Reconceptualising Conversion
Patronage, Loyalty, and Conversion in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean| By: | Zeba A. Crook |
| Publisher: | De Gruyter |
| Print ISBN: | 9783110182651 |
| eText ISBN: | 9783110915600 |
| Edition: | 1 |
| Copyright: | 2004 |
| Format: | Page Fidelity |
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Combining classical, epigraphical, and biblical sources with social-scientific methodology, this monograph questions the way in which modern scholarship has tended to discuss ancient conversion. The author challenges long-held assumptions of psychological continuity between ancient and modern people, and offers in place of these assumptions a model founded on the categories the ancients used themselves. Graeco-Roman and Mediterranean religions and philosophies, including Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity, framed their religion in the language of patronage / benefaction and loyalty, and thus an understanding of ancient conversion must start there.