Icons of Power by Naomi Janowitz
Janowitz sifts through the polemics to make sense of the daunting mosaic of religious belief and practice in Late Antiquity. Janowitz reveals how ritual practitioners held common assumptions about why their rituals worked and how to perform them. Icons of Power makes an important contribution to our understanding of society in Late Antiquity.“Icons of Power will interest anyone who wants to understand the role that ritual played in the late antique worldCrossing sectarian boundaries and examining texts from Jewish, Christian, and pagan sources, Janowitz succeeds in outlining the hidden syntax underlying ritual practices in a wide variety of religious communities.”
—Gregory Shaw, Stonehill College
“Exploring the permeable borders between esoteric Jewish practices and rabbinic Judaism and setting those Jewish practices alongside Christian and pagan procedures, [Janowitz] illuminates a shared discourse of similar concerns and competing strategies. . . . Beyond her careful elucidation of relatively obscure texts, this study should appeal broadly to theorists of ritual. . . . Monographs on this subject suitable for undergraduate courses are rare; the theoretical sophistication of this book only aids in its utility.”
—G. Spinner Choice
“This book is a significant contribution to our understanding of late antique religion and ritual, as it considers some of the common ritual elements of late antique Judaism, early Christianity, and Greco-Roman religions.”
—R. H. Cline The Historian
Naomi Janowitz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California at Davis. She is the author of The Poetics of Ascent: Theories of Language in a Rabbinic Ascent Text (1989).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780271021478 |
| ISBN 10 | 0271021470 |
| Title | Icons of Power |
| Author | Naomi Janowitz |
| Series | Magic In History |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Pennsylvania State University Press |
| Year published | 2002-05-15 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Prizes | Winner, 2003 Choice Outstanding Academic Title |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |