Antike Fluchtafeln und das Neue Testament

Cursing was an everyday phenomenon in the ancient world. Ancient people relied on the written word for curses that were supposed to be particularly effective. Many hundreds of such curse tablets ( defixiones) have survived on lead and other written media. The texts allow a fascinating insight into a dark world of everyday life in antiquity, into how people dealt with competitive situations of all kinds and into experiences of injustice they had suffered. In these texts, ancient people give free rein to the satisfaction of their needs and the desire for revenge by resorting to superhuman powers. It is not uncommon for them to wish death on their counterparts. The contributions in this volume explore the ancient defixiones for the first time on a large scale from an exegetical perspective and in collaboration with scholars of classical studies, and draw on them in a productive way for the interpretation of New Testament texts.