Cult Practices in Ancient Literatures: Egyptian, Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Narratives in a Cross-Cultural Perspective.

Franziska Naether (ed.), Cult Practices in Ancient Literatures: Egyptian, Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Narratives in a Cross-Cultural Perspective; Proceedings of a Workshop at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York, May 16-17, 2016, ISAW  Papers vol. 18, ISAW, 2020. ISSN: 2164-1471

ISAW Papers 18 collects the papers from a transdisciplinary workshop on cult practices in ancient literature that took place at ISAW in May 2016. It includes authors from Egyptology, Near Eastern Studies, Classics, and New Testament Studies, who work on rituals, magical and divinatory practices in the context of novels, tales, and works of wisdom. The contributions deal with descriptions and functions of cult practices in literary texts, with images of the divine, the portrayal of priests, wise men, and women as protagonists, and with secret knowledge.

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Table of Contents

Franziska Naether – Introduction

Gina Konstantopoulos – Looking for Glinda: Wise Women and Benevolent
Magic in Old Babylonian Literary Texts

Rita Lucarelli – The Magician as a Literary Figure in Ancient Egyptian Texts

Ainsley Hawthorn – The Fish and the Tamarisk: Sexual and Celestial
Symbolism in “Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird”

Edward Love – The Literary vs The Literal: The narration of magical
practices, texts, and their practitioners in Setne I and II compared
with the so-called Demotic and Greek Magical Papyri

Mark Roblee – Divination is Divinization: The ancient Egyptian pḥ-nṯr
oracle and the “Mithras Liturgy” in Late Roman Egypt

Philippe Matthey – From Cult Practice to Magical Ritual: Deciphering
the “Lecanomancy” in the Alexander Romance

Gil Renberg – Incubation in Demotic Literature [Extended Abstract]

Elena Chepel – Alternative Facts from Oracles and Post-Truth Politics
in Aristophanes [Extended Abstract]

Lucas Livingston – Alcohol’s Magic in Antiquity: Fermentation,
Intoxication, Metamorphosis, and Madness [Extended Abstract]

Meredith Warren – Tasting the Little Scroll: A Sensory Analysis of
Divine Interaction in Revelation 10:8–10 [Extended Abstract]

About ISAW Papers

ISAW Papers is an open-content scholarly journal that publishes article-length works on any topic within the scope of ISAW’s scholarly research. All works are distributed under a Creative Commons-Attribution license and will be archived in the NYU Faculty Digital Archive (FDA).

ISAW collaborates with the NYU Library’s Digital Library Technology Services (DLTS) to publish the ISAW Papers online as part of the Ancient World Digital Library (AWDL).  Articles in ISAW Papers are either anonymously reviewed by expert readers or are submitted by individual ISAW faculty members. The review process for each document is clearly indicated.