Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Review of DesRosiers and Vuong (eds.), Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Nathaniel DesRosiers, Lily C. Vuong (ed.), Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World. Writings from the Greco-Roman world Supplement series, 10. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016. Pp. xviii, 326. ISBN 9781628371369. $44.95 (pb). Reviewed by Allan T. Georgia, Shaker Heights, OH (allan.georgia@gmail.com)
Tracing the role that competition played in the religious cultures of the Greco-Roman world is an enormous task. In a second volume exploring this theme, Nathaniel P. DesRosiers and Lily C. Vuong have collected essays that make important inroads in how religious subjects (of various kinds) competed and were subject to contest in the late ancient Mediterranean world.1 The collection is organized around four broad themes, with short essays introducing each section that tie the essays together. The collection is impressive and wide-ranging, which is appropriate to its purpose. This volume collects essay from a range of religious traditions, times and places under a unifying focus on how these traditions reflect competition—a concept whose commonality belies its highly complex dimensionality.

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Ancient Judaism receives at least a little attention in this volume.

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