Relighting The Souls

In the last ten years, there has been an enormous awakening of interest in Plutarch. This collection contains many stimulating and important articles from the Plutarch renaissance, especially on the interaction between divine and human worlds, and on expectations in the next life. But treated here are also a number of other challenging topics in classical Greek literature. Among them are the Near Eastern background of early Greek myth and literature, the decisive speech of Achilleus' mentor, Phoenix, in the Iliad, divine assimilations and ruler cult, the language of Menander's young men, the vision of God in Middle Platonism, blessed afterlife in the mysteries, Greek epiphanies and the Acts of the Apostles, and the revolt at Jerusalem against Antiochos Epiphanes in the light of similar cities under Hellenistic rule. Another book of Frederick E. Brenk: Clothed in Purple Light. (Franz Steiner 1998)

The topic tackled in this book is Philo's account of the complex, double-sided nature of God's acting - the two-sided coin of God as transcendent yet immanent, unknowable yet revealed, immobile yet creating - and also the two sides of acting in humans - who, in an attempt to imitate God, both contemplate and produce. In both contexts, divine and human, Philo considers that it would not be proper to give precedence to either side - the result would be barren. God's acting and man's acting are at the same time both speculative and practical, and it is precisely out of this co-presence that the order of the world unfolds. Philo considers this two-sided condition as a source of complexity and fertility. Francesca Calabi argues that, far from being an irresolvable contradiction, Philo's two-fold vision is the key to understanding his works. It constitutes a richness that rejects reduction to apparently incompatible forms and aspects.

Either as insider or as sensitive observer, Plutarch provides us with exceptional evidence to reconstruct the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of the first centuries CE. This collection of articles sheds important light on the religious and philosophical discourse of Late Antiquity.

This collection of essays honors James C. VanderKam on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday and twentieth year on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame. An international group of scholars including peers specializing in Second Temple Judaism and Biblical Studies, colleagues past and present, and former students offers essays that interact in various ways with ideas and themes important in VanderKam's own work. The collection is divided into five sections spanning two volumes. The first volume includes essays on the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East along with studies on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Essays in the second volume address topics in early Judaism, Enoch traditions and Jubilees, and the New Testament and early Christianity.

These essays honor James C. VanderKam on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday and twentieth year on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame. Essays from an international group of scholars address various topics in Second Temple Judaism and biblical studies.

In her wide-ranging study The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology, Dorian Greenbaum explores the daimon and astrology’s connections to fate, mythology, philosophy; Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Gnostic and Mithraic religion; the doctrine of lots and allotment; concepts of fortune, love and necessity.

This volume presents the second half of the proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the International Plutarch Society (2002). The selected papers are divided by theme in sections concentrating on statesmen and statesmanship in Plutarch's Greek and Roman Lives. The volume bears witness to the ongoing, wide-ranging interest in Plutarch's biographies.

The papers in this volume concentrate on statesmen and statesmanship in Plutarch's Greek and Roman Lives.