Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean

Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean

Tappenden, Frederick. S., and Carly Daniel-Hughes, eds. 2017. Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean. Editorial assistance from Bradley N. Rice. Montreal, QC: McGill University Library. 

The lines between death and life were neither fixed nor finite to the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. For most, death was a passageway into a new and uncertain existence. The dead were not so much extinguished as understood to be elsewhere, and many perceived the deceased to continue to exercise agency among the living. Even for those more skeptical of an afterlife, notions of coming back to life provided frameworks in which to conceptualize the on-going social, political, and cultural influence of the past. This collection of essays examines how notions of coming back to life shape practices and ideals throughout the ancient Mediterranean. All contributors focus on the common theme of coming back to life as a discursive and descriptive space in which antique peoples construct, maintain, and negotiate the porous boundaries between past and present, mortality and immortality, death and life.

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Table of Contents

Front Matter

Dedication

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Foreword Gregory Nagy

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Preface Frederick S. Tappenden, Carly Daniel-Hughes

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Abbreviations

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Contributors

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Introduction

Coming Back to Life in the Ancient Mediterranean: An Introduction Frederick S. Tappenden, Carly Daniel-Hughes

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Many (Un)Happy Returns: Ancient Greek Concepts of a Return from Death and their Later Counterparts Sarah Iles Johnston

PDF EPUB HTML VIDEO 17-36

Section I: Memory, Mourning, and Returning to Life

Living without the Dead: Finding Solace in Ancient Rome Valerie M. Hope

PDF EPUB HTML 39-70

Bringing Back to Life: Laments and the Origin of the So-Called Words of Institution Angela Standhartinger

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Guarding His Body, Mourning His Death, and Pleading for Him in Heaven: On Adam's Death and Eve's Virtues in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve Vita Daphna Arbel

PDF EPUB HTML 103-126

Section II: The Material and Conceptual Porosity of Death

If So, How? Representing “Coming Back to Life” in the Mysteries of Mithras Roger Beck

PDF EPUB HTML 129-151

The Cosmology of the Raising of Lazarus (John 11-12) Troels Engberg-Pedersen

PDF EPUB HTML 153-179

Coming Back to Life in and through Death: Early Christian Creativity in Paul, Ignatius, and Valentinus Frederick S. Tappenden

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“Tell Me What Shall Arise”: Conflicting Notions of the Resurrection Body in Fourth- and Fifth-Century Egypt Hugo Lundhaug

PDF EPUB HTML 215-236

Section III: Identity Formation and the Return from Death

“We Are Called to Monogamy”: Marriage, Virginity, and the Resurrection of the Fleshly Body in Tertullian of Carthage Carly Daniel-Hughes

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Death, Resurrection, and Legitimacy in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles David L. Eastman

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Life and Death, Confession and Denial: Birthing Language in the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons Stéphanie Machabée

PDF EPUB HTML 287-308

Weddings and the Return to Life in the Book of Revelation Eliza Rosenberg

PDF EPUB HTML 309-341

Section IV: Coming back to Life in Myth and Narrative

Hippolytus and Virbius: Narratives on “Coming Back to Life” and Religious Discourse in Greco-Roman Literature Katharina Waldner

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Disarming Death: Theomachy and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 Jeffrey A. Keiser

PDF EPUB HTML 375-406

Talitha Qum! An Exploration of the Image of Jesus as Healer-Physician-Savior in the Synoptic Gospels in Relation to the Asclepius Cult Frances Flannery

PDF EPUB HTML 407-434

Equal to God: Jesus’s Crucifixion as Scheintod Meredith Warren

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Section V: Supplement

Select Bibliography of Embedded Online Works Frederick S. Tappenden, Bradley N. Rice

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Index

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