Imagine No Religion
How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities

Carlin A. Barton (Author), Daniel Boyarin (Author)

9780823271207

Paperback / softback, published 3 October 2016

328 pages
25.4 x 17.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.618 kg

What do we fail to see when we force other, earlier cultures into the Procrustean bed of concepts that organize our contemporary world? In Imagine No Religion, Carlin A. Barton and Daniel Boyarin map the myriad meanings of the Latin and Greek words religio and thrēskeia, frequently and reductively mistranslated as "religion," in order to explore the manifold nuances of their uses within ancient Roman and Greek societies. In doing so, they reveal how we can conceptualize anew and speak of these cultures without invoking the anachronistic concept of religion. From Plautus to Tertullian, Herodotus to Josephus, Imagine No Religion illuminates cultural complexities otherwise obscured by our modern-day categories.