The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity

ISBN-13: 9780521880909 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 384 str.

Stephanie Lynn Budin

Opis

In this study, Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a person s body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the Early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Furthermore, contrary to many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent, Oriental Other. Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty methodology. The study of sacred prostitution is, effectively, a historiographical reckoning."

Recenzje

'… the book is based on a solid knowledge of modern scholarship. It should be read both by those who maintain that sacred prostitution existed and by those who remain sceptical.' Arctos

Spis treści

1. Introduction; 2. The ancient Near Eastern data; 3. The so-called 'evidence'; 4. Herodotos; 5. In the footsteps of Herodotos: Lucian and 'Jeremiah'; 6. Pindar Fragment 122; 7. Strabo, confused and misunderstood; 8. Klearkhos, Justinus, and Valerius Maximus; 9. Archaeological 'evidence' from Italy; 10. The early Christian rhetoric; 11. Last myths.