Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Talking About Ancient Religious Cultures

What Is Religion?

Early Prehistoric Religion

Prehistoric Religion — The Neolithic Era

Egypt — a Unique Religious Culture

Egyptian Creation Stories and Their Meaning

The Egyptian Pantheon

Egyptian Myths of Kingship

Egyptian Myths of the Underworld

Egypt — The Power of Goddesses

Egypt — Religion in Everyday Life

Egypt — The Beginning of Wisdom

Mesopotamia — The Land Between the Rivers

Mesopotamia — Stories of Creation

Mesopotamia — Inanna the Goddess

Mesopotamia — Gilgamesh the King

Mesopotamia — The Search for Eternal Life

Mesopotamia — The Great Flood

Ancient Concepts of the Divine

The Gods of Syria-Palestine

Israel's Ancestral History

Israel's National History

Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Early Prophecy in Israel

Classical Israelite Prophecy

Israel's Great Crisis

Syria-Palestine — The Problem of Evil

Early Aegean Civilizations

Religious Culture in the Iliad and the Odyssey

Religious Culture in Archaic Greece

Greece — How Things Came to Be

Greece — The Goddess

The Classical Era in Greece

Greece — Philosophy as Religion

Religious Culture in the Hellenistic World

Mystery Religions in the Hellenistic World

Mystery Religions From the East

Roman Religious Culture Before the Empire

Rome — Saviors and Divine Men

Rome — Divination, Astrology, and Magic

Rome — Critics and Charlatans

Jesus of Nazareth as a Figure in History

Creating Jesus Communities

Living and Dying for the God (S)

Women's Religious Roles in the Early Empire

The Jesus Movement in the Greco-Roman World

The Death and Rebirth of the Old Gods

Conclusion — Persisting Ideas and Yearnings