Coping with Versnel: A Roundtable on Religion and Magic

In Honour of the 80th Birthday of Henk S. Versnel

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Formerly Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain, the series Religions in the Graeco-Roman World is a forum for studies in the social and cultural function of religions in the Greek and the Roman world, dealing with the religions of city and region between ca. 400 BCE and 700 CE, both on their own terms and in their interaction with early Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Special attention is given to the religious history of regions and cities which illustrate the practical workings of these processes.

The series published an average of three volumes per year over the last five years.

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Frits Naerebout has been teaching and researching Ancient History at the History Department of Leiden University for forty years, until his retirement in 2020. His main interest are ancient religions (especially dance, the subject of his 1997 PhD, Attractive Performances), culture contact and culture change in the ancient world, and the reception of Greco-Roman culture in the post-classical world. He has published monographs, text books, and numerous articles and reviews, including (with H.W. Singor) Antiquity. Greeks and Romans in context (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).
Kim Beerden is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at the History Department of Leiden University, where she got her PhD in 2013, published by Brill as Worlds Full of Signs. Ancient Greek Divination in Context. She works mainly in the fields of ancient religion and of reception studies, but has also published on food history. Most recently she edited (with Timo Epping) Classical Controversies. Reception of Graeco-Roman Antiquity in the Twenty-First Century (Sidestone Press, 2022).
Managing Editors
Kim Beerden, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Lucinda Dirven, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Miguel John Versluys, University of Leiden, The Netherlands

Consulting Editors
David Frankfurter, Boston University, USA
Johannes Hahn, Universität Münster, Germany
Frits Naerebout, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Preface

Introduction: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of Human Life
A Personal Account of the Scholarship of Henk Versnel
Frits G. Naerebout and Kim Beerden

Bibliography of H.S. Versnel

Part 1: Inconsistencies and Other Complexities


1 Cognitive Science of Religion and the Work of Henk Versnel
Ancient and Modern Scholars on Inconsistencies, from Aristotle to Versnel
Jennifer Larson

2 “One Must Not Ask Questions Such as These”
Casper C. de Jonge

3 Divine Metonymy: Theology and Rhetoric
Tim Whitmarsh

Part 2 : Myth and Ritual


4 The History of Myth and Ritual
Robert A. Segal

5 Transitions, Reversals, Inconsistencies
H.S. Versnel on Myth and Ritual
Michael D. Konaris

Part 3 : Magic, Prayers for Justice, and Emotion


6 The Typical and the Outlier in Ancient Greek Cursing
Prayers for Justice, Erotic Curses and other Important Categories
Chris A. Faraone

7 Ancient Magic in a New Key
Refining an Exotic Discipline in the History of Religions
David Frankfurter

8 My God! Religion as Emotional Experience in the Hellenistic World and the Roman East
Angelos Chaniotis

Part 4 : Saving Death


9 Jesus Christus als neue Alkestis und neuer Kodros
Das Sterben „für“ andere Menschen bei Paulus und im paganen Kontext
Christina Eschner

Part 5 : Henotheism


10 Henotheism, a ‘Consistent’ Category of Polytheism
Nicole Belayche

Epilogue
11 Foreword to an Afterword
Henk S. Versnel

12 Response
Henk S. Versnel

Bibliography
Index
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