Review (PDF)

Greek Religion: Archaic And Classical

This is the first major synthesis of Greek religion to appear for a generation. A clearly structured and readable survey for classical scholars and students, it will also be generally welcomed as the best modern account of any polytheistic religious system. The text builds up an impressive and coherent picture of the current state of knowledge about the religion of the ancient Greeks.

Paperback: 504 pages

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (January 8, 1991)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0631156240

ISBN-13: 978-0631156246

Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #735,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #179 in Books > History > World > Religious > New Age, Mythology & Occult #842 in Books > History > Ancient Civilizations > Greece #1615 in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources > Archaeology

Walter Burkert's "Greek Religion" is an intense survey of Hellenistic religious beliefs from their earliest Minoan and Mycennean antecedents. This review will summarize the material contained within the study, extrapolate the central themes of the text, and finally shall offer an analysis of the text with regard to its presentation of data, use of archaeological and primary sources, and its intended audience. The material is diverse within it's scope. Whereas other survey-type texts only include an overview of the basic Olympian Gods, and perhaps a marginal mentioning of some of the major festivals, Burkert's text provides the reader with an in-depth look at all of those issues as well as giving the reader the, "why", as best as he could surmise through his research. He is blunt about stating the lack of comprehensive written resources, and does not speculate too far beyond the scant information he does possess. To the researcher this is valuable, as massive leaps are not made from what does exist to what may possibly have been the case. As previously mentioned, the first few chapters of the text offer a brief chronology of what was happening spiritually in the pre-Hellenistic Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. This provides the reader with an appropriate historical context within which to frame the discussion of later spiritual beliefs. The scope of the text covers a vast time period of that prehistory, from approximately 1500-1200 B.C., then continues on to describe the formation of a distinctly Greek religion developing from those antecedents at or about the ninth/eighth century.

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