Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries Deborah F. Sawyer Religion in the First Christian CenturiesWOMEN AND RELIGION IN THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CENTURIES Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries focuses on religion during the peried of Roman imperial rule and its significance in women’s lives. It discusses the rich variety of religious expression, from pagan cults and classical mythology to ancient Judaism and early Christianity, and the wide array of religious functions fulfilled by women. The author analyses key examples from each context, creating a vivid image of this crucial period which laid the foundations of western civilization, The study challenges the concepts of religion and of women in the light of postmodern critique. As such, it is an important contribution to contemporary gender theory. In its broad and interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to students of early religion as well as all those involved in cultural theory. Deborah F.Sawyer is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University, where she directs a Masters programme in Women and Religion. Her publications include Midrash Aleph Beth (1993) and A Walk is the Garden: Biblical, Jconographical and Literary Images of Eden (1992).RELIGION IN THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CENTURIES Edited by Deborah Sawyer, University of Lancaster, and John Sawyer, University College of St Martin, Lancaster ‘Too often the religious traditions of antiquity are studied in isolation, without any real consideration of how they interacted. What made someone with a free choice become an adherent of one faith rather than another? Why might a former pagan choose to become a *God- fearer’ and attend synagogue services? Why might a Jew become a Christian? How did the mysteries of Mithras differ from the worship of the Unconquered Sun, or the status of the Virgin Mary from that of Isis, and how many gods could an ancient worshipper have? These questions are hard to answer without a synoptic view of what the different religions offered. The aim of the books in this series is to survey particular themes in the history of religion across the different religions of antiquity and to set up comparisons and contrasts, resonances and dis-continuities, and thus reach a profounder understanding of the religious experience in the ancient world. The first topics to be covered will include: women; sacred languages and sacred texts; ritual and sacrifice; purity.