Sunday, October 14, 2018

Review of Petersen and van Kooten (eds.), Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Anders Klostergaard Petersen, George van Kooten (ed.), Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World: From Plato, through Jesus, to Late Antiquity. Ancient philosophy and religion, 1. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017. Pp. viii, 420. ISBN 9789004341463. $177.00. Reviewed by Joseph Lipp, Monmouth University (jlipp@monmouth.edu).
This volume, the first in a new series on Ancient Philosophy and Religion by Brill, aims to “examine the potential for engaging in dialogue about the intertwinement of ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy and religion (here confined to Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian religion)” (2). The time period covered is Plato to Julian, and the evidence is entirely textual. The editors cite two recent trends in early Christian studies and Classics, respectively, as scholarly context: first, the growing work on Graeco-Roman philosophy in the New Testament and, second, recent studies on the religious nature of ancient philosophy. Dissatisfied that these developments were occurring independently of one another, the editors organized two colloquia to bring them together, at the universities of Aarhaus and Cambridge in 2012 and 2014. They invited New Testament scholars, classicists, and historians of ancient philosophy, and this volume is based on the colloquia.

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