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| Getting Started | |||
| Scholars argue> | Yes | No | Jesus Theories |
| Facts > | Sourcebook Anthologies | Sourcebooks: ancient texts | |
| Background > | Ancient Civilization | Ancient Religion | Early Christianity |
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Special topics | Mystery Religions | Ancient Judaism |
| Amateur > | Pagan Origins | Hablo Greek-o | |
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Sourcebooks:
anthologies of ancient writings |
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A sourcebook is a collection of primary documents, in our case a book with excerpts from ancient authors who wrote about Pagan religion and early Christianity. The advantage of a sourcebook is you don't have to trust a secondary writer to give you the straight skinny, you get the facts firsthand. |
| Paganism |
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What you'll find:
Who you gonna trust? The ancients. Believing scholars shade the facts in favor of the myth. Non-believers exaggerate and make up facts and connections as a way to attack the church. So who are you going to trust? That's up to you. I trust the ancients—people alive back when Christianity began, and before. That's what this book is about. This is a sourcebook, a collection of primary documents—excerpts from ancient authors who wrote about Pagan religion and early Christianity. It's a great collection, with the original text of most of the standard ancient references to the pagan mystery religions. This is a powerful book. You'll discover firsthand, right from the pens of the ancients themselves, that Dionysus came to earth "incognito, disguised as a man"; that Pagan Gods died and were reborn with the meaning that "the God is saved, and we shall have salvation."; that pagans had initiation ceremonies seen as "a voluntary death", sacred meals shared with the God, ceremonial washing, Pagan miracles, a Godman who changed water into wine, and a Pagan version of the great flood. And much more. An important book that no serious student will be without. Highly recommended.
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| Paganism
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Religions of Rome
Religions of Rome
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What
you'll find:
Highly recommended.
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| Paganism
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| Collected
Ancient Greek Novels
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What you'll find:
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The ancients had novels—who knew? If you're used to "ancient literature" as excruciating trochaic hexameter, you'll be happily surprised by this collection. Here's a sample >> You see it, don't you? And you want to know what comes next. These so'm bitches could write. |
The smile of daybreak was just beginning to brighten
the sky, the sunlight to catch the hilltops, when a group of men in brigand
gear peered over the mountain that overlooks the place where the Nile
flows into the sea at the mouth that men call the Heracleotic. They stood
there for a moment, scanning the expanse of the sea beneath them: first
they gazed out over the ocean, but as there was nothing sailing there
that held out hope of spoil and plunder, their eyes were drawn to the
beach nearby. This is what they saw: a merchant ship was riding there,
moored by her stern, empty of crew but laden with freight. This much could
be surmised even from a distance, for the weight of her cargo forced the
water up to the third line of boards on the ship's side. But the beach!—a
mass of newly slain bodies, some of them quite dead, other half-alive
and still twitching, testimony that the fighting had only just ended…. |
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| Paganism
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Miracles
in Greco-Roman Antiquity
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Lousy with miracles Like chocolate chips in mama's cookies, miracles were a basic ingredient in ancient people's understanding of how the world works. Every bite—another miracle. The ancient world was lousy with miracles. Don't believe me, believe the ancients. This excellent sourcebook gives hundreds of examples—250 pages—of ancient miracles recorded by the pens of ancients themselves. You'll read short excerpts from ancient texts describing Pagan Gods who healed the sick (blindness, paralysis, lameness), raised the dead, exorcised demons, controlled nature, turned water into wine, walked on water, calmed storms, and more. Well organized, easy to read. Highly recommended.
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| Paganism
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| An
Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion;
Readings from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions
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What
you'll find:
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| Paganism
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The Egyptian Book
of the Dead
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This is the original text of a famous and revealing collection of ancient spells the Egyptians put in tombs along with the dead guy. The idea was for the dead guy to use the power of the magic spells as a guide and tool in the complicated Egyptian afterlife. Yes I know that sounds sounds silly, but the book tells us a lot about Egyptian religion—including the Egyptian savior Gods Ra and Osiris. The famous Chapter 125 describes Osiris' believers standing before Osiris after death, to be judged according to the life they lead, seeing if they would to make it into Egyptian Heaven or end up suffering in Egyptian Hell.
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| Paganism
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| The Pythagorean
Sourcebook and Library
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A sourcebook of ancient writings about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, everything from full biographies to one-line fragments. SEE Pythagoras perform miracles. All from the pens of the ancients themselves. Ooh yeah. (Guthrie collected and translated most of the stuff here, publishing a small run in 1920. Fideler dug up and added more Pythagorean stuff for the 1987 and 1988 editions—say that three times fast.)
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| Paganism
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| The
Cambridge Companion to Greek Philosophy
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What you'll find:
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| Paganism
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| Greek Philosophy
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What you'll find:
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| Christianity |
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The
Apostolic Fathers: Greek
Texts and English Translations
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What
you'll find:
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| Christianity
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The Nag Hammadi Library
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What
you'll find:
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| Christianity
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| Pagans
& Christians in Late Antiquity
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What you'll find:
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| Judaism |
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The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
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What you'll find:
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| Judaism
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Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora
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What you'll find:
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| Judaism
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The Jews Among the Greeks and Romans,
A Diasporan Sourcebook
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What you'll find:
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| Judaism
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