Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Sarah Iles Johnston -- ENCOUNTERING ANCIENT RELIGIONS -- What is ancient Mediterranean religion? / Fritz Graf -- Monotheism and polytheism / Jan Assmann -- Ritual / Jan Bremmer -- Myth / Fritz Graf -- Cosmology: time and history / John J. Collins -- Pollution, sin, atonement, salvation / Harold W. Attridge -- Law and ethics / Eckart Otto -- Mysteries / Sarah Iles Johnston -- Religions in contact / John Scheid -- Writing and religion / Mary Beard -- Magic / Sarah Iles Johnston -- HISTORIES -- Egypt / Jan Assmann, David Frankfurter -- Mesopotamia / Paul-Alain Beaulieu -- Syria and Canaan / David P. Wright -- Israel / John J. Collins -- Anatolia: Hittites / David P. Wright -- Iran / William Malandra, Michael Stausberg -- Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations / Nanno Marinatos -- Greece / Jon Mikalson -- Etruria / Olivier de Cazanove -- Rome / John North -- Early Christianity / Harold Attridge.

"At once sweeping in scope and format, the Guide eschews the usual encyclopedic approach, instead presenting, side by side, materials from ten cultures and traditions. Thus specific beliefs, cults, gods, and ritual practices that arose and developed in Mediterranean religions - of Egypt, Anatolia and the Near East, Mesopotamia, Iran, Greece, and the Roman world, from the third millennium BCE to the fourth century CE - are interpreted in comparison with one another, and with reference to aspects that crisscross cultural boundaries, such as Cosmology, Myth, Law and Ethics, and Magic. Written by leading scholars of ancient religion, the essays in this guide sketch the various religious histories, raise central theoretical issues, and examine individual topics such as Sacred Times and Spaces; Prayers, Hymns, Incantations, and Curses; Sin, Pollution, and Purity; Death, the Afterlife, and Other Last Things; Divination and Prophecy; Deities and Demons; and Sacred Texts and Canonicity."--BOOK JACKET.

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