Travel and Religion in Antiquity ed. by Philip A. Harland (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Travel and Religion in Antiquity ed. by Philip A. Harland Dietmar Neufeld Philip A. Harland , ed. Travel and Religion in Antiquity. Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme series 21 . Waterloo : Wilfrid Laurier University Press , 2011 . Pp. vi + 289 . CDN $85.00 . ISBN 9781554582228 . Religion and travel intersect in significant ways for a large proportion of our world populations. Personalized statuettes, amulets, sacred books, acts of piety, dress, and ritualized behaviours are part and parcel of what we pack into our suitcases as we move from place to place. The destabilizing strangeness of a new location is offset by the comforting familiarity of one’s religious orientation. Moreover, it is not uncommon for moderns to travel governed by specific motives in mind—hiking the Santiago de Compostela, making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and travelling to exotic locales for cross-cultural experiences. Poems, songs, confessions, and anecdotes recounting personal experiences of religion on the road are not uncommon. Like moderns, so also the ancients understood only too well the intersections between travel and religion. The fascinating chapters in Travel and Religion in Antiquity represent the lively debate and interaction of a seminar on the topic of religion and travel that began in 2005 under the auspices of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. The objectives of the book are clear. The programmatic introductory essay by Philip A. Harland sets the tone and agenda of the current volume, and despite its five-part structure, the book exhibits coherence in addressing the realities of travel and the many discourses of [End Page 404] travel in the religious lives of ancients. Indeed, the volume systematically considers the ways in which mobility intersected with the religious lives of the denizens of Rome. Given that the topic of travel is vast, one gets a sense of the parameters of the debate but also finds a fair degree of unanimity on the circumstances in people’s religious lives that were impacted by travel. Moreover, since travel and religion are multifaceted and complex social phenomena, depending on group, person, education, and social location, the volume exhibits a multidisciplinary approach to the topic. A clear sense emerges not only of the complex nature of the topic of mobility and religion but also of ways to deal with the topic methodologically and the outcome depending on perspectives. While the volume contains 5 distinct parts, 12 chapters, and 11 authors, there is a certain uniformity of style even though it is a collection of essays. As a whole, the volume reads well with few, if any, disjunctions in the manner of presentation. As Harland notes, the volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to promote the worth of a god or the pre-eminence of a way of life, including the spread of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign people and cultures; migration because of forced relocation, war, or the search for a better life; and travel to engage in work (5). Four chapters deal with honouring the gods while on the road. Steven Muir considers ancient evidence where home and civic religion continued to be experienced while on the road, albeit in different form. The gods offered protection, continued to recognize the pious devotee from back home, and continued to manifest themselves to the travellers through omens and theophany. Fixed sacrifices and portable shrines along the road guaranteed that devotees would not be abandoned or forgotten by the gods. Susan Haber explores concerns of purity related to Judeans and Galileans attending the festivals at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus along with followers and other pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem. She concludes that they would not have abandoned the rituals of maintaining purity. Jesus would have participated in the rite of purification, including ritual immersion and sprinkling with the waters of purification. Wayne O. McCready approaches the topic of pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to Elephantine in Egypt from the theoretical perspective of place—place is not simply physical location but represents a way of seeing, knowing, and understanding the world...