and of the Islamic word. The motif of divine wrath is indeed a topic that can be found in almost all ancient civilizations, but is also often used in contemporary religious discourse. It presupposes that personal or collective faults provoke divine anger, which can manifest itself in political and military catastrophes but also in personal disasters. Several articles deal with war and destruction as manifestations of divine wrath. In the Hebrew Bible, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE is often understood as the result of Yhwh's anger. In the ancient Near East, military catastrophes are seen to reflect divine punishment, such that certain texts explore the possibility of appeasing the gods. Illness is also explained as the consequence of the wrath of one or many gods. In ancient Egypt, and also in the Hebrew Bible as well as in texts from the Mamluk period, particular skin diseases are understood as a material manifestation of divine anger that stigmatizes the supposed sinner's body. In ancient Mesopotamia as well as in the Bible, other texts criticize the idea of divine retribution, arguing that a collective or personal disaster cannot or should not be explained 'logically' in terms of divine punishment. There seems to be little doubt that almost all deities can get angry quite easily, but what about divine repentance? Since the term repentance may have a strong Christian undertone, it might be preferable to speak of a change of mind, in which gods can also regret their acts, show mercy, or be appeased. This idea is found in two penitential psalms from Mari that are published for the first time in this volume. Examples from ancient Greece also demonstrate the appeasement of divine anger, whereas in ancient Rome the situation seems to have been somewhat different. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jonah can be understood as a parable about how Yhwh can or cannot change his mind.

Product Description: The coming of Alexander the Great ushered in many changes within the southern Levant. The subsequent period saw many upheavals, including the Greek and Roman conquests, the Jewish Revolts, and the gradual Christianization of the 'Holy Land'...read more

Product Description: Warren Felt Evans (1817–1889) converted to Methodism while at Dartmouth College, became a minister, and spent his Methodist years as a spiritual seeker. His two extant journals, edited and annotated by Catherine L. Albanese, appear in print for the first time and reveal the inner journey of a leading American spiritual pilgrim at a critical period in his religious search...read more

The Dead Sea Scrolls include many texts that were produced by a sectarian movement (and also many that were not). The movement had its origin in disputes about the interpretation of the Scriptures, especially the Torah, not in disputes about the priesthood as had earlier been assumed. The definitive break with the rest of Judean society should be dated to the first century BCE rather than to the second. John J. Collins illustrates how the worldview of the sect involved a heightened sense of involvement in the heavenly, angelic world, and the hope for an afterlife in communion with the angels. The essays in this volume are divided into three main sections, dealing with Scripture and Interpretation, History and Sectarianism, and Sectarian Worldview. The opening essay provides an overview of what we have learned from the Scrolls, and the last essay discusses the relation of the Scrolls to early Christianity.

This volume revisits the concepts of enchantment and sacralization in light of perspectives which challenge the modern notion that man (alone) is the measure of all things. As Bruno Latour has argued, the battle against superstition entailed shifting power away from God/the gods to humans, thereby disqualifying the agency of all the other objects in the world. Might enchantment and sacralization be understood in other ways than through this battle between almighty gods and almighty humans? Might enchantment be understood to involve processes where power and control are not distributed so clearly and definitely? Like social constructionists, Latour emphasizes that things are constructed; yet, like many other new materialists, such as Jane Bennett, Manuel De Landa and Karen Barad, he emphasizes that this construction is not the result of projecting meaning onto a passive and meaningless world, but a matter of compositional achievements, whereby assemblages of actants co-compose each other and frame, enable and delimit one another's agency. This move recognizes the active and entangled participation of players beyond the humans versus God(s) framework that informed the modernist project. Understanding enchantment and sacralisation as compositionally and relationally constructed does not mean the same as understanding them as constructed by humans alone. What it means is one of the main questions posed in this book. In other words, if enchantment and sacralization are not understood (solely) in terms of projecting anthropocentric meaning onto mute objects, what are some promising alternative approaches - old and new - and what are their implications for how we understand modernity and for method and theory in the study of religion?

Product Description: Der 1962 entdeckte Derveni-Papyrus bietet für die Bereiche der frühgriechischen Philosophie und Religion sowie der antiken Literaturwissenschaft eine der wichtigsten Neuentdeckungen seit der Renaissance. Die Reste der zur Hälfte verbrannten Papyrusrolle enthalten eine Abhandlung (wohl verfasst am Ende des 5...read more