Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts (Electronic book text)

Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts is the first comprehensive study of the role of languages and texts in the religions of the Greco-Roman world, including Judaism and Christianity. It explores bilingualism, language learning, literacy, book production and translation, as well as some of the more explicitly religious factors, including beliefs about language, missionary zeal, ritual, conservatism and the power of a priestly establishment. By considering the status of Hebrew in Judaism alongside that of Greek in Rome, for example, or the Christian canon in the same context as the canonising of Classical literature under the Antonines, Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts sheds new light on the role of the power of words, spoken and written, in religion.