Belief and Unbelief in the Ancient World

Discover what “belief” and “unbelief” meant in the ancient world

Popular portrayals of the ancient world often give the impression that the ancients held uniform views of the gods. Recent scholarship, however, has started to challenge such a reductive characterization. To that end, this volume brings together top scholars from a variety of disciplines to create a more nuanced picture of the diverse spectrum of belief and unbelief in the ancient world. 

The contributors to this volume examine belief as it existed throughout the Mediterranean over the span of approximately a thousand years—a broader scope than most comparable studies, which tend to focus on a single period. The book’s breadth is evident not only in its chronology but also in its subject matter. The authors examine religious belief and unbelief in biblical and classical sources, material culture, and iconography, all within the contexts of ancient Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman religious culture. 

Readers will come away with a better understanding of how diverse ancient belief was, how ancient communities expressed their faith through texts and translation, and how people in antiquity connected art and religion. Expansive and interdisciplinary, this book will be of interest to students and scholars working in classics, biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, and Greek and Roman iconography.

Contributors

Edward Armstrong
Erin Darby
Stefano De Feo
Michael Anthony Fowler
Thomas Harrison
David J. Johnston
Theodore J. Lewis
Teresa Morgan
Camilla Recalcati
Matthew T. Sharp
Brent A. Strawn