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Octavo, paper covers, x, 486 pp., 12 b/w illustrations For students and scholars of ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern religion and culture, including readers in Egyptology, ancient Near Eastern studies, the Hebrew Bible, Judaica, classical Greco-Roman studies, early Christianity and patristics, and Coptology. Marvin Meyer, Ph.D. (1979) in Religion, Claremont Graduate School, is Professor of Religion at Chapman University, Orange, California, and Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. He has published extensively on ancient Gnostic and magical traditions.Paul Mirecki, Th.D. (1986) in Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School, is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. His publications include a wide variety of articles on ancient Mediterranean religions with a primary focus on Coptic papyrology. This volume contains a series of provocative essays that explore expressions of magic and ritual power in the ancient world. The essays are authored by leading scholars in the fields of Egyptology, ancient Near Eastern studies, the Hebrew Bible, Judaica, classical Greek and Roman studies, early Christianity and patristics, and Coptology.Throughout the book the essays examine the terms employed in descriptions of ancient magic. From this examination comes a clarification of magic as a polemical term of exclusion but also an understanding of the classical Egyptian and early Greek conceptions of magic as a more neutral category of inclusion.This book should prove to be foundational for future scholarly studies of ancient magic and ritual power. Articles are "Trading Places," Jonathan Z. Smith, "Excluding the Charming: The Development of the Greek Concept of Magic," Fritz Graf, "The Religious, Social, and Legal Parameters of Traditional Egyptian Magic," Robert K. Ritner, "Hittite Military Rituals," Richard H. Beal, "Ritual Meals in the Hittitie Cult," Billie Jean Collins, "Magical Uses of Ancient Mesopotamian Festivals of the Dead," J. A. Scurlock, "The 'Witch' of En-Dor, 1 Samuel 28, and Ancietn Near Eastern Necromancy," Brian B. Schmidt, "The Magician as Outsider in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament," Stephen D. Ricks, "Charming Criminals: Classification of Magic in the Babylonian Talmud," Jonathan Seidel, "Magical Piety in Ancient and Medieval Jewry," Michael D. Swartz, "The Adjuration of the Prince of the Presence: Performative Utterance in a Jewish Ritual," Rebecca Lesses, "New Greek Magical and Divinatory Texts in Berlin," William M. Brashear, "Greek Exorcistic Amulets," Roy Kotansky, "Supernatural Assistants in the Greek Magical Papyri," Leda Jean Ciraolo, "The Mystodokos and the Dark-Eyes Maidens: Multicultural Influences in a Late-Hellenistic Incantation," Christopher A. Faraone, "'May she neither eat nor drink': Love Magic and Vows of Abstinence," David Martinez, "Defining the Dreadful: remarks on the Greek Child-Killing Demon," Sarah Iles Johnston, "Singing Away Snakebite: Lucan's Magical Cures," Oliver Philips, "Satan's Fall in Coptic Magic," Jacques van der Vliet, "Magical Bowls and Manichaeans," Jason David BeDuhn, "Magic, Women, and Heresy in the Late Empire: The Case of the Priscillianists," Todd Breyfogle, "Narrating Power: The Theory and Practice of the Magical Histriola in Ritual Spells," David Frankfurter.
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