difficulties in establishing the exact vehicles for the exchange of religious ideas,
especially as one moves into the more remote past, provide little more than plausible
models for transmission. Further, the ever-growing list of parallels between Aegean
and Near Eastern texts and religious practices only underscores the need to establish
what shared taxonomies and conditions made their transmission possible. Moreover,
the complex and often subtle differences that distinguish one polytheistic or henothe-
ist religion from another make such an investigation far more difficult. The four
problems surveyed above only scratch the surface when it comes to the difficulties
that confront scholars engaged in the comparative study of ancient Mediterranean
religions. Nevertheless, it is in grappling with such challenges that scholarship moves
forward. Indeed, as archaeologists continue to unearth new finds and as textual
research on the topic continues, we shall be in a better position to tackle such
challenges, especially if we do so with interdisciplinary dialogue and goals.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READINGFor general discussions of this subject, see Adkins and Adkins 1996, Black and Green 1992,
Hallo and Younger 1997–2002, Keel and Uehlinger 1998, Toorn, Horst, and Becking 1999.
For Anatolia see D.P. Wright 2004a; for Egypt, Assmann 2004, Hornung 1971, Ka ́kosy 1995,
Velde 2003; for Israel, Collins 2004, Niditch 1997; for Syro-Canaan, Caquot 1980, Toorn
1995, D.P. Wright 2004b; for Mesopotamia, Beaulieu 2004, Botte ́ro 1992, 2001, Lambert
1968, 1975, Livingstone 1997, Wiggermann 1995.
Greek Religion and the Ancient Near East 37