Household and Family Religion in Antiquity

The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family
and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian
antiquity.

• Advances our understanding of household and familial religion,
  as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults

• Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt,
  Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia

• Explores many household rituals, such as providing for
  ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities
  or of spirits associated with the house itself

• Examines lifecycle rituals - from pregnancy and birth to
  maturity, old age, death, and beyond

• Looks at religious practices relating to the household both
  within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural
  tombs and local sanctuaries

Auteur

John Bodel is Professor of Classics and History at Brown
University. He writes about Roman social and cultural history,
Latin epigraphy, and Latin literature of the Empire. His books
include Roman Brick Stamps in the Kelsey Museum (1983),
Graveyards and Groves: A Study of the Lex Lucerina (1994),
Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions
(editor, 2001), and Dediche sacre nel mondo greco-romano:
Diffusione, funzioni, tipologie (edited with Mika Kajava,
2008).

Saul M. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of
Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Brown
University. He is the author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh
in Israel (1988), A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis
and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (1993), Rites
and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (2000),
Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (2004), and
Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical
Differences (2008).

Résumé
The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity.

• Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults
• Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia
• Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself
• Examines lifecycle rituals from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond
• Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries

Contenu

List of Figures vii

Notes on Contributors x

Series Editor's Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Map xvi

1 Introduction 1

John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan

2 Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families
5

Stanley K. Stowers

3 Family Religion in Second Millennium West Asia (Mesopotamia,
Emar, Nuzi) 20

Karel van der Toorn

4 The Integration of Household and Community Religion in Ancient
Syria 37

Daniel E. Fleming

5 Family, Household, and Local Religion at Late Bronze Age
Ugarit 60

Theodore J. Lewis

6 Family Religion in Ancient Israel and its Surroundings
89

Rainer Albertz

7 Family Religion in Israel and the Wider Levant of the First
Millennium bce 113

Saul M. Olyan

8 Household Religion, Family Religion, and Women's Religion in
Ancient Israel 127

Susan Ackerman

9 Ashdod and the Material Remains of Domestic Cults in the
Philistine Coastal Plain 159

Rüdiger Schmitt

10 Household Religion in Ancient Egypt 171

Robert K. Ritner

11 Household and Domestic Religion in Ancient Egypt 197

Barbara S. Lesko

12 Household Religion in Ancient Greece 210

Christopher A. Faraone

13 Family Matters: Domestic Religion in Classical Greece
229

Deborah Boedeker

14 Cicero's Minerva, Penates, and the Mother of the
Lares: An Outline of Roman Domestic Religion 248

John Bodel

15 Comparative Perspectives 276

John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan

Bibliography 283

Index 314