Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Audiobook) | Date: 11 April 2011, 14:09
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How did people of ancient times cope with the overwhelming mysteries of the universe? The cycles of nature kept predictable time with the sun, moon, and stars; yet, without warning, crops failed, diseases struck, storms wreaked havoc, and empires fell.
In the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, they responded with a rich variety of religious beliefs that have provided some of Western civilization's most powerful texts: the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Bible, the Greek epics of Homer, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the New Testament, among many others. Composed largely of stories of human interaction with the divine, these narratives gave ordinary people a window into the unfathomable realm of the sacred.
People also responded with a complex array of religious rituals that survive in the archaeological remains of temples, cultic statues, funerary goods, and household devotional items—artifacts that are among the world's greatest cultural treasures.
In these 48 lectures, Professor Glenn S. Holland uses such textual and archaeological evidence to explore the religious cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world. He covers times from the earliest prehistoric indications of human religious practices to the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in the 4th century A.D.
You will be introduced to religious traditions of a range of civilizations, including the ancient kingdom of Egypt; Mesopotamia; Syria-Palestine, including Israel and Judah; Minoan civilization on the island of Crete and the successive civilizations of the Greek mainland; and the city of Rome, whose empire dominated the Mediterranean world.
[b]Ancient Roots of Our Culture[/b]
These civilizations provided the source of much of our own religious heritage, and each gave rise to a remarkable body of stories, beliefs, and traditions that have had wide-ranging and sometimes surprising influences. For example:
[list][*]The Egyptian goddess Isis came closer to becoming the central deity of a worldwide religion than any other traditional god or goddess of the ancient Mediterranean world. In Christianity, Jesus' mother Mary was credited with many of the beneficent qualities of Isis, particularly mercy, and the special intercessory role for those who were her devotees.
[*]The chief god of the Syro-Palestinian pantheon was 'El. In time his name became the generic word for any god. Many biblical names reflect this change, such as the Hebrew name Michael, which translates as one "who is like God."
[*]Roman imperial soldiers were especially devoted to the god Mithras, who was born on December 25, the same date that later tradition assigned to the birth of Jesus. According to some accounts, Mithras was also born in the presence of shepherds.
[*]Perhaps the best-known example of cross-cultural influence among ancient religions is an account of a devastating flood. It appears in the celebrated story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible, and also in Mesopotamian and Greek versions. Notably, in all these accounts, the survivors' first impulse after making landfall is to offer worship.
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[hide=Course Lecture Titles][list][*]1. Talking About Ancient Religious Cultures
[*]2. What is Religion?
[*]3. Early Prehistoric Religion
[*]4. Prehistoric Religion—The Neolithic Era
[*]5. Egypt—A Unique Religious Culture
[*]6. Egyptian Creation Stories and Their Meaning
[*]7. The Egyptian Pantheon
[*]8. Egyptian Myths of Kingship
[*]9. Egyptian Myths of the Underworld
[*]10. Egypt—The Power of Goddesses
[*]11. Egypt—Religion in Everyday Life
[*]12. Egypt—The Beginning of Wisdom
[*]13. Mesopotamia—The Land Between the Rivers
[*]14. Mesopotamia—Stories of Creation
[*]15. Mesopotamia—Inanna the Goddess
[*]16. Mesopotamia—Gilgamesh the King
[*]17. Mesopotamia—The Search for Eternal Life
[*]18. Mesopotamia—The Great Flood
[*]19. Ancient Concepts of the Divine
[*]20. The Gods of Syria-Palestine
[*]21. Israel's Ancestral History
[*]22. Israel's National History
[*]23. Prophecy in the Ancient Near East
[*]24. Early Prophecy in Israel
[*]25. Classical Israelite Prophecy
[*]26. Israel's Great Crisis
[*]27. Syria-Palestine—The Problem of Evil
[*]28. Early Aegean Civilizations
[*]29. Religious Culture in the Iliad and the Odyssey
[*]30. Religious Culture in Archaic Greece
[*]31. Greece—How Things Came to Be
[*]32. Greece—The Goddess
[*]33. The Classical Era in Greece
[*]34. Greece—Philosophy as Religion
[*]35. Religious Culture in the Hellenistic World
[*]36. Mystery Religions in the Hellenistic World
[*]37. Mystery Religions from the East
[*]38. Roman Religious Culture Before the Empire
[*]39. Rome—Saviors and Divine Men
[*]40. Rome—Divination, Astrology, and Magic
[*]41. Rome—Critics and Charlatans
[*]42. Jesus of Nazareth as a Figure in History
[*]43. Creating Jesus Communities
[*]44. Living and Dying for the God(s)
[*]45. Women's Religious Roles in the Early Empire
[*]46. The Jesus Movement in the Greco-Roman World
[*]47. The Death and Rebirth of the Old Gods
[*]48. Conclusion—Persisting Ideas and Yearnings
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