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  What is a God? Studies in the nature of Greek divinity
edited by Alan B. Lloyd
ISBN 978-1-905125-35-7, paperback, vii+187 pp., 2009,
 
The editor: Alan B. Lloyd's publications on classical and Egyptological subjects include a three-volume commentary on Herodotus Book II (1975-88). In recent study Greek religion has often dissolved itself into many religions. The eleven original essays here focus both on extremes of the Greek world and on its classical 'centre'. Distinguished scholars examine the earliest traces of religious thought in the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures. Striking similarities are revealed between religious ideas of Greece and of non-Greek Asia. There are special studies of Apollo, Athena, and Dionysiac religion. And new patterns are identified in the archaic and classical thought of Heraclitus, Herodotus and Sophocles.
 

CONTENTS
Introductory note
1. From Knossos to Homer - Bernard Dietrich
2. From epiphany to cult statue - Walter Burkert
3. Heraclitus and the rites of established religion - Catherine Osborne
4. The moral dimension of Pythian Apollo - J.K. Davies
5. Gods and mountains in Greek myth and poetry - Michael Clarke
6. Aspects of Athena in the Greek polis: Sparta and Corinth - A.C. Villing
7. Herodotus and the certainty of divine retribution - Thomas Harrison
8. Divinity and moral agency in Sophoclean tragedy - Seth L. Schein
9. Thunder, lightening, and earthquake in the Bacchae and the Acts of the Apostles - Richard Seaford
10. Athena and the Amazons: mortal and immortal femininity in Greek myth - Susan Deacy
11. Orphic gods and other gods - Anne-France Morand

 

 
 

BMCR 2008.03.03. .

"The papers are of varying quality, and show only a small level of interaction between the participants, and I do not see a lot of “conclusions as to the current state of research in the field.” Still, a number of the papers are valuable, and most make one interested to see further work by the scholars on the topic, some of which is soon forthcoming." James J. O'Hara,