Over the past decades, biblical scholars have gradually become more aware of the importance of the social sciences for their own field. This has produced a steady flow of studies informed by work that was done in the fields of group formation psychology, the sociology of emerging movements and the sociology of religion, and historical anthropology. This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious tradition.

Contributors: William Arnal, Giovanni B. Bazzana, Brigidda Bell, Jan N. Bremmer, Simon Coleman, Pieter F. Craffert, Zeba A. Crook, Martin Ebner, Laura Feldt, John S. Kloppenborg, Halvor Moxnes, Santiago Guijarro Oporto, Sarah E. Rollens, Daniel A. Smith, Joseph Verheyden