Prophets and Profits

Name: Prophets and Profits
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This volume examines the ways in which divination, often through oracular utterances and other mechanisms, linked mortals with the gods, and places the practice within the ancient sociopolitical and religious environment. Whether humans sought knowledge by applying to an oracle through which the god was believed to speak or used soothsayers who interpreted specific signs such as the flight of birds, there was a fundamental desire to know the will of the gods. In many cases, pragmatic concerns \u2013 personal, economic or political \u2013 can be deduced from the context of the application.