Review of Camassa, Statuto del corpo e annuncio di salvezza

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Statuto del corpo e annuncio di salvezza: dalla Grecia di età classica alla Palestina nel momento di Gesù.

Giorgio Camassa, Statuto del corpo e annuncio di salvezza: dalla Grecia di età classica alla Palestina nel momento di Gesù. Problemi e ricerche di storia antica, 36. Rome: L'Erma, 2022. Pp. 238. ISBN 9788891326027

Review by
Luca Lorenzon, F.R.S.-FNRS, Université de Liège. luca.lorenzon@uliege.be

The Greek Soteria has been the subject of particular scholarly interest throughout the year 2022. Theodora Jim’s book “Saviour gods and Soteria in ancient Greece”, for example, addresses similar issues to the ones tackled in this book.[1] The aim of Camassa’s work is nevertheless different. The author focuses on the role of the body as a beneficiary or an agent of a salvific action in the complex process of soteriological intervention in ancient societies. While the book does not aim to constitute a comprehensive study of the notion of salvation through the ages, its chronological range is quite wide, from the 5th century BC to the early Christian era. A second volume, in preparation, will cover later periods, with a particular focus on the authors of Late Antiquity.

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For a review of the above-mentioned book by Jim, see here.

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Review of Jim, Saviour gods and soteria in ancient Greece

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Saviour gods and soteria in ancient Greece.

Theodora Suk Fong Jim, Saviour gods and soteria in ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. xii, 319. ISBN 9780192894113

Review by
Tony Keddie, The University of Texas at Austin. tony.keddie@austin.utexas.edu

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This book is in many ways a groundbreaking investigation of a significant religious concept. It should be widely read by scholars of religion in the ancient Mediterranean. Unfortunately, its reduction of “Christian monotheism” to an orientation toward otherworldly soteria is a well-intentioned strawman that nonetheless reproduces a longstanding metanarrative of Christian exceptionalism. Researchers building on this study would do well to recast Jim’s division between this-worldly “protection” and other-worldly “salvation” along the lines of the fluidity Jim has so effectively illustrated elsewhere.

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