2. Our Language and Theirs: "Religious" Categories and Identities
| Dublin Core | PKP Metadata Items | Metadata for this Document | |
| 1. | Title | Title of document | 2. Our Language and Theirs: "Religious" Categories and Identities - Theorizing Religion in Antiquity |
| 2. | Creator | Author's name, affiliation, country | Steve Mason; Groningen University; |
| 3. | Subject | Discipline(s) | Religious Studies; Ancient History |
| 4. | Subject | Keyword(s) | religion in antiquity; ancient religion; ancient history; classics |
| 5. | Subject | Subject classification | ancient religion |
| 6. | Description | Abstract | Most of our historical evidence—whether literary, inscriptional, or numismatic— involves language. In order to understand it, we need to know something of how educated persons viewed their world and what categories they assumed in talking with each other. Beginning students of ancient history typically find themselves off balance in this area. They quickly realize that terms with more or less obvious meanings in English—history, democracy, state, country, city, empire, emperor, province, myth, religion, superstition, priest, philosophy, professional, law, police, army, general (as rank), economy, markets, social class, genre, geography, maps —bring with them a cart-load of connotations that are not valid for the Greek and Latin (or Hebrew or Aramaic) terms they translate. One-for-one translation of words from ancient agrarian cultures to those of our post-industrial, post-modern western democracies is bound to be hazardous. This is evident in the study of ‘ancient religion’ and begs for out attention. Before we explore the terms that are most commonly translated as ‘religion’, we must deal with a thorny issue that sparks debate and creates misunderstandings even among specialists, namely: the legitimacy and status of such “insider-language” research. |
| 7. | Publisher | Organizing agency, location | Equinox Publishing Ltd |
| 8. | Contributor | Sponsor(s) | |
| 9. | Date | (YYYY-MM-DD) | 13-May-2019 |
| 10. | Type | Status & genre | Peer-reviewed Article |
| 11. | Type | Type | |
| 12. | Format | File format | |
| 13. | Identifier | Uniform Resource Identifier | https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/books/article/view/27962 |
| 14. | Identifier | Digital Object Identifier | 10.1558/equinox.27962 |
| 15. | Source | Journal/conference title; vol., no. (year) | Equinox eBooks Publishing; Theorizing Religion in Antiquity |
| 16. | Language | English=en | en |
| 18. | Coverage | Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.) |
worldwide, 6th century BCE to 4th century CE |
| 19. | Rights | Copyright and permissions | Copyright 2014 Equinox Publishing Ltd |