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For decades, Arthur D. Nock's famous definition of conversion and his distinction between conversion and adhesion have greatly influenced our understanding of individual religious transformation in the ancient world. The articles in this volume - originally presented as papers at the conference Conversion and Initiation in Antiquity (Ebeltoft, Denmark, December 2012) - aim to nuance this understanding. They do so by exploring different facets of these two phenomena in a wide range of religions in their own context and from new theoretical and empirical perspectives. The result is a compilation of many new insights into ancient initiation and conversion as well as their definitions and characteristics.
List of contents
Contents: Birgitte Bøgh: In Life and Death: Choice and Conversion in the Cult of Dionysos - Éric Rebillard: Becoming Christian in Carthage in the Age of Tertullian - Jan N. Bremmer: Conversion in the oldest Apocryphal Acts - Jakob Engberg: Human and Divine Agency in Conversion in Apologetic Writings of the Second Century: To «Dance with Angels» - Nicholas Marshall: Ontological Conversion: A Description and Analysis of Two Case Studies from Tertullian's De Baptismo and Iamblichus' De Mysteriis - Zeba Crook: Agents of Apostasy, Delegates of Disaffiliation - Carmen Cvetkovic: Change and Continuity: Reading Anew Augustine's Conversion - Luther H. Martin: «The Devil is in the Details». Hellenistic Mystery Initiation Rites: Bridge-Burning or Bridge-Building? - Kate Cooper/James Corke-Webster: Conversion, Conflict, and the Drama of Social Reproduction: Narratives of Filial Resistance in Early Christianity and Modern Britain - Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: There and Back Again: Temporary Immortality in the Mithras Liturgy - Anders-Christian Jacobsen: Identity Formation through Catechetical Teaching in Early Christianity - Per Bilde: The Role of Religious Education in six of the Pagan Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Period - Roger Beck: Educating a Mithraist - Elisabetta Abate: Observations on Late Antique Rabbinic Sources on Instruction of Would-Be Converts - Tobias Georges: The Role of Philosophy and Education in Apologists' Conversion to Christianity: The Case of Justin and Tatian.
About the author
Birgitte Secher Bøgh studied Science of Religion and Classics at Aarhus University (Denmark). At the moment she is doing research in the field of ancient mystery cults. Her work focuses on the mysteries of Cybele, Mithras, Dionysus and Isis, their connection to other ancient religions as well as on different phenomena related to these cults.
