Overview

In the first century, the Jewish Jesus, his followers, and the Pythagorean Apollonius journeyed widely, each to spread their good news. Spectral Lives by Luke and Philostratus: Journeying of Holy Men studies their biographers, Luke and Philostratus, and how they felt ethically compelled to tell their stories of good news to help their world. Post Enlightenment developments in historiography have expanded understanding of ancient texts with a “third dimension,” a transhuman habitat evident in ancient texts. In this book, Robert Lee Williams investigates how affect theory has sensitized interpreters to inner awareness of humans to their world, both beneficial and harmful, recorded in emotional responses. Survey of biographers from 500 BCE to 300 CE shows Luke and Philostratus particularly attuned to the journeying impelled by the deities and their spectral agents, forces active in their world ethically for good. Journeying from ghostly influences proves to be both more evident in texts than noticed since the Enlightenment and more indispensable for spreading the good and the right to our world, ethically and equitably.

Full Product Details

9781793651075

Table of Contents

Reviews

"By harnessing post-structuralist's 'affect' and 'queer' readings of ancient narrative, Williams takes us on exploratory tours of two holy men, Jesus of Nazareth of the evangelist Luke, and Apollonius of Tyana, of the philosopher-writer Philostratus of Second-Sophistic Rome. Both authors feature their hallowed heroes on long journeys to gain true life but whose destinations divulge very different conceptions of the Life of the Deity who controls the fates of all humankind: the willing submission to death by execution which releases true life for all humanity, and escaping from the penalty of death as embracing true life, respectively! Recent scholarship concerned with the New Testament and Christian origins has rightly focused on the Greco-Roman world of literature and imagination. In this stimulating study Robert Lee Williams compares the role played by ""journeying"" in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Luke's Gospel and book of Acts. The comparison is insightful and fascinating. Modern readers will acquire new understanding of how ancient readers and auditors heard the narratives of Luke in their own time. - Craig A. Evans, Houston Christian University This book on ancient travel itself crosses borders. The author of Luke-Acts journeys with Philo, Iamblichus, and above all Philostratus through ancient landscapes, but also through contemporary affect theory, queer historiography, and Derridean hauntology. The result is a unique and illuminating exercise in interdisciplinarity. --Stephen D. Moore, Drew University"

"By harnessing post-structuralist's 'affect' and 'queer' readings of ancient narrative, Williams takes us on exploratory tours of two holy men, Jesus of Nazareth of the evangelist Luke, and Apollonius of Tyana, of the philosopher-writer Philostratus of Second-Sophistic Rome. Both authors feature their hallowed heroes on long journeys to gain true life but whose destinations divulge very different conceptions of the Life of the Deity who controls the fates of all humankind: the willing submission to death by execution which releases true life for all humanity, and escaping from the penalty of death as embracing true life, respectively!--David P. Moessner, Texas Christian University Recent scholarship concerned with the New Testament and Christian origins has rightly focused on the Greco-Roman world of literature and imagination. In this stimulating study Robert Lee Williams compares the role played by ""journeying"" in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Luke's Gospel and book of Acts. The comparison is insightful and fascinating. Modern readers will acquire new understanding of how ancient readers and auditors heard the narratives of Luke in their own time. - Craig A. Evans, Houston Christian University--Craig A. Evans, Houston Christian University This book on ancient travel itself crosses borders. The author of Luke-Acts journeys with Philo, Iamblichus, and above all Philostratus through ancient landscapes, but also through contemporary affect theory, queer historiography, and Derridean hauntology. The result is a unique and illuminating exercise in interdisciplinarity. --Stephen D. Moore, Drew University--Stephen D. Moore, Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies, The Theological School, Drew University"

Author Information

Robert Lee Williams is Distinguished Fellow at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary advising doctoral work.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available