Experientia Volume 2

This collection of essays continues the investigation of religious experience in early Judaism and early Christianity begun in Experientia Volume 1 by addressing one of the traditional objections to the study of experience in antiquity. The authors address the relationship between the surviving evidence which is textual and the religious experiences that precede or ensue from those texts. Drawing on insights from anthropology sociology social memory theory neuroscience and cognitive science they explore a range of religious phenomena including worship the act of public reading ritual ecstasy mystical ascent and the transformation of gender and of emotions. Through careful and theoretically informed work the authors demonstrate the possibility of moving from written documents to assess the lived experiences that are linked to them. The contributors are Istvn Czachesz Frances Flannery Robin Griffith-Jones Angela Kim Harkins Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte John R. Levison Carol A. Newsom Rollin A. Ramsaran Colleen Shantz Leif E. Vaage and Rodney A. Werline.