{"product_id":"scenting-salvation-ancient-christianity-and-the-olfactory-imagination-volume-42-paperback","title":"Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination Volume 42 - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eSusan Ashbrook Harvey\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book explores the role of bodily, sensory experience in early Christianity (first - seventh centuries AD) by focusing on the importance of smell in ancient Mediterranean culture. Following its legalization in the fourth century Roman Empire, Christianity cultivated a dramatically flourishing devotional piety, in which the bodily senses were utilized as crucial instruments of human-divine interaction. Rich olfactory practices developed as part of this shift, with lavish uses of incense, holy oils, and other sacred scents. At the same time, Christians showed profound interest in what smells could mean. How could the experience of smell be construed in revelatory terms? What specifically could it convey? How and what could be known through smell? \u003ci\u003eScenting Salvation \u003c\/i\u003eargues that ancient Christians used olfactory experience for purposes of a distinctive religious epistemology: formulating knowledge of the divine in order to yield, in turn, a particular human identity. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Using a wide array of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources, Susan Ashbrook Harvey examines the ancient understanding of smell through religious rituals, liturgical practices, mystagogical commentaries, literary imagery, homiletic conventions; scientific, medical, and cosmological models; ascetic disciplines, theological discourse, and eschatological expectations. In the process, she argues for a richer appreciation of ancient notions of embodiment, and of the roles the body might serve in religion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eSusan Ashbrook Harvey has surely produced the definitive analysis of the role of scent in Early Christian ritual and theological discourse. This is a welcome new trajectory in the study of religion and the body.--Patricia Cox Miller, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSusan Ashbrook Harvey\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eAsceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and The Lives of the Eastern Saints\u003c\/i\u003e and coauthor of \u003ci\u003eHoly Women of the Syrian Orient\u003c\/i\u003e, both from UC Press.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 448\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 8.8 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 25, 2015\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45390933033062,"sku":"9780520287563","price":72.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/eEVQSFpKZnRUclZxUlJUbkxmajBCUT09.webp?v=1775127004","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/scenting-salvation-ancient-christianity-and-the-olfactory-imagination-volume-42-paperback","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}