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Methods, Assumptions, and Starting Points in Studies of “the Christians” and “the Romans”

By Douglas Boin

This presentation surveys theoretical developments in ancient Mediterranean religion related to social history. It examines one phenomenon, the rise of Christianity, as a case study for detecting how the same commitments can lead like-minded researchers in opposing directions depending on the theories and methods they use. This topic was famously studied by sociologist Rodney Stark in his widely-cited The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (1997).

Prodigy Reporting in the Early Roman Empire

By Susan Satterfield

In this paper I will show that the decline in prodigy reporting in the early Roman Empire reflects broader political and religious changes in this period. Prodigies were reported and expiated almost annually during the Roman Republic, but during the Empire, there were sometimes decades-long gaps between reports. I will provide reasons for this shift, but I will also examine the continued, though diminished, activities involving prodigy reports and expiations under the emperors.

Rehistoricizing Greek Religion

By Fred Naiden

The academic discipline of the “History of Religions” began mostly in Continental Europe about a hundred years ago. It emerged from evolutionary paradigms for the development of human culture, some Marxist, some rationalistic, some rooted in the sociology of Durkheim. In the English-speaking world, this discipline never attained the status of a distinct specialty. Scholars of Greek religion were influenced by this discipline without belonging to it; to some degree, they practiced this discipline without being aware of it.