Crisis in Early Religion

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

   PDF

2. Crisis in Early Religion: An Introduction

   • Mait Kõiv, Sebastian Fink

   Pages 1-10

3. The Crisis of Authentic Buddhavacana in Tipiṭaka: Is Early Buddhist Sangha’s Politics Responsible?

   • Siddharth Singh

   Pages 11-28

4. Prajñāpāramitā as a Crisis-Marker in Buddhism

   • Sergey Yu Lepekhov

   Pages 29-37

5. The Involvement of Buddhist Monks in the Court Intrigues in China and Japan During the Fourth to the Eighth Centuries

   • Elena Lepekhova

   Pages 39-59

6. The Ugaritic Combat Myth and Egypto-Hittite Relations in the Late Bronze Age

   • Joanna Töyräänvuori

   Pages 61-70

7. Crises in the Hittite Religion: Examples of the Prayer of Kantuzili and Plague Prayers of Muršili II

   • Vladimir Sazonov, Jaan Lahe

   Pages 71-84

8. Divine Justice and Human Competition: Signs of Crises in Archaic Greece

   • Mait Kõiv

   Pages 85-118

9. When Oracles Don’t Come True: Oedipus Tyrannus and Oracular Crisis

   • Tim Whitmarsh

   Pages 119-132

10. ‘The Athenian ‘Plague’: Religion, ‘Rationality’, and Ethics’

    • Elizabeth Irwin

    Pages 133-161

11. A Crisis of ‘Atheism’ in Ancient Rome? On the Perception of Nonreligion as a Threat in the Roman Empire

    • Alexandra Eppinger

    Pages 163-184

12. Crisis and Transformation of Gnostic Christianity in Late Roman and Early Byzantine Egypt

    • Przemysław Piwowarczyk

    Pages 185-198

Religion is closely linked to social development as it often serves as the ideological fundament of a society and one of the foremost expressions of its culture. The articles in this volume are devoted to the study of religious crisis in Anqituity and deal with these pheonomena in the Ancient Near East, Rome, Greece, China and India.

• Religion
• History of Religion
• Crisis
• Atheism
• Antiquity

• University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

  Mait Kõiv

• Estonian Oriental Society, Ülenurme, Estonia

  Märt Läänemets

• Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

  Kerstin Droß-Krüpe

• University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

  Sebastian Fink

Dr. Mait Kõiv is the associate professor of Ancient History in the University of Tartu, with the main research field in the Ancient Greek history.



Dr. Märt Läänemets is an Orientalist-Sinologist focusing on the field of history of thought and religion in China, classical Chinese and Buddhist texts; he is the President of the Estonian Oriental Society.



PD Dr. Kerstin Droß-Krüpe is a historian of ancient history and currently works as an Akademische Oberrätin at the Ruhr-University Bochum.



Dr. Sebastian Fink is Senior Scientist at the Institute for Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Innsbruck.

Policies and ethics