Appropriating Religion: Methodological Issues in Testing the 'Lived Ancient Religion' Approach

This article presents the concept of 'lived ancient religion' as the methodological perspective underlying the contributions to this issue. For antiquity, the term is employed in order to denote an approach that focusses on the individual appropriation and embodiment of traditions, religious experiences and communication of religion in different social spaces, and the interaction of different levels facilitated by religious specialists. This approach is intended to replace the dated (and, with regard to Mediterranean antiquity, anachronistic) model of 'state religion' and 'religions'/'cults' in its variants.