What is a God?

Studies in the Nature of Greek Divinity

edited by Alan B. Lloyd

Book cover: What is a God?

Extent: 187 pages

Publisher: The Classical Press of Wales

Subjects: Classical Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Greek World

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(December 2009)

ISBN: 9781905125357

6.1 x 9.17 inches

Price: $35.00

In stock

PDF (Published)

(December 2009)

ISBN: 9781910589519

Price: $35.00

In recent study Greek religion has often dissolved itself into many religions. The eleven original essays here focus both on extremes of the Greek world and on its classical ‘centre’. Distinguished scholars examine the earliest traces of religious thought in the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. Striking similarities are revealed between religious ideas of Greece and of non-Greek Asia. There are special studies of Apollo, Athena, and Dionysiac religion. And new patterns are identified in the archaic and classical thought of Heraclitus, Herodotus and Sophocles.

Introductory note 1. From Knossos to Homer - Bernard Dietrich 2. From epiphany to cult statue - Walter Burkert 3. Heraclitus and the rites of established religion - Catherine Osborne 4. The moral dimension of Pythian Apollo - J.K. Davies 5. Gods and mountains in Greek myth and poetry - Michael Clarke 6. Aspects of Athena in the Greek polis: Sparta and Corinth - A.C. Villing 7. Herodotus and the certainty of divine retribution - Thomas Harrison 8. Divinity and moral agency in Sophoclean tragedy - Seth L. Schein 9. Thunder, lightening, and earthquake in the Bacchae and the Acts of the Apostles - Richard Seaford 10. Athena and the Amazons: mortal and immortal femininity in Greek myth - Susan Deacy 11. Orphic gods and other gods - Anne-France Morand

  • Edited by Alan B. Lloyd