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Athenian popular religion

Front Cover
1 Review
UNC Press Books, 1983 - History - 172 pages
Most modern studies of Athenian religion have focused on festivals, cult practices, and individual deities. Jon Mikalson turns instead to the religious beliefs citizens of Athens spoke of and acted upon in everyday life. He uses evidence only from reliable, mostly contemporary sources such as the orators Lysias and Demosthenes, the historian Xenophon, and state decrees, sacred laws, religious dedications, and epitaphs.

"This is in no sense a general history of Athenian religion," Mikalson writes, "even within the narrow historical boundaries set. It is rather an investigation of what might be termed the consensus of popular religious belief, a consensus consisting of those beliefs which an Athenian citizen thought he could express publicly and for which he expected fo find general acceptance among his peers."

What emerges in Mikalson's study is a remarkable homogeneity of religious beliefs at the popular level. The topics discussed at length in Athenian Popular Religion include the areas of divine intervention in human life, the gods and human justice, gods and oaths, divination, death and the afterlife, the nature of the gods, social aspects of popular religion, and piety and impiety.

Mikalson challenges the common opinion that popular religious belief in Athens deteriorated significantly from the mid-fifth to the mid-fourth century B.C. "The error in understanding the development of Athenian religion has arisen, it seems to me, because scholars have failed to distinguish properly between the differing natures of the sources for our knowledge of religious beliefs in the earlier and later periods," Mikalson writes. The difference between those sources "is more than simply one of years. It is a difference between poetry and prose, with all the factors which that difference implies."

  

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Review: Athenian Popular Religion

User Review  - AC - Goodreads

This is a handbook written for college students, but which is also cited by scholars in the field. It is very good. It is also short and can be read in an afternoon. It presents a clear and concise ... Read full review

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Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
3
Priority of the Divine
13
Areas of Divine Intervention
18
The Gods and Human Justice
27
The Gods and Oaths
31
Divination
39
The Gods and Death
50
The Nature of Divine Intervention
53
Some Social Aspects of Popular Religion
83
Piety and Impiety
91
The Consensus
106
Some Historical Considerations
110
Notes
119
Bibliography
143
Index of Passages Cited
147
General Index
168

The Nature of the Gods
63
The Afterlife
74
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Athenian popular religion
Athenian popular religion
Jon D. Mikalson
Snippet view - 1983

Common terms and phrases

Aeschines afterlife ancestors Andocides Antiphon Apollo areas Arist Aristophanes Asclepius Athenian Athens avenging spirits boule CHAPTER chresmologues chthonic concept concerning cult practices curse daimon dead death dedications deities Delphi deme Demosthenes Dinarchus divine intervention Dover dreams Eleusinian Mysteries epitaphs epithets Erchia festivals fifth and fourth fifth century fortune fourth century frag gious gods goodwill Greek religion Harpocration Hell heroes homicide honor human Hyperides IG II2 impiety impious acts individual Isaeus Ischomachus Isoc Isocrates jurors Katochos late fifth Litias Lycurgus Leoc Lysias matters murderer Nilsson oath omens oracles Peek period perjury Persephone philosophers phratry piety pious Plato Plato Lg political pollution Popular Morality popular religion prayers punishment rites ritual Rudhardt sacrifices sanctuaries schol Socrates soul sources for popular speaker speeches spell to Hermes Theophrastus Theophrastus Char things thought tion traditional Vect Xenophon Zeus Zeus Ktesios Zeus Phratrios

References to this book

From other books

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Xenophon and the history of his times
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Limited preview - 1992
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From Google Scholar

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Medicine, Magic, and Religion in Plato’s Symposium
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References from web pages

Athenian Popular Religion by Jon D. Mikalson at Questia Online Library
Book details. Athenian Popular Religion. Athenian Popular Religion ... Read the complete book Athenian Popular Religion by becoming a questia.com member. ...
www.questia.com/ library/ book/ athenian-popular-religion-by-jon-d-mikalson.jsp

JSTOR: Athenian Popular Religion
ATHENIAN POPULAR RELIGION jd MIKALSON: Athenian Popular Religion. Pp. xiv+ 172. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0009-840X(1985)2%3A35%3A1%3C90%3AAPR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

Project Description - Athenian Popular Religion - Oscar
Athenian Popular Religion. Jon D Mikalson Department of Classics The general character of Greek religion and the nature of the ancient sources that happened ...
oscar.virginia.edu/ asp/ PublicAward.asp?AwardId=94502

Religion: books tagged religion @ justbooks.co.uk (#95)
More editions of Athenian Popular Religion:. Athenian Popular Religion: Hardcover, University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 0807815632 (0-8078-1563-2) ...
www.justbooks.co.uk/ tag/ religion/ 95/

Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK HISN Historian 0018-2370 1985 ...
... Reviews Book Reviews Book Reviewed in this article: Athenian Popular Religion . By Jon D. Mikalson. Life in Egypt under Roman Rule . By Naphtali Lewis. ...
www.blackwell-synergy.com/ doi/ xml/ 10.1111/ j.1540-6563.1985.tb00678.x

What¹s Wrong with Democracy?: CHAPTER ONE
124-25, and Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion, p. 87. 37. Hansen, Athenian Democracy, pp. 100-101, and Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion, pp. ...
www.ucpress.edu/ books/ pages/ 9916/ 9916.ch02.php

RECOVERING ANCIENT RITUAL AND THE THEATRE OF THE APACHE: A JOURNEY ...
RECOVERING ANCIENT RITUAL AND THE THEATRE OF THE APACHE:. A JOURNEY THROUGH THE FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS OF WESTERN. THEATRE HISTORY. A Dissertation ...
etd.lsu.edu/ docs/ available/ etd-04152005-014414/ unrestricted/ Dean_dis.pdf

Other Religions
-46%, 329.9, International Encyclopaedia of Tribal Religion ~ sm Channa Cosmo (Publications,India) sm Channa. -90%, 13.27, Madre del Tibet - Autobiografia ...
www.myguidebee.co.uk/ cat102009.html

About the author (1983)

Jon D. Mikalson is author of The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year and Honor Thy Gods.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Athenian popular religion
TitleAthenian popular religion
AuthorJon D. Mikalson
Editionreprint
PublisherUNC Press Books, 1983
ISBN0807841943, 9780807841945
Length172 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Ancient / Greece
Religion / Antiquities & Archaeology
Religion / History
  
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