When Gods Speak to Men: Divine Speech according to Textual Sources in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin

The nature of divine speech in Antiquity in the Mediterranean Basin has

often been the object of scholarly analysis, especially regarding its

divinatory context and questions of genre and rhetoric. The present

volume not only provokes a dialogue with this past research, but seeks

to respond to a problem that has received little consideration until

now: the articulation of divine speech with the various forms of its

representation (linguistic, literary, and material). The aim is to

analyze the nature of divine speech through its materiality and the

impact of the latter on the former’s definition and evolution.

La recherche s'est souvent interessee a la nature du discours divin

dans l'Antiquite, par exemple, les contextes divinatoires ou encore les

questions de forme et de rhetorique. Si le present volume n'exclut pas

que ces questions soient a nouveau abordees, il vise cependant a

repondre plus precisement a une question qui n'a pas encore ete traitee,

a savoir l'articulation du discours divin avec ses differentes formes de

representations (linguistiques, litteraires et materielles). Le but est

d'etudier ces differentes representations et de montrer comment elles

participent de la definition meme et du statut du discours en question.