ABSTRACT
This volume provides novel social-scientific and historical approaches to religious identifications in late antique (3rd–12th century) Egyptian papyri, bridging the gap between two academic fields that have been infrequently in full conversation: papyrology and the study of religion.
Through eleven in-depth case studies of Christian, Islamic, “pagan,” Jewish, Manichaean, and Hermetic texts and objects, this book offers new interpretations on markers of religious identity in papyrus documents written in Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Using papyri as a window into the lives of ordinary believers, it explores their religious behavior and choices in everyday life. Three valuable perspectives are outlined and explored in these documents: a critical reflection on the concept of identity and the role of religious groups, a situational reading of religious repertoire and symbols, and a focus on speech acts as performative and efficacious utterances.
Religious Identifications in Late Antique Papyri offers a wide scope and comparative approach to this topic, suitable for students and scholars of late antiquity and Egypt, as well as those interested in late antique religion.
A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|65 pages
Problematizing Religious “Identity” and the Identification of Religious Groups
chapter 2|16 pages
Christianization, “Identity,” and the Problem of Internal Commitment
chapter 3|24 pages
A Song-Sharing Service? Hymns, Scribal Agency, and “Religion” in Two Late Antique Papyri *
part II|98 pages
Reconstructing Situational Religious Identifications
chapter 6|18 pages
Χρηστιανὸς ἔστιν
chapter 7|25 pages
From the Sacred to the Profane
chapter 8|24 pages
Religious and Local Identifications in the Jewish Marriage Contract From Fifth-Century Antinoopolis
part III|105 pages
Performance and Audience