This volume in honour of Jan N. Bremmer consists of a variety of contributions offering a broad spectrum of original ideas and innovative approaches in the history of religions both past and present, thus reflecting the nature of the scholarship of Bremmer himself.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ... ix List of Contributors and Editors ... xiii List of Abbreviations... xix Introduction ... xxiii Acknowledgments ... xxxvii Bibliography of Jan N. Bremmer (1969-2009) ... xxxix PART ONE: Greek and Roman Religion The Calydonian Boar ... 3 MartinWest Lesbian Sappho Revisited... 13 Andre Lardinois The Significance (or Insignificance) of Blackness in Mythological Names ... 31 Richard Buxton The Creativity of Disaster... 43 Sarah Iles Johnston Untimely Death for the Young Girl: Etiological Foundations and Initiation Practices in Classical Athens ... 59 Claude Calame The So-Called Envy of theGods: Revisiting a Dogma of Ancient Greek Religion ... 75 Lautaro Roig Lanzilotta Earthquakes and the Gods: Reflections on Graeco-Roman Responses to Catastrophic Events ... 95 Fritz Graf Oracles and Greek Mentalities:The Mantic Confirmation of Mantic Revelations... 115 Pierre Bonnechere Pharaian Kledomancy ... 135 Kenneth Lapatin A Socratic Leaf Charm for Headache (Charmides 155b-157c), Orphic Gold Leaves, and the Ancient Greek Tradition of Leaf Amulets ... 145 Christopher A. Faraone Callimachus' Sacrifice to Apollo (Fragment 1.21-24) ... 167 Ruurd R. Nauta Women's Affairs? On a Group of Attic Votive Reliefs with Unusual Decoration ... 179 Anja Klockner New Problems in Athenian Religion:The 'Sacred Law' from Aixone 193 Robert Parker Contracting Caterers on Keos ... 209 Peter van Minnen Mnasistratos, the 'Hierophant' at Andania (IG 5.1.1390 and Syll. 735) . ... 219 Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge Pictures froman Execution... 237 Nicholas Horsfall Magian Lessons in Natural History: Unique Animals in Graeco-Roman NaturalMagic ... 249 Richard Gordon Pliny:The Piety of a Persecutor ... 271 Walter Ameling Religio versus Religion ... 301 Giovanni Casadio PART TWO: Judaism and Early Christianity Scribal Practices in the Aramaic Literary Texts fromQumran ... 329 Florentino Garcia Martinez The Greatest Translation of All Time:The Cultural Importance of the Septuagint ... 343 Jack Miles The Reception of Daniel 3 and 6 and the Maccabean Martyrdoms in Hebrews 11:33-38 ... 359 Jan Willem van Henten Without God: Some Notes on a Greek Expression ... 379 PieterW. van der Horst Is Early Christianity a Religion or a Philosophy? Reflections on the Importance of 'Knowledge' and 'Truth' in the Letters of Paul and Peter ... 393 George H. van Kooten Rationales for the Adoption of Christianity ... 409 Ken Dowden Rewriting and Textual Fluidity in Antiquity: Exploring the Socio-cultural and Psychological Context of Earliest Christian Literacy ... 425 Istvan Czachesz Thomas in Edessa? Another Look at the Original Setting of the Gospel ofThomas ... 443 Pierluigi Piovanelli Orphics and Gnostics... 463 EinarThomassen Recognizing Demons ... 475 Jan den Boeft Alternative Uses of Garments in the Graeco-RomanWorld ... 487 Ton Hilhorst Athens or Jerusalem? From Eschatological Hopes to Cultural Memory ... 501 Guy G. Stroumsa PART THREE: History of Religion and Modernity The Gospel of Kaundinya:The Descent of God in Gujarat and the Practice of Imitating God... 517 Hans Bakker From Alien to Familiar: Christ in Language and Law of Medieval Frisia... 531 Rolf H. Bremmer Jr The Platonic Frenzies inMarsilio Ficino... 553 Wouter J. Hanegraaff LivingWell and Living On:Martyrdom and the Imago Vitae in the EarlyModern Age ... 569 Christoph Auffarth Religious Knowledge and the Origins ofModernity ... 593 Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, andWijnand Mijnhardt Si Vis Me Flere ... On Preachers, Passions and Pathos in Eighteenth-Century Europe ... 609 Herman Roodenburg On Monte Verita: Myth and Modernity in the Lebensreform Movement ... 629 Yme Kuiper For the Sake of the Community: Two Scripts of Martyrdom Operations amongMuslims ... 651 Hans G. Kippenberg Rewriting the Book of Nature: Kabbalah and the Metaphors of Contemporary Life-Sciences ... 671 Kocku von Stuckrad Index of Names ... 687