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Ancient Religions

What is the ancient world?

Did Christianity have anything in common with other ancient religions?
Timothy Luke Johnson, Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity (2009)

  • participation in divine benefits
  • moral transformation
  • transcending the world
  • stabilizing the world

    What were the chief differences between Christianity and other ancient religions?

  • Apuleius, The Golden Ass (2nd c. CE): Isis
  • polytheism vs. monotheism
  • assimilation: cultural transferability
  • cult vs. metaphysical / moral truth
  • religion as public
  • mystery cults: Mithras, Mithraeum
  • religion and writing
  • religion and magic

    Acts 19 and the cult of Artemis at Ephesus

  • Paul’s miracles; exorcists and magicians
  • Artemis = Roman Diana
  • Temple of Artemis, dates: 550 BCE, 356 BCE, 320s BCE, 262 BCE, 401 CE
  • Lady of Ephesus: a fertility goddess?
  • Demetrius, the silversmith: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” (Acts 19: 34).
  • Common themes: (1) assimilation, (2) polytheism,
    (3) civic / public religion, (4) religious diversity

    Additional terms

  • Re (or Ra); Zeus
  • Pharaoh Amenhotep IV = Akhenaten (d. 1336 or 1334 BCE); the Aten