Her Share Of The Blessings : Women'S Religions Among Pagans, Jews, And Christians In The Greco-Roman World (Oxford Paperbacks)

Her Share Of The Blessings : Women'S Religions Among Pagans, Jews, And Christians In The Greco-Roman World (Oxford Paperbacks)

Product DescriptionIn this pathbreaking volume, Ross Shepard Kraemer provides the first comprehensive look at women's religions in Greco-Roman antiquity. She vividly recreates the religious lives of early Christian, Jewish, and pagan women, with many fascinating examples: Greek women's devotion to goddesses, rites of Roman matrons, Jewish women in rabbinic and diaspora communities, Christian women's struggles to exercise authority and autonomy, and women's roles as leaders in the full spectrum of Greco-Roman religions. In every case, Kraemer reveals the connections between the social constraints under which women lived, and their religious beliefs and practices. The relationship among female autonomy, sexuality, and religion emerges as a persistent theme. Analyzing the monastic Jewish Therapeutae and various Christian communities, Kraemer demonstrates the paradoxical liberation which women achieved by rejection of sexuality, the body, and the female. In the epilogue, Kraemer pursues the disturbing implications such findings have for contemporary women. Based on an astonishing variety of primary sources, Her Share of the Blessings is an insightful work that goes beyond the limitations of previous scholarship to provide a more accurate portrait of women in the Greco-Roman world.Review"A fascinating presentation of ideas."--Sr. M. Felicity Dorsett, University of St. Francis"We now have an inexpensive soft-cover edition of a very good book....Professor Kraemer has read an enormous amount, synthesized it well, and, blessedly, writes a crisp, jargon-free prose....It is hard to think of a more useful work as a survey of the evidence--enhanced by very full notes, agood index, and a bibliography for further reading."--Commonweal"Ross Shepard Kraemer has managed to recover fascinating and detailed descriptions of women's religious activities and beliefs in the Greco-Roman world."--The WomanSource Catalog and Review"An important, even groundbreaking study of women's culture....Very thought provoking."--Library Journal"An unexcelled source for information about women's religions in Rome....Provides fascinating material rarely encountered in other works on the subject."--Booklist"Lively and accurate. It shows us how well feminist scholarship can operate, and it answers presiously neglected questions."--The Christian Century"A bold new synthesis of the sources for women's religions in the Greco-Roman world which historians of women (including Kraemer herself) have painstakingly collected and analyzed over the past decades. This book is rare in that it is a truly sympathetic reading of the full variety ofavailable sources on women's religion."--Bernadette J. Brooten, Harvard University, The Divinity School"Clear, concise, and comprehensive, this book fills the long-standing need for a single-volume comparative study of women's religious activities in the Greco-Roman world. It will appeal to both general readers and specialists in several scholarly disciplines."--Sarah B. Pomeroy, HunterCollege and The Graduate School, C.U.N.Y."Ross Kraemer's Her Share of the Blessings is the fruit of dedicated scholarship in uncovering the hidden story of women's religious lives in the Greco-Roman world. It should become a standard text for courses in the field."--Rosemary Radford Ruether, Garrett-Evangelical TheologicalSeminary"Will provide a useful and reliable guide to all interested in the topic, as well as a range of new questions."--Theology Journal Book ReviewAbout the AuthorRoss Shepard Kraemer is Adjunct Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The editor ofMaenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook on Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World (1988), she is currently writing a book on Jewish women in the Greco-Roman Diaspora, to be published by Oxford.