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Cerebral subjectivity—the identification of the individual self with the brain—is a belief that has become firmly entrenched in modern science and popular culture. In The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity, Jessica Wright traces its roots to tensions within early Christianity over the brain’s role in self-governance and its inherent vulnerability. Examining how early Christians appropriated medical ideas, Wright tracks how they used these ideas for teaching ascetic practices, developing therapeutics for the soul, and finding a path to salvation. Bringing a medical lens to religious discourse, this text demonstrates that rather than rejecting medical traditions, early Christianity developed by creatively integrating them.
Homo Patiens - Approaches to the Patient in the Ancient World is a book about the patients of the Graeco-Roman world, their role in the ancient medical encounters and their relationship to the health providers and medical practitioners of their time. This volume makes a strong claim for the relevance of a patient-centred approach to the history of ancient medicine. Attention to the experience of patients deepens our understanding of ancient societies and their medical markets, and enriches our knowledge of the history of ancient cultures. It is a first step towards shaping a history of the ancient patient’s view, which will be of use not only to ancient historians, students of medical humanities, and historians of medicine, but also to any reader interested in medical ethics.
Kessler shows how the rabbis of the third through sixth centuries turned to non-Jewish writings on embryology and procreation to explicate the biblical insistence on the primacy of God's role in procreation at the expense of the biological parents.
In ancient Greece, epiphanies were embedded in cultural production, and employed by the socio-political elite in both perpetuating pre-existing power-structures and constructing new ones. This volume is the first comprehensive survey of the history of divine epiphany as presented in the literary and epigraphic narratives of the Greek-speaking world. It demonstrates that divine epiphanies not only reveal what the Greeks thought about their gods; they tell us just as much about the preoccupations, the preconceptions, and the assumptions of ancient Greek religion and culture. In doing so, it explores the deities who were prone to epiphany and the contexts in which they manifested themselves, as well as the functions (narratives and situational) they served, addressing the cultural specificity of divine morphology and mortal-immortal interaction. Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture re-establishes epiphany as a crucial mode in Greek religious thought and practice, underlines its centrality in Greek cultural production, and foregrounds its impact on both the political and the societal organization of the ancient Greeks.
This handbook covers the technical, social and cultural history of surgery. It reflects the state of the art and suggests directions for future research. It discusses what is different and specific about the history of surgery - a manual activity with a direct impact on the patient’s body. The individual entries in the handbook function as starting points for anyone who wants to obtain up-to-date information about an area in the history of surgery for purposes of research or for general orientation. Written by 26 experts from 6 countries, the chapters discuss the essential topics of the field (such as anaesthesia, wound infection, instruments, specialization), specific domains areas (for example, cancer surgery, transplants, animals, war), but also innovative themes (women, popular culture, nursing, clinical trials) and make connections to other areas of historical research (such as the history of emotions, art, architecture, colonial history). Chapters 16 and 18 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com
A new theory of the Talmud's formation based on comparison with late antique intellectual and material standards of book production.
What did it mean to be a Covenanter?
Platonic discourses concerning the soul are incredibly rich and multitiered. Plato's own diverse and disparate arguments and images offer competing accounts of how we are to understand the nature of the soul. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the accounts of Platonists who engage Plato’s dialogues are often riddled with questions. This volume takes up the theories of well-known philosophers and theologians, including Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, the emperor Julian, and Origen, as well as lesser-known but equally important figures in a collection of essays on topics such as transmigration of the soul, the nature of the Platonist enlightenment experience, soul and gender, pagan ritual practices, Christian and pagan differences about the soul, mental health and illness, and many other topics. Contributors include Crystal Addey, Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Dirk Baltzly, Robert Berchman, Jay Bregman, Luc Brisson, Kevin Corrigan, John Dillon, John F. Finamore, Lloyd P. Gerson, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Elizabeth Hill, Sarah Klitenic Wear, Danielle A. Layne, Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Gregory Shaw, Svetla Slaveva-Griffine, Suzanne Stern-Gillet, Harold Tarrant, Van Tu, and John D. Turner.
Explores in detail an important section of the population of the Roman world which has too often been neglected.
When Near Becomes Far explores the representations and depictions of old age in the rabbinic Jewish literature of late antiquity (150-600 CE). Through close literary readings and cultural analysis, the book reveals the gaps and tensions between idealized images of old age on the one hand, and the psychologically, physiologically, and socially complicated realities of aging on the other hand. The authors argue that while rabbinic literature presents a number of prescriptions related to qualities and activities that make for good old age, the respect and reverence that the elderly should be awarded, and harmonious intergenerational relationship, it also includes multiple anecdotes and narrativ...