A detailed comparative analysis of speaker-audience interactions in Greek historiography, Josephus, and Acts that examines historians’ use of speeches as a means of instructing/persuading their readers and highlights Luke’s distinctive depiction of the apostles as adaptable yet frequently alienating orators.

Play is one of humanity's straightforward yet deceitful ideas: though the notion is unanimously agreed upon to be universal, used for man and animal alike, nothing defines what all its manifestations share, from childish playtime to on stage drama, from sporting events to market speculation. Within the author's anthropological field of work (Mongolia and Siberia), playing holds a core position: national holidays are called "Games," echoing in that way the circus games in Ancient Rome and today's Olympics. These games convey ethical values and local identity. Roberte Hamayon bases her analysis of the playing spectrum on their scrutiny. Starting from fighting and dancing, encompassing learning, interaction, emotion and strategy, this study heads towards luck and belief as well as the ambiguity of the relation to fiction and reality. It closes by indicating two features of play: its margin and its metaphorical structure. Ultimately revealing its consistency and coherence, the author displays play as a modality of action of its own. "Playing is no 'doing' in the ordinary sense" once wrote Johan Huizinga. Isn't playing doing something else, elswhere and otherwise ?

Recent scholarship on the historical Jesus has rightly focused upon how Jesus understood his own mission. But no scholarly effort to understand the mission of Jesus can rest content without exploring the historical possibility that Jesus envisioned his own death. In this careful and far-reaching study, Scot McKnight contends that Jesus did in fact anticipate his own death, that Jesus understood his death as an atoning sacrifice, and that his death as an atoning sacrifice stood at the heart of Jesus' own mission to protect his own followers from the judgment of God.

The contents of the first two volumes were, we gladly admit, at once more familiar and easier to handle. We were concerned with mass and leadership psychology, two factors that we know from social and political life. They have been much studied and we can clearly trace their evolution. However, since actions by masses and leaders also have an intellectual and emotional side, we were obliged, in some way or other, to deal with this topic as well. It was obviously necessary, it seemed to us, to approach this study from a new and significant angle. One cannot escape the realiza tion that "conspiracy theory" has played, and continues to play, a central role in our epoch, and has had very serious consequences. The obsession with conspiracy has spread to such an extent that it continuously crops up at all levels of society. The fol lowing paradox must be striking to anyone: In the past, society was governed by a small number of men, at times by one individual, who, within traditional limits, imposed his will on the multitude. Plots were effective: By eliminating these individuals and their families, one could change the course of events. Today, this is no longer the case. Power is divided among parties and extends throughout society. Power flows, changes hands, and affects opinion, which no one controls and no one represents entirely.

Driving human reason too far in the analysis of deep problems often leads to irresolvable inconsistencies and contradictions. In this 2002 J.F. Lewis Award-winning monograph, Gunther Stent traces the origins and development of the paradoxes of free will in this well-crafted introduction to philosophical debates regarding freedom of will. Free will poses one of the oldest and most vexatious philosophical problems, dating back to the beginnings of moral philosophy in ancient Greece. Pure theoretical reason implies that our actions are determined, while practical theoretical reason tells us that our will is free. Stent examines the arguments of moral responsibility versus determinism, from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, Niels Bohr, and Max Planck.

Ancient Graffiti in Context brings together papers by historians and archaeologists using graffiti as evidence to explore the Greek and Roman worlds. Illuminating such varied topics as ancient emotions, Roman children, quarry workers, and military communities, this collection demonstrates the importance of this often undervalued form of evidence.