Household and Family Religion in Antiquity

Traditional scholarship on religion in antiquity has favoured the study of national, regional, or municipal worship, overlooking the significant day–to–day rituals and beliefs that existed beyond the contexts of state–sponsored or civic temple cults. Household and Family Religion in Antiquity: Contextual and Comparative Perspectives is the first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity.

With an approach that is both contextual and comparative, essays examine domestic and familial religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia. Taking in a range of religious expression, from supplication of a household s patron deities to contact with dead ancestors, Household and Family Religion in Antiquity advances our understanding of a distinct and widespread ancient religious phenomenon.

List of Figures vii

Notes on Contributors x

Series Editor′s Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Map xvi

1 Introduction 1
John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan

2 Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families 5
Stanley K. Stowers

3 Family Religion in Second Millennium West Asia (Mesopotamia, Emar, Nuzi) 20
Karel van der Toorn

4 The Integration of Household and Community Religion in Ancient Syria 37
Daniel E. Fleming

5 Family, Household, and Local Religion at Late Bronze Age Ugarit 60
Theodore J. Lewis

6 Family Religion in Ancient Israel and its Surroundings 89
Rainer Albertz

7 Family Religion in Israel and the Wider Levant of the First Millennium bce 113
Saul M. Olyan

8 Household Religion, Family Religion, and Women′s Religion in Ancient Israel 127
Susan Ackerman

9 Ashdod and the Material Remains of Domestic Cults in the Philistine Coastal Plain 159
Rüdiger Schmitt

10 Household Religion in Ancient Egypt 171
Robert K. Ritner

11 Household and Domestic Religion in Ancient Egypt 197
Barbara S. Lesko

12 Household Religion in Ancient Greece 210
Christopher A. Faraone

13 Family Matters: Domestic Religion in Classical Greece 229
Deborah Boedeker

14 Cicero′s Minerva, Penates, and the Mother of the Lares: An Outline of Roman Domestic Religion 248
John Bodel

15 Comparative Perspectives 276
John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan

Bibliography 283

Index 314

John Bodel is Professor of Classics and History at Brown University. He writes about Roman social and cultural history, Latin epigraphy, and Latin literature of the Empire. His books include Roman Brick Stamps in the Kelsey Museum (1983), Graveyards and Groves: A Study of the Lex Lucerina (1994), Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (editor, 2001), and Dediche sacre nel mondo greco–romano: Diffusione, funzioni, tipologie (edited with Mika Kajava, 2008).

Saul M. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University. He is the author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (1988), A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (1993), Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (2000), Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (2004), and Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (2008).