The Study of Greek and Roman Religions: Insularity and Assimilation
Ebook
Overview
How should ancient religious ideas be approached? Is “religion” an applicable term to antiquity? Should classicists, ancient historians, and religious studies scholars work more closely together?
Nickolas P. Roubekas argues that there is a disciplinary gap between the study of Greek and Roman religions and the study of “religion” as a category-a gap that has often resulted in contradictory conclusions regarding Greek and Roman religion. This book addresses this lack of interdisciplinarity by providing an overview, criticism, and assessment of this chasm. It provides a theoretical approach to this historical period, raising the issue of the relationship between “theory of religion” and “history of religion,” and explores how history influences theory and vice versa. It also presents an in-depth critique of some crucial problems that have been central to the discussions of scholars who work on Graeco-Roman antiquity, encouraging us to re-examine how we approach the study of ancient religions.
Critiques the disciplinary gap between classical studies and religious studies, and presents suggestions for bridging this gap through a more scientific approach to the study of Graeco-Roman religions.
Provides an assessment of research on Graeco-Roman religion in both religious studies and classical studies, and presents a more scientific approach
Uses an interdisciplinary approach that will encourage scholars of classics and religious studies to approach their disciplines in a new way
Addresses multiple recognized problems known to scholars of classics and religious studies, such as the place of ‘belief’ in the study of religions of the past
Acknowledgments
1. “Closing a Book None the Wiser”; Or Should a Scholar of Religion Happen to Meet a Classicist
2. Burning Bridges?
3. (No) Greek and Roman “Religions”
4. Comparative Nausea
5. The Departing Gods
6. Re(ap)proaching the Study of Greek and Roman Religions
Appendix I-Re: Hesiod
Appendix II-On Belief
Appendix III-A Typology of Religions
References
Index
This book is one of a kind. Nickolas P. Roubekas successfully demonstrates how Greek and Roman religions have been historically studied in a one-sided manner. Consequently, he offers appealing and innovative discussions on how this could be amended, primarily by suggesting a more inter-disciplinary collaboration, which includes the findings of the cognitive science of religion.
An interdisciplinary approach to the study of ancient religion is often invoked, but seldom seriously implemented. This book is a valuable reflection on the necessity to build real bridges between classics and religious studies, dwelling deeply on the recent history of both disciplines, their prejudices, and their self-limiting boundaries. Even those who do not share Roubekas’ proposals will profit from his clear, thorough, and honest discussions of scholarship.
- Title: The Study of Greek and Roman Religions: Insularity and Assimilation
- Author: Nickolas P. Roubekas
- Series: Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 192
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350102620, 9781350336247, 1350336246, 1350102628
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350102620
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T23:54:38Z
Nickolas P. Roubekas is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. His previous publications include An Ancient Theory of Religion: Euhemerism from Antiquity to the Present (2017), Theorizing “Religion” in Antiquity (2018), Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion and Myth (2020), and The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (2nd ed., 2021). He is editor-in-chief of NUMEN: International Review for the History of Religions.