This volume explores the role of the visual in helping to create a vision of the gods and how commitment to the visibility of the divine affected ancient religious practices, rituals, and beliefs. The essays deploy a wide range of disciplines that include archaeology, iconology, cultural studies, and the cognitive sciences to consider the visual aspects of ancient religion from a variety of angles.
The first inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary work of its kind, this book focuses on the importance of visual culture in the study of classical, Roman, and Christian antiquity. It explores the role of the visual in helping to create a vision of the gods and how commitment to the visibility of the divine affected ancient religious practices, rituals, and beliefs. The essays deploy a wide range of disciplines that include archaeology, iconology, cultural studies, visual anthropology, the study of ancient rhetoric, and the cognitive sciences to consider the visual aspects of ancient religion from a variety of angles. The contributors take up the role of the visual in multiple contexts including domestic art, the imperial cult, martyrology, ritual practice, and temples. This groundbreaking book, which includes essays by classicists, Roman historians, archaeologists, biblical scholars, and scholars of ancient Christian iconography, promises to advance the discussion of the importance and role of visual culture in shaping the religions of antiquity in significant new ways.
Table of contents:
Introduction
Section 1: Forms of Imagining Divine Presences and of Referring to Divine AgentsSteven J. Friesen: Material Conditions for Seeing the Divine: The Temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesos and the Vision of the Heavenly Throne in Revelation 4-5 -
Katharina Rieger: Imagining the Absent and Perceiving the Present: An Interpretation of Material Remains of Divinities from the Rock Sanctuary at Caesarea Philippi (Gaulantis) -
Kristine Iara: Seeing the Gods in Late Antique Rome -
Jörg Rüpke: Not Gods Alone: on the Visibility of Religion and Religious Specialists in Ancient Rome
Section 2: Modes of Image Creation and Appropriation of Iconographies and Visual CuesRichard L. Gordon: Getting it Right: Performative Images in Greco-Egyptian Magical Practice -
Marlis Arnhold: Imagining Mithras in Light of Iconographic Standardization and Individual Accentuation -
Robin Jensen: The Polymorphous Jesus in Early Christian Image and Text -
David Balch: Founders of Rome, of Athens, and of the Church: Romulus, Theseus, and Jesus. Theseus and Ariadne with Athena Visually Represented in Rome, Pompeii and Herculaneum
Section 3: Evocation of Specific Images in People's MindsHarry O. Maier: Seeing the Blood of God: The Triumphant Charade of Ignatius of Antioch the God-Bearer -
Annette Weissenrieder: Space and Vision of the Divine: The Temple Imagery of the Epistle to the Ephesians -
Brigitte Kahl: Citadel of the God(s) or Satan's Throne: The Image of the Divine at the Great Altar of Pergamon between Ruler Religion and Apocalyptic Counter-Vision -
Vernon K. Robbins: Kinetic Divine Concepts, the Baptist, and the Enfleshed Logos in the Prologue and Precreation Storyline of the Fourth Gospel
