Your Egypt

[Ausar]

Winner of the 1999 Award for Excellence in the Study
of Religion, Historical Studies category, of the
American Academy of Religion
Religion in Roman Egypt:
Assimilation and Resistance

David Frankfurter

Paper | 2000 | $19.95 / £12.95 | ISBN: 0-691-07054-7
336 pp. | 6 x 9 | 1 map, 1 line illus., 23 halftones

Shopping Cart | Reviews | Table of Contents

This exploration of cultural resilience examines the
complex fate of classical Egyptian religion during the
centuries from the period when Christianity first made
its appearance in Egypt to when it became the region's
dominant religion (roughly 100 to 600 C.E. Taking into
account the full range of witnesses to continuing
native piety--from papyri and saints' lives to
archaeology and terracotta figurines--and drawing on
anthropological studies of folk religion, David
Frankfurter argues that the religion of Pharonic Egypt
did not die out as early as has been supposed but was
instead relegated from political centers to village
and home, where it continued a vigorous existence for
centuries.

In analyzing the fate of the Egyptian oracle and of
the priesthoods, the function of magical texts, and
the dynamics of domestic cults, Frankfurter describes
how an ancient culture maintained itself while also
being transformed through influences such as
Hellenism, Roman government, and Christian dominance.
Recognizing the special characteristics of Egypt,
which differentiated it from the other Mediterranean
cultures that were undergoing simultaneous social and
political changes, he departs from the traditional
"decline of paganism/triumph of Christianity" model
most often used to describe the Roman period. By
revealing late Egyptian religion in its Egyptian
historical context, he moves us away from scenarios of
Christian triumph and shows us how long and how
energetically pagan worship survived.

Reviews:

"Frankfurter presents a new and convincing analysis of
the history of religious change in Roman and early
Byzantine Egypt. . . . This new synthesis of the
available evidence constitutes a real breakthrough in
our understanding of the religious changes in late
ancient Egypt attending its Christianization."--Birger
A. Pearson, Religious Studies Review

"An exemplary work, engagingly written, which will be
of interest not only to students of late antiquity,
early Christianity, and Egypt but to anyone concerned
with issues of religious change and
practice."--Jonathan P. Berkey, American Historical
Review

"Where it has been usual to focus on the decay of
grand temple religion, Frankfurter argues that this is
only one side of the matter. There remained a lively
practice of popular and local religion. . . . The book
overflows with ideas and insights."--Richard Gordon,
Times Literary Supplement

"Stimulating in the very best sense of that word: its
thickly packed details and formulations reward readers
not only with the insights of its author, but with
material that often prompts them to travel down new
paths of though themselves."--Sarah Iles Johnston,
Journal of Biblical Literature

"This ambitious book rewards the specialist and
nonspecialist alike with a rich overview of Egyptian
religion in late antiquity within a comparative
religion framework. . . . Frankfurter's refreshing
synthesis of religion and magic both rewards and
illumines the reader. His dexterity with such a
diversity of visual, material, and textual evidence is
a hallmark of this erudite book. . . . Generously
illustrated and clearly organized, this thought
provoking study has set a benchmark for future work on
religion in the ancient Mediterranean."--Georgia
Frank, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

More reviews

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Overture: The Armor of Horus 3
1 Scope and Method 5
2 Religion and Temples 37
3 The Local Scope of Religious Belief 97
4 Mutations of the Egyptian Oracle 145
5 Priest to Magician: Evolving Modes of Religious
Authority 198
6 The Scriptorium as Crucible of Religious Change 238
7 Idiom, Ideology, and Iconoclasm: A Prolegomenon to
the Conversion of Egypt 265
Select Bibliography 285
Index 307

Series:

* Mythos

Subject Areas:

* Religion
* Archaeology and Ancient History
* Classics
* Middle Eastern Studies

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http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/6417.html


Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins

an Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar
in its thirty-seventh year under the auspices of
The University of Pennsylvania
Department of Religious Studies
201 Logan Hall, Philadelphia PA 19104

Next Event
Current Topic
Schedule
Who We Are
Contacts
History
Archives
Map Topic for Year 37 (1999-2000):
Ethnicity, Regionalism and Religious Developments in
Late Antique Egypt
Chairs: Kirsti Copeland and Ra'anan Abusch (Princeton
University)
[ ] The Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins in
its 37th year will address the themes of "Ethnicity,
Regionalism and Religious Developments in Late Antique
Egypt." The mass of surviving literary, material and
documentary evidence for and about Greco-Roman Egypt
enables scholars to produce local histories that focus
on the social and economic context of religious
developments. It is this local scope which makes it
possible to pry apart the relationship between
regional developments and the massive continuity that
characterizes Egyptian culture well into the Roman
period. Factors such as ethnicity, language, and
religion operating at a local level can be correlated
to the larger historical trajectories without being
lost in generalizations about Egyptian or Late Antique
civilization.
[ ] Religious affiliation and ethnicity in Egypt
constitute overlapping frameworks of identity.
Phenomena which uncomfortably carry the titles
"Hellenistic Judaism," "Christianity," "Gnosticism,"
"Paganism" and "Magic" flourished alongside each other
in Late Antique Egypt. The instability that
characterizes this religious world complicates the
task of delineating the historical developments of
these competing traditions. By focusing on the
interplay between religious development and
contextualized social conditions, these sessions will
explore the synchronic and diachronic continuities and
discontinuities that exist along contested fault-lines
in Late Antique Egypt.
[ ] The following "outside" speakers have been
invited:
[ ] David Frankfurter from the University of New
Hampshire will begin the series. His recent book,
Religion in Roman Egypt, asks provocative questions
about the development of Christianity in Egypt and the
persistence of native religion both outside and inside
of the Christian paradigm.
[ ] Roger Bagnall from Columbia University is one of
the world's experts on the use and employment of
documentary evidence for writing histories of the
Greco-Roman world. His recent work, Egypt in Late
Antiquity, builds a broadly based picture of life in
Late Antique Egypt from the incomplete traces that
have been left behind.
[ ] David Brakke has written on Athanasius and the
Politics of Asceticism. He writes a history of
Athanasius that describes how this bishop of
Alexandria created the power structure of a Church
that included both ascetics and married lay-folk.
Brakke teaches at Indiana University.
[ ] Christopher Haas marries the social and physical
contexts of the largest urban center of Egypt in his
recent book Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography
and Social Change. Haas is an associate professor of
history at Villanova University.
[ ] Gedaliahu Stroumsa's first book,Another Seed:
Studies in Gnostic Mythology, remains one of the most
persuasive publications on connections between
Gnosticism, Judaism and Christianity. Stroumsa, who
teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will be
visiting the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania next year.
[ ] Sarah Johnston's work on the Greek Magical Papyri
and on the Chaldean Oracles will help to frame a
discussion not only of magic in Egypt, but also of
Neoplatonic traditions. Johnston has written Hekate
Soteira: A Study of Hekate's Roles in the Chaldean
Oracles and Related Literature. She teaches at Ohio
State University and will be visiting at Princeton
this year.
[ ]
9/28/1999
Jay Treat



http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/year37/topic.html