The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity - (Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle) (Paperback)

About the Book

The series Ekstasis publishes monographs and collected essays on topics concerning religious experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Volumes in this series will address a diverse array of movements and particular expressions of religious experience, such as ecstatic trances, magic, healing, prophecy, divination, and dreams, as well as other phenomena. Methods will range widely, encompassing contemporary sociological, anthropological, and psychological approaches, as well as historical analysis of textual, archaeological, and artistic evidence.

Book Synopsis

Early Christian claims to the Holy Spirit arose in a vibrant cultural matrix that included Stoicism, Jewish mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman medicine, and the perspectives of Plutarch. In a range of articles, this multidisciplinary volume discovers in these texts rich cultural connections related to inspiration and the Holy Spirit. Essential reading for scholars of Judaism and the New Testament, as well as classicists and theologians.

Review Quotes

"All too often scholars pursue their research in isolation, and the interdisciplinary study and collaboration portrayed in this volume can be an example for other projects."
Cornelis Bennema in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 5/2016

About the Author

Jörg Frey, University of Zurich, Switzerland; John R. Levison, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA.