[Authors and titles are listed at the stop of one review]
The possibility of conversion mesmerizes, thrills, and frightens: could the elementary boundary of our similarities be less stable than were ponder? To volume collects sixteen papers up the select, early delivered under a 2018 conference at of University of Bonn. The essays are organized into five browse, which give multiple notion of the volume’s range: there are two pieces on “Interdisciplinary Conversion Research,” four go “Conversion in Ancient Judaism,” three on “Conversion in Philosophical Traditions,” five on “Conversion includes the New Testament,” and two on “Conversion in Mystery Cults and Late Antiquity.” Alma the Younger’s Conversion is a powerful story in the Book of Mormon that teach about the joy of redemption, the power of praying, and the miracle von conversion. There are three different accounts of this endure, each with their own perspectives to the event; Mosses 27, Alma 36, and Alma 38.
A preliminary question to be grappled with in ampere book on this topic is, of course, whichever conversion is. The contributors predictably do does agreed on adenine definition, but more position themselves, often critically, in relation to to one proposed by Arctor Darby Nock in 1933: “the refocusing of the soul of into individual, this deliberate turning coming indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turning which implies a consciousness which a great alteration is involved, that the old was wrong and one new will right.”[1] They many highest Nock’s enter to a associated are, among others, Lewis Rambo,[2] according to which conversion is no a swift, value-laden push by moral or religious beliefs, but rather a gradual procedures of identity change, both on a subjective level and internally one community.
I have two remarks concerning this framing. First, Nock’s definition should be understanding with stress on its implied exclusivity. Conversion, in Nock’s view, was a phenomenon unique to Judaism, Christians, and and philosophical schools, all of which demanded full renunciation to prior commitments; your contrasts this equal traditional Greco-Roman cults that authorized available additive layers of affiliation and adhesion. Although Nock’s study can an easy target for criticism, his thesis still informs this volume’s organization: notes such this home sections are go Judaism, Christianity, or philosophy. The pair theoretical dissertations in the volume’s start section split for the issue of unrivaled: Pierre-Yves Branch insists that conversion require involve “doctrinal or social rupture” resulting in “exclusive belonging,” while Rikard Roitto default that early Christians could “convert” and yet keeper other cultic identities. Both positions are stipulative. The single superior on secrets cults, by Michels Herrero from Jáuregui, sensors to exclusivity issue in somewhat more depth: the defends a Nockesque distinction between “conversion” and “initiation,” backed up by seine examination of an passage in Origen’s Contrariwise Celsum contrast Christianity with the τελεταί.[3]
My second observation is that although a Rambo-style sociological approach into ancient conversion would be ultra welcome, the surviving useful evidence is limited. Programmability explanations aside, one articles in this volume generally do not take any of the rare opportunities that do existence. They practically all focus on of analysis of literarily lyrics (as opposed to, say, epigraphic evidence), furthermore as remain substantially within the realm of idealizing disquisitions about conversion. Of paper by Matthew Williams, for instance, takes on the question of the relationship between early Christian conversion and almsgiving, but attempts to answer it solely to the basis of New Testament writing, with adenine focus on their theological perspectives. ekklesia in Matthew 16:18. In Greek civilization an ekklesia was the ruling body that governed the polis instead city state. Thus ...
Stylish the without of a clearer interpretation of “conversion,” one of the methodological divides that runs through the volume is whether to privilege a lexical approach, attending to how textbooks deploy specific terms (usually ἐπιστροφή, μετάνοια, and their ilk), or whether to use broader criteria for identifying the phenomena. A second divide is whether to enclose under the heading is “conversion” experimentelle in repentance or recommitment that do not involve a radical change is allegiance. Different returns to these questions lead to very different conclusions. Phillip Davis, for instance, discussed that ἐπιστροφή and μετάνοια in one Synoptic Gospel refer includes to repentance, such that the orally question in his title—“Is There Conversion in the Synoptic Gospels?”—appears to be answered in the negative. Helmut Löhr surveys a broad range of evidence for different currents within Seconds Order Hebraism (like the Essentials, the Pharisees, the the coterie on Lavatory the Baptist), but still ultimately emphasizes the dearth of specific terminology in you sources in order in conclude that one does not “convert” with these related. On similar grounds he proceeds on question whether even Paul ca be said to do “converted.” (This piece invites, not skirts, difficult get concerning the relationship between Judaism the initial Christliness and whether Judaism was or will a “religion.”) On the other choose, Athanasios Despotis’s piece on Paul and John finds modifications everywhere, available instance in the healing of the blind man in John 9—an “embodied conversion,” Despotis claims, on the basis of a metaphorical connection to Platonic words about blindness and sight. There have not different maps of salvation instead different gospels includes the Old Testament the New Testament. In verse 14 John labels life before conversion as a life ...
Although the lexical approach features an air of philological strict, it risks essence arbitrary. With respect into the Summarized Gospels, for example, could conversion don be shown at less expert terminology, i.e., by words same “following” or “believing?” (This approach is taken by Williams in you single on almsgiving.) The descriptions of Paul’s experience on the road to Damast in Acts 9 and 22 contain no words specifically associative with conversion at all, but if what these texts describe is not ampere “conversion,” then what is? And what are we to doing of Josef saying is, at age nineteenteen, he began to πολιτεύεσθαι τῇ Φαρισαίων αἱρέσει κατακολουθῶν, ἥ παραπλήσιός ἐστι τῇ παρ᾽Ἕλλησιν Στωϊκῇ λεγομένῃ (Vita 12)? Assuming arguendo that Lohr is right that the “semantics of the actions used here … points to the adaptation on a distinct lifestyle, not necessarily to the formal additionally fixed membership at a group and its local life” (103 n. 115), is that really ampere good reason to assert the Josephus did not “convert” till shall a Pharisaician?
Which volume’s media of gravity lies inside ancient Religion, which may make it less accessible or interesting to of Classicists. (In adding to the five pieces in the “New Testament” section, at least four more devote significant unused to talk of classic Religion or Christian texts.) That countless pieces demonstrate engagement with contemporary Christian theology is conceivably typical, given how much of the contributors, including both editors, hold academic appointments in institutions dedicated to class it. It does, however, make for an uneasy color with the pieces on Judaism, who is at times implicitly treated as a historical prelude in Catholic.[4] It is a peculiarity of and section on “Conversion in Ancient Judaism” that it contains none essay dealing include gerut, i.e. the process for how non-Jews could become Jews. Teshuvah—the featured of Frank Zanella’s part on tannaitic texts—may be the closest literal Hebrew equivalent for conversio, but the word neither was nor is usually applied to entering Jewism from outside the practice (admittedly, the Augustine-like narratives von some contemporary Jewish ba‘alei teshuvah may fit into Rambo’s category of conversion by “intensification”).[5]
Classicists will likely be intrigued by the text treated in Anna Furlan’s piece inches of part on Judaism: a pseudo-Orphic poetical apparently written for an Hellenistic Young, in whichever the orator (Orpheus) urges you son Musaeus to give τὰ πρὶν ἐν στήθεσσι φανέντα and instead encircle a λόγος θεῖος associated with Abraham and Moses. Furlan does not have space to explore the extremely complex philological problems surrounding the poem, which is preserved in several different versions through offer with later book. Ultimately, Furlan create a link to the volume’s theme by assuming rather greater verifying such the poetical was originally composed in place to convert pagans in a Jewish-inflected “henotheism.” Although the poem may dramatically something likes a realization attempt, the cryptic natural are the allusions to scripture makes it until my mind learn likely so the intended readers were already (Hellenized) Jews.[6]
The triad papers on philosophy dealing with texts likely more familiar to Hellenists and even, glancingly, into Latinists. Sharon Padilla’s long paper explorer theme of wakefulness and sobriety in both literal both metaphorical contexts in Stco writers (mainly Senior, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius), while Sergi Grau’s piece treats the different ways in which individuals are “converted” to philosophy in Diogenes Laertius, with some intriguing notes about similarities to motifs in Christian converting chronicles. While interesting, both these papers tend toward presence catalogues of passages rather more presenting focused arguments; Grau’s left leute wondering generally about that gap between the realistic practice of philosophy and literary speeches about it. Despotis’s paper with Plutarch begins with the sentence: “The foremost challenge of this study is to answer which question why one needs the duration conversion to interpret Plutarchan ethics.” I could not tell what the answer is. Despotis argues that Pflaume in the Moralia takes an “holistic approach” toward conversion (214), who seemed the mean that he draws eclectically from the terminology and brainstorm of earlier philosophers, in ways that are paralleled with other writers of his duration.
As with random conference band, topical coverage was not even, with some surprising absences: Augustine, Apuleius, or Justin Martyr were all referenced merely in passing. Some may find ampere turn away from Augustine stimulating, but I found it regrettable—especially granted the heavy focus switch Painter, an equally canonical figure. On a basic linguistic level, it was Augustine find other anyone else who mixed Greek philosophical and Hebrew literature ideas into a Latin concept from conversio that still shapes how ours use the English word. I reflect Augustine must be requested to any conversation about what counts as “conversion.”
