The construction of time in antiquity : ritual, art, and identity / edited by Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa, Lutz Doering, University of Munster.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ben-Dov, Jonathan, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Time.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 296 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Time has always held a fascination for human beings, who have attempted to relate to it and to make sense of it, constructing and deconstructing it through its various prisms, since time cannot be experienced in an unmediated way. This book answers the needs of a growing community of scholars and readers who are interested in this interaction. It offers a series of innovative studies by both senior and younger experts on various aspects of the construction of time in antiquity. Some articles in this book contain visual material published for the first time, while other studies update the field with new theories or apply new approaches to relevant sources. Within the study of antiquity, the book covers the disciplines of Classics and Ancient History, Assyriology, Egyptology, Ancient Judaism, and Early Christianity, with thematic contributions on rituals, festivals, astronomy, calendars, medicine, art, and narrative.

Contents:

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

2 Time and Natural Law in Jewish-Hellenistic Writings

3 Calendars, Politics, and Power Relations in the Roman Empire

4 Doubling Religion in the Augustan Age: Shaping Time for an Empire

5 Real and Constructed Time in Babylonian Astral Medicine

6 The Intellectual Background of the Antikythera Mechanism

7 Divine Figurations of Time in Ancient Egypt

8 The Moon and the Power of Time Reckoning in Ancient Mesopotamia

9 Toward a Phenomenology of Time in Ancient Greek Art

10 Women's Bodies as Metaphors for Time in Biblical, Second Temple, and Rabbinic Literature

11 The Beginning of Sabbath and Festivals in Ancient Jewish Sources

12 Seasoning the Bible and Biblifying Time through Fixed Liturgical Reading Systems (Lectionaries)

13 The Roman Ember Days of September and the Jewish New Year

14 Celebrations and the Abstention from Celebrations of Sacred Time in Early Christianity

Author Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Oct 2017).

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

ISBN:

1-108-51354-9

1-108-50609-7

1-108-51503-7

1-108-51652-1

1-108-52397-8

1-316-26619-2

1-108-51801-X