Revisiting Delphi: Religion and Storytelling in Ancient Greece

by Julia Kindt

Overview

Revisiting Delphi speaks to all admirers of Delphi and its famous prophecies, be they experts on ancient Greek religion, students of the ancient world, or just lovers of a good story. It invites readers to revisit the famous Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, along with Herodotus, Euripides, Socrates, Pausanias and Athenaeus, offering the first comparative and extended enquiry into the way these and other authors force us to move the link between religion and narrative centre stage. Their accounts of Delphi and its prophecies reflect a world in which the gods frequently remain baffling and elusive despite every human effort to make sense of the signs they give.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781316606155
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/16/2020
Series:	Cambridge Classical Studies
Pages:	231
Sales rank:	1,035,950
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Julia Kindt is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Rethinking Greek Religion (Cambridge, 2012) and has co-edited, with E. Eidinow, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion (2015). She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Ancient History and a senior editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: revisiting Delphi; 2. Herodotus: Delphi, oracles and storytelling in the Histories; 3. Euripides: ironic readings of Apollo and his prophecies; 4. Plato: Socrates, or invoking the Oracle as a witness; 5. Pausanias: what's the stuff of divinity?; 6. Athenaeus: encountering the divine in word and wood; 7. Conclusion: religion and storytelling in ancient Greece; Appendix: Plutarch - a philosophical enquiry into an enigmatic sign.

Editorial Reviews

'This book is intended for the specialist reader and for those who wish to think more deeply about the place of religion in ancient Greek society. … It is certainly a volume to which one could return and find stimulation for further ideas.' Marion Gibbs, Classics For All

'The book is a welcome contribution to increasingly networked reflection about the religious world view of the Greeks.' Historische Zeitschrift

From the Publisher