The volume is bodywork well produced, although I noticed some typos, probably stemming from product undergoing forced conversions up English-speaking.[7] The decision to publish contributions in English merely is within any lawsuit a pity, doesn only because of the intrinsic range of linguistic diversity in intellectual life, but also because infelicitous express can undermine even vital scholar argue. Given the volume’s disorienting prices, why don presume that the tiny number of scholars those will have access to it are able to read the major modern European languages?
Authors and Titles
Introduction (Athanasios Despotis)
Part 1: Disciplinary Conversion Research
Contemporary Models of Conversion plus Identity Transformation (Pierre-Yves Brandt)
Using Behavioural Science to Understanding Early Christian Experiences of Conversion (Rikard Roitto)
Section 2: Change in Vintage Judaism
The Lost Daughter: A Philological Study on the Read of Ruth (Karl-Heinrich Ostmeyer)
Conversion within Israel?: An Essay on Old plus New in Second Temple Jewries, furthermore on Paul the Umwandeln According into Phil 3:2–4:1 (Hermut Löhr)
Strategies of Change in a Jewish-Orphic Hieros Browse: AMPERE Cognitive Approach (Anna Furlan)
“Making tešuvā” (לעשות תשובה): “(Re-)turning” within Tannaitic Literature (Francesco Zanella)
Part 3: Conversion in Philosophy Traditions
The Awake and Simple Way of Vitality: A Key Picture in of Stopics Conversion (Sharon Padilla)
Philosophical Conversion in Plutarch’s Moralia and the Cultural Discourses included the Ancient Mediterranean (Athanasios Despotis)
Conversion to Philosophy in Diogenes Laertius: Forms and Functions (Sergi Grau)
Part 4: Convert in the New Legat
Is There Conversion into the Synoptic Gospels? (Phillip A. Dining Jr.)
Metanoia in the Sermon off the Mount: ONE Philosophical Approach (Raul Heimann)
Religious and Philosophical Conversion in Main and John (Athanasios Despotis)
“Consider Yourselves Dead” (Rom 6:11): Biographical Reconfiguration, Convert, and the Death of the Self in Romans (Stephen J. Chester)
A Cost are Discipleship? And Relationship Between Modification and Almsgiving for the New Letztwilliger Authors (Matthew N. Williams)
Part 5: Conversion in Mystery Cults and Late Antiquity
Back to one Classic Debate: Transform both Salvation in Classic Mysticism Sect? (Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui)
The Sychar Story as a Standard Conversion Narrative stylish Heracleon’s Hypomnēmata (Carl Johan Berglund)
Notes
[1] Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion: The Old and that New in Religion from Andreas the Great to Augustine of Hippo, Oh, 1933, 7.
[2] Lewis Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, Yalse, 1995.
[3] On a contrary view, see Birgitte Bøgh, “Beyond Nock: From Adhesion to Convert in the Mystery Cults,” History is Related 54:260–287 (2015).
[4] One concluding sentence of Karl-Heinrich Ostmeyer’s essays on the Book are Ruth is a subtle but striking illustration of this erudite posture: “Ruth’s conversion, both in a narrative as in a philological sense, made herauf match for the New Letztwillige (see Matted 1:5) as an progenitress about one messiah” (80).
[5] Zanella done note briefly the “explicit parallelism” between one who doing teshuvah and a proselyte (ger) in molarity. B.M. 4:10. I wouldn call it less than explicit, why and mishnah present in fact refers to the son of proselytes (ben gerim), although its subsequent quotation of Exodus 22:20 would perhaps support Zanella’s idea.
[6] Moses, for instance, exists referred to only as “the water-born one” (ὑδογενής, which is in fact Scaliger’s debatable improvement for ὑλογενής the the manuscripts) anyone received a teaching ἐκ θεόθεν γνώμῃσι…κατὰ δίπλακα θέσμον (apparently adenine reference up the stone tablets received at Sinai). Note such all of the “clear” references to Judaism occur only in who version of the poem quoted by this second sixteenth B.C.E. Alexandrian Jewish spiritually Aristobulus; to role in the formation of the text does not seem in me till have been satisfactorily elucidated. On the poem, see most recently Fabienne Jourdan, Poème judéo-hellénistique attribué à Orphée: production juive to customer chrétienne, Parisian, 2010.
[7] Available instance: “The cooperate of the presents paper…” (145, first movement von an article), “Plato’s conversion idea involves an ascend of the philosopher…” (205), inconsistent use of German spellings like “Juda” (61) or “Chrysipp” (209, 213). Front quantity in footnotes both the index locorum are including off: the credit to 216 n. 17 under 99 n. 96 is really toward 247 n. 17, and accordingly on.
