Sceptic and Believer in Ancient Mediterranean Religions

doi:10.1628/978-3-16-159249-2

Sceptic and Believer in Ancient Mediterranean Religions

Edited by Janet E. Spittler, Tobias Nicklas, Babett Edelmann-Singer and Luigi Walt

2020. 349 pages.

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT I) 443

DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159249-2

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Summary

What is the role of scepticism in the religious landscape of the ancient Mediterranean? How is doubt expressed within a religious community? How does »insider doubt« differ from the sceptical attitude of outsiders? The essays in this volume explore these questions with respect to a range of ancient religious contexts.

What are the roles of doubt and scepticism in the religious landscape of the ancient Mediterranean? How is doubt expressed within a specific religious community, and what reactions does it provoke? How does »insider doubt« differ from the sceptical attitude of outsiders? Exploring these questions with respect to a wide range of religious contexts and topics (including early Christianity, Greco-Roman religions, Egyptian religions, astrology, and magic), the essays in this volume confirm the thesis that doubting one's own religious tradition is not simply a »Western« post-Enlightenment phenomenon. On the contrary, ancient religions offered opportunities and contexts wherein aspects of doubt are not just tolerated but accepted; moreover, doubt and scepticism concerning certain religious ideas or aspects of belief also motivated creative reinterpretation of those ideas.

Table of contents:

Clifford Ando: Disbelief and Cognate Concepts in Roman Antiquity - Jan Assmann: Ancient Egyptian Disbelief in the Promises of Eternity - Tim Whitmarsh: The Invention of Atheism and the Invention of Religion in Classical Athens - Jan N. Bremmer: Youth, Atheism, and (Un)Belief in Late Fifth-Century Athens - Matthew A. Fox: Disbelief in Rome: A Reappraisal - Babett Edelmann-Singer: »Who Will Worship This Man as a God, Who Will Believe in Him?« - Seneca's Apocolocyntosis and the Hermeneutical Categories of Belief and Scepticism in Emperor Cult - Kai Trampedach: Plutarch als Apologet des Orakels von Delphi - Janet Downie: Belief and Doubt in Aelius Aristides's Isthmian Oration: To Poseidon - Inger N.I. Kuin: Loukianos Atheos? Humour and Religious Doubt in Lucian of Samosata - Tobias Nicklas: Skepsis und Christusglaube: Funktionen, Räume und Impulse des Zweifels bei Paulus - David P. Moessner: Luke as Sceptical »Insider« - Re-configuring the »Tradition« by Re-figuring the »Synoptic« Plot - Benjamin Schliesser: The Gospel for Sceptics: Doubting Thomas (John 20:24-29) and Early Christian Identity Formation - Anna Van den Kerchove: »Why Do You Doubt?« - Scepticism and Some Nag Hammadi Writings - Richard L. Gordon: Evading Doubt: Astrology and Magic in the Greco-Roman Period

Authors/Editors

Janet E. Spittler Born 1976; 2007 PhD; since 2017 Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia; Research Associate at the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

https://orcid.org/000000023553266X

Tobias Nicklas Born 1967; 2000 doctorate and 2004 habilitation at the University of Regensburg; Professor of Exegesis and Hermeneutics of the New Testament at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Regensburg.

https://orcid.org/0000000210216994

Babett Edelmann-Singer Born 1975; 2005 Promotion; 2013 Habilitation; since 2018 Heisenberg Fellow at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany; Research Associate at the Department of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; 2019-2020 Visiting Associate Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany.

Luigi Walt Born 1975; 2008 PhD; since 2018 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies "Beyond Canon", University of Regensburg, Germany.