An invitation to think differently about religion in the ancient world.
Religious Inventions asks how modern conceptions of religion can shed light on the relics, textual and otherwise, of ancient Mediterranean Jews and Christians. What insights from the contemporary study of religious behaviours and practices challenge what we think we know about the ancient world? Conversely, how can thinking about the ancient world challenge what we think we know about religion today? This volume responds to these questions through explorations of the material and social circumstances behind the production of written artifacts. It examines how religious practices relate to conceptions of identity and critiques the utility of the comparative method for approaching ancient writings.
Textual authority is used and abused by many of today’s public figures. Religious Inventions offers an alternative approach to understanding how authority is constructed: from the ground up, by the creative actions and choices of real people who lived long ago.