The Pagan World

Ancient Religions Before Christianity

By: Hans-Friedrich Mueller, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Hans-Friedrich Mueller

In The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity, you will meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their many gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to appreciate the foundational role religion played in their lives. Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller, of Union College in Schenectady, New York, makes this ancient world come alive in 24 lectures with captivating stories of intrigue, artifacts, illustrations, and detailed descriptions from primary sources of intriguing personalities.

In the ancient Mediterranean area, religion was not separate from daily life. To the contrary, religion was daily life. The many dozen gods of this ancient world were everywhere, with spirits inhabiting every crack and crevice of life. These polytheists believed they had a strict contract with their deities: If they took care of their gods, their gods would take care of them (or at least not harm them). Consequently, they built extraordinary temples to honor their deities, brought food and wine to them, sacrificed animals for them, and held sacred meals with their gods. In fact, they followed numerous rules and regulations that circumscribed almost all aspects of life both inside and outside the home - anything and everything to keep the gods happy. Consequently, the religious practices of the ancient Mediterranean make a wonderful lens through which to develop a deeper understanding of their world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

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Interesting and Engaging

The material was very interesting and engaging. Unfortunately, I found the occasional mispronunciations of proper names of people and places a distraction in the midst of masterfully-written scholarship.

A great listen!

This is truly a great journey through the old world of paganism. It was truly a very enlightening lecture.

Love it

Very deep and well put. Keep this type coming. I would if audible can send me more great books lije this

Love the concept but.....

Admittedly I only got up to the Ancient Egyptian chapter.
I like the concept but the execution not so much.

This audiobook takes the form of lectures. Which I thought wouldn't be a problem to me. However, I found it a bit hard to follow (even with the PDF that's included).

I just feel that (for me, others can be different), that this form of "lecture" NEEDS visuals to keep the audience engaged.

Each part was very brief and I didn't exactly feel that much more knowledge was being bestowed on me than I could get reading a Wikipedia article and a history vid on youtube.

Romans, Romans, Romans

The course should be titled "The Roman Pagan world... Very little non Roman subject matter.

Not terrible, not great.

The Good: The lecturer is a decent performer and his voice works well sped up.

The Bad: 75% of the material could have been in any Western Civ I course, while the remaining 25% felt like “the real material.” If it was twice as long and it became 50/50, or trusted the listeners want something beyond an introductory course, it would have been a lot better.

The Ugly: It gets bogged down with “I’m just reporting this,” “patriarchy” this, “ misogyny” that in a way that it didn’t need to be. The lectures superficially present as being “objective” but then there’s weird moral remarks. If this is a higher education course, I think we should trust the listener to understand it was a different time with different values, or go the other direction and actually flush out the ideas behind what’s being said. He repeated said “but we don’t have time,” which as the listener I’m like “make the course 24hrs like other professors do.”

Overall it was ok but I’d recommend any of the courses by Elizabeth Vandiver or Ken Harl before this one

Informative and funny

I have also watched this professor’s Greek Language course and in both he has a dry wit to match anyone on Saturday Night Live. Imagine Darrell Hammond as a Classics professor, and you have what he is like. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a joke a minute. He’s like Darrell Hammond actually teaching well. He is giving very thoughtful informative lectures which have a great deal of empathy for students. He loves the ancient world. I enjoy listening to him.

Deep dive on Roman religions

Consider whatever you learned in HS about ancient mythology to be just a inkling on ancient worship. The speaker presents a great deal of detail around Roman practices and less so on earlier religions. That's to be expected given the details available. The speaker tried too hard to be entertaining and I found it off putting.

An invaluable account of ancient beliefs

This presenter brings the ancient world to life in a very coherent and creative way. He could be an actor as well as a classicist. I plan to listen again for what I missed.

Fantastic!! Must listen

If you love history and love understanding the interconnectedness of our world. This lecture series is a must. The professor is an amazing narrator. I wish I had attended courses with him. I enjoyed this book as much as one of my ever favorites.