Rethinking Greek Religion

by Julia Kindt

Who marched in religious processions and why? How were blood sacrifice and communal feasting related to identities in the ancient Greek city? With questions such as these, current scholarship aims to demonstrate the ways in which religion maps on to the socio-political structures of the Greek polis ('polis religion'). In this book Dr Kindt explores a more comprehensive conception of ancient Greek religion beyond this traditional paradigm. Comparative in method and outlook, the book invites its readers to embark on an interdisciplinary journey touching upon such diverse topics as religious belief, personal religion, magic and theology. Specific examples include the transformation of tyrant property into ritual objects, the cultural practice of setting up dedications at Olympia, and a man attempting to make love to Praxiteles' famous statue of Aphrodite. The book will be valuable for all students and scholars seeking to understand the complex phenomenon of ancient Greek religion.

Genres: Spirituality, Nonfiction

ebook

First published July 31, 2012

Reviews

[Martin Lund · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is marked by contradiction - it criticizes "sui generis" approaches to religion and the "antihistorical" approaches of others, yet does not hesitate for a minute to apply modern terms like "the religious" to denote something very much sui generis and not in need of historicization. It also seems to make a 180 degree turn after the first few chapters and stand against what is framed as the argument of the book. All in all, then, I find the book's style and argument more interesting as data for a meta-study of how and why aspects of Greek history are categorized and classified as "religious" than as something saying something about Greek "religion."