This collection of ten essays explores individuality in religious texts and practices related to those texts. The essays focus on Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian approaches to religious individuality, all from the first millennia or before. They consider what individuality is and what it means for that to be taken as religious, but ultimately regard "individuality as a heuristic method to analyze the relationship between structures, norms, and opportunities on the one hand, and the individual agent on the other." In this regard, they identify several types of individuality "rather than measure different phenomena on a unified scale of 'individuality'." They are divided into two sections on individuals and persons, on the one hand, and representative and charismatic individuality, on the other. Specific essay topics include cults of the individual in Ancient Greece, personhood in the Deutero-Pauline tradition, Abraham as the rabbinic Jesus, reading and religion in Rome, and more. Several essays are in German. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)