used by Schopen in his work on Buddhism. (To the list we should add a book
not yet seen: Voting about God in Early Church Councils, 2006.) In terms of
conversion to Christianity in the ancient world, reference must be made to
Zeba Crook’s Reconceptualising Conversion(2004), a study that, instead of
engaging in the usual exegesis of canonical texts, forces us to look at all-too-
familiar texts from a different angle. Crook approaches Paul’s ‘conversion’,
not in the usual psychological-cum-spiritual terms, but rather from the
perspective of the patron–client relations prevalent in the Mediterranean world.
Modern developments are studied in Conversions to Christianity, edited by
Robert Hefner (1993), and in Conversion to Modernities, edited by Peter van
der Veer (1996). While in Rethinking ‘Gnosticism’(1996), Michael Williams
had proposed replacing that term by ‘Biblical demiurgical myth’, in What is
Gnosticism?(2003), Karen King proposes to abandon thinking in terms of
heresy and orthodoxy, of origins and essence, and focus instead on practice.
Whether King’s views will be accepted remains to be seen; in any event, one
looks forward to reading Birger Pearson’s Ancient Gnosticismannounced for
early 2007, where a response—implicit or explicit—to King is likely to be
found.
Traditionally, the history of Christianity has been synonymous with
Church history or with the history of theology. That has finally changed, and
now a growing body of scholars understand Christianity for what it is: a
polymorphous body of beliefs and, above all, practices, which are as related
to the presumed teachings of a first century Galilean holy man, as the varieties
of Daoism are to the enigmatic sayings of the Daodejing—in fact, the parallels
between the deification of Laozi, studied by Anna Seidel and Kohn, and that
of Jesus, shed light on the promotion of superhuman agents at the expense of
metaphysical principles, not to mention teachings about morality. Aware-
ness of the multifariousness of Christianity has led a growing number of
scholars to concentrate on the study of the lived forms of this religion—for
example, in volumes such as Religious Orthodoxy and Popular Faith in
European Society, edited by Ellen Badone (1990), and in general histories, such
as A People’s History of Christianity, published by Fortress Press. Common
practices sometimes considered as belonging to the realm of magic or super-
stition rather than religion have received renewed scholarly attention. Work
on early Christian magic cannot be undertaken without awareness of the studies
on magical practices in the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean by Piotr
Michalowski, Robert Ritner, David Frankfurter, and Christopher Faraone.
Mention should also be made of two series on magic published by Penn State
University Press and the University of Pennsylvania Press. Regarding early
Christianity, see the translation of Coptic texts collected by Marvin Meyer and
Richard Smith, Ancient Christian Magic(1994). Some of the most important
discussions of this issue include Morton Smith’s Jesus the Magician(1978/1998)
and David Aune’s ‘Magic in Early Christianity’ (1980). Smith’s work has
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