Description:

We know how the story of the Roman Empire ended – with the “triumph of Christianity and the eventual Christianization of the Roman Mediterranean. But how would religious life have appeared to an observer when the conversion of the emperor was only a Christian pipe dream? And how would it have appeared in one particular city, rather than in the Roman Empire as a whole?

This volume takes a detailed look at the religious dimension of life in one particular city – Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean coast of Judea. Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great in honour of his patron, Augustus Caesar, was marked by a complex religious identity from the outset. Over time, other religious groups, including Christianity, Mithraism and Samaritanism, found a home in the city, where they jostled with each other and with those already present for position, influence and the means of survival.

Written by a team of seasoned scholars and promising newcomers, this book brings a new perspective to the study of religion in antiquity. Along with the deliberate goal of understanding religion as an urban phenomenon, Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima studies religious groups as part of a dynamic process of social interaction, spanning a spectrum from coexistence, through competition and rivalry, to open conflict. The cumulative result is a fresh and fascinating look at one of antiquity’s most interesting cities.

Reviews:

“...this book tells a fascinating and powerful story. . . . Professor Donaldson and his collaborators have crafted a wide-ranging but coherent study that merits careful attention from a broad readership interested in biblical studies, the history of religions, ancient urbanism, and processes of identity formation.”

“This is the first of what one hopes will be a number of studies issuing from the “Religious Rivalries” seminar of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. The seminar’s mandate is to examine the interaction between religious groups in their urban context in the Roman empire, focusing particularly on the three centuries or so between the first appearance of Christianity and its “triumph” in the Constantinian era. To see that interaction through a lens untinted by Christianity’s eventual victory is precisely the seminar’s intent. . . .

Wisely, in addition to theoretical and generalizing studies, the seminar has chosen to focus on this “religious rivalry” in a few target cities, thus avoiding a mere modification of the Christianity-centred, empire-wide narrative. The volume under review looks to the particular and to King Herod’s port-city of Caesarea Maritima. The individual studies are of a high standard, and they have been ably edited by Terence Donaldson, who furnishes a succinct Introduction and “Concluding Reflections.” It is greatly to Donaldson’s credit that the volume has a unity and coherence rarely attained in similar multi-authored studies.”