Religion als Reise

Journeying and religion have much in common: They consider the fields of visibility all too restricted and transgress boundaries. The transgressive readings in this book cross the intersections of early Christian and pagan art of narrative. Going beyond the conventional idea of a unilateral Christianisation of the Roman Empire, Knut Backhaus discloses a rich variety of communicative processes whose bearers are not so easy to separate, but share a vivid wanderlust. His comparative interpretation starts with the quests for the »end of the world« in the epics, thereby throwing new light upon the Christian self-concept of »way«. He then pursues Jesus and the wandering charismatics as well as the memory images of Christ and his pagan fellow wanderers (Apollonius of Tyana, Hercules, Orpheus, Dionysus). As to the adventurous travels of Saint Paul, the focus is on shipwrecking. There is a special interest in how journey metaphors have influenced Christian spirituality.