Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire

Emerging Judaisms and Trends. Edited by Diana Edelman, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, and Philippe Guillaume.

14 Beiträge beleuchten Aspekte der achämenidischen Religion und Ideologie, Interaktionen zwischen kaiserlichen und kommunalen Ebenen sowie die Hintergründe der Ausübung anderer Glaubensrichtungen. Es wird gezeigt, dass die vielbeschworene religiöse Toleranz des Perserreichs mehr Teil politischer Zweckmäßigkeit war als eine allgemeingültige, aus Überzeugung verfolgte Strategie. - The Achaemenid Persian imperial rulers have long been held to have exercised a policy of religious tolerance within their widespread provinces and among their dependencies. The fourteen articles in this volume explore aspects of the dynamic interaction between the imperial and the local levels that impacted primarily on local religious practices. Some of the articles deal with emerging forms of Judaism under Achaemenid hegemony, others with Achaemenid religion, royal ideology, and political policy toward religion. Others discuss aspects of Phoenician religion and changes to Egyptian religious practice while another addresses the presence of mixed religious practices in Phrygia, as indicated by seal imagery. Together, they indicate that tolerance was part of political expediency rather than a universal policy derived from religious conviction. With contributions by James Anderson, Philip R. Davies, Russell Hobson, Philippe Guillaume, Lowell Handy, Christian Frevel/Katharina Pyschny, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Jason M. Silverman, Yannick Muller, Diana V. Edelman, Mark Christian, Damien Agut-Labordère, Jared Krebsbach and Deniz Kaptan. VII,390 Seiten mit 86 Abb., Leinen (Oriental Religions in Antiquity. Egypt, Israel, Ancient Near East; Vol. 17/Mohr Siebeck 2016)