My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity

AnneMarie Luijendijk

ISBN 10: 9004384103 / ISBN 13: 9789004384101

Published by Brill, NL, 2018

About this Item

Sortilege-the making of decisions by casting lots-was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity, AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.

Seller Inventory # LU-9789004384101

Bibliographic Details

• Title: My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity
• Publisher: Brill, NL
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004384103
• ISBN 13: 9789004384101
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.5W x 2.9H x 23.5D centimeters 15.5 centimeters width by 2.9 centimeters height by 23.5 centimeters depth
• Weight: 779 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Sortilege―the making of decisions by casting lots―was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity, AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.

About the Author

AnneMarie Luijendijk, ThD (2005), Harvard University, is Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She researches early Christianity and late antique manuscript culture. Her publications include a new Coptic divinatory text: Forbidden Oracles: The Gospel of the Lots of Mary.

William Klingshirn, Ph.D. (1985), Stanford University, is Professor of Greek and Latin at the Catholic University of America. He has published numerous articles on divination in the Mediterranean world and is currently writing a book on diviners in late antiquity.

Contributors are: Jeff Childers, Salvatore Costanza, David Frankfurter, William E. Klingshirn, Alexander Kocar, AnneMarie Luijendijk, Michael Meerson, Franziska Naether, Laura S. Nasrallah, David M. Ratzan, Randall Stewart, Pieter W. van der Horst, Kevin W. Wilkinson