Table Of ContentOUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
OXFORD STUDIES IN THE ABRAHAMIC
RELIGIONS
GeneralEditors
AdamJ.Silverstein GuyG.Stroumsa
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
OXFORD STUDIES IN THE ABRAHAMIC
RELIGIONS
This series consists of scholarly monographs and other volumes at the
cutting edge of the study of Abrahamic Religions. The increase in
intellectual interest in the comparative approach to Judaism, Christianity,
andIslamreflectsthestrikingsurgeintheimportanceofreligioustraditions
and patterns of thought and behaviour in the twenty-first century, at the
global level. While this importance is easy to detect, it remains to be
identified clearly and analysed from a comparative perspective. Our
existing scholarly apparatus is not always adequate in attempting to
understand precisely the nature of similarities and differences between
the monotheistic religions, and the transformations of their “family
resemblances”indifferentculturalandhistoricalcontexts.
Theworksintheseriesaredevotedtothestudyofhow“Abrahamic”
traditions mix, blend, disintegrate, rebuild, clash, and impact upon one
another, usually in polemical contexts, but also, often, in odd, yet
persistentwaysofinteraction,reflectingthesymbiosisbetweenthem.
Titlesintheseriesinclude
TheMakingoftheAbrahamicReligionsinLateAntiquity
GuyG.Stroumsa
Judaism,Sufism,andthePietistsofMedievalEgypt
AStudyofAbrahamMaimonidesandHisTimes
ElishaRuss-Fishbane
Purity,Community,andRitualinEarlyChristianLiterature
MosheBlidstein
IslamanditsPast
Jahiliyya,LateAntiquity,andtheQur’an
EditedbyCarolBakhosandMichaelCook
Goy
Israel’sMultipleOthersandtheBirthoftheGentile
AdiOphirandIshayRosen-Zvi
VeilingEsther,UnveilingHerStory
TheReceptionofaBiblicalBookinIslamicLands
AdamJ.Silverstein
TheGoldenCalfbetweenBibleandQur’an
Scripture,Polemic,andExegesisfromLateAntiquitytoIslam
MichaelPregill
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
Dreams and Divination
from Byzantium to
–
Baghdad, 400 1000
BRONWEN NEIL
1
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
3
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OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
Acknowledgements
Thepublicationofanacademicbookisalwaysagroupeffort.Fortheirsage
advice on draft versions of the work, I am truly grateful to Chris Bishop
(Canberra), Theo de Bruyn (Ottawa), Alan Cadwallader (Canberra), Doru
Costache (Sydney), Mark Edwards (Oxford), Phoebe Garrett (Canberra),
Aydogan Karz (Melbourne), Raihan Ismail (Canberra), David Runia
(Melbourne),NaokiKamimura(Tokyo),andSatoshiandKeikoTakahashi
(Tokyo),amongothers. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Tom Perridge at
Oxford University Press, the editors of the series Oxford Studies in the
AbrahamicReligions,andthetwoanonymousreviewers,whosesuggestions
forimprovementweremostwelcome.
Thanksalsotoallwhoencouragedmefromafar,especiallyPaulBlowers
(JohnsonCity),EvangelosChrysos(Thessaloniki),CarolHarrison(Oxford),
Chris de Wet (Pretoria), and Andrew Louth (Durham). I thank Eirini
Pachoumi for her invitation to present a paper at her conference on
Praying and Contemplating: Religious and Philosophical Interactions in
Late Antiquity at North-West University (Potchefstroom) in March 2016.
I am grateful to my former and current higher degree students, Ryan
Strickler, Kosta Simic, and Charlie Thorne, and to research associate
RachelYuen-Collingridge,whocollectedreferencesfromByzantinesources.
Thanks to research assistants Catherine Rosbrook and Phoebe Garrett for
their careful proofing and indexing. I have to take full credit for the
remainingerrors.
Thanks to Rudy Irwan, Iain Edgar, and Raihan Ismail for their learned
conversations about Islamic dreaming in the contemporary sphere, and
special thanks to the many people of various religious and ethnic back-
groundswhospontaneouslysharedtheirdreamswithme.Theirfascination
withdreamstoriesconvincedmethatthesubjectwouldpasstheinfamous
‘pubtest’andwasthereforeworthpursuing.
The Australian Research Council generously supported this research
through a Future Fellowship FT140100226 (2014–18) on Dreams,
Prophecy, and Violence from Early Christianity to the Rise of Islam.
Throughoutthisproject,Ihavebenefitedfromaccesstovariousmarvellous
libraries, including the Bodleian, and the collections of the University of
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
vi
Ottawa, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Macquarie University, Australian
Catholic University, the Australian National University, the Bill Bryson
Library at Durham University, and the National Library of Australia. The
OfficeofResearchandtheFacultyofArtsatMacquarieUniversity(Sydney)
providedgenerousfinancialandmoralsupport.
ColleaguesintheDepartmentofAncientHistoryatMacquariehavebeen
welcomingandtolerantofmyByzantinepursuits.Iamverygratefulforthe
chancetocollaboratewithEvaAnagnostou-Laoutides,whoco-convenedthe
AustralianAssociationforByzantineStudiesconferenceonDreams,Memory
and Imagination in Byzantium at Monash University (Melbourne) in
February 2017 and co-edited the proceedings published in the Brill series
Byzantina Australiensia in 2018. The Macquarie University Centre for
Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment (CACHE) offered an interdis-
ciplinaryresearchenvironmentthatwasstimulatingandchallenging.Sotoo
did the Institute for Advanced Studies at Durham University, where I was
fortunatetoholdafellowshipduringEpiphanytermin2020.
Thanks to all my former colleagues in the Centre for Early Christian
Studies, who were such an important part of the previous chapter of my
academiclifeattheAustralianCatholicUniversity,wherethisprojectbegan.
To Mary Neil, Elizabeth McBride, and other family and friends, especially
Margie Moore, Alison Wishart, and Sandra Sewell, thank you for your
continued interest in the project and good humour throughout. Most of
all, I want to thank my partner and our daughter for putting up with my
being absent, especially while working at home. As my late grandfather
wouldsay,paxvobiscum.
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
Abbreviations
AP ApophthegmataPatrum
APanon ApophthegmataPatrum(AnonymousCollection)
BT BabylonianTalmud
CCSL CorpusChristianorumSeriesLatina
CPG ClavisPatrumGraecorum
CSEL CorpusScriptorumEcclesiasticorumLatinorum
FOTC FathersoftheChurch
NIV NewInternationalVersionoftheBible
NRSV NewRevisedStandardVersionoftheBible
PG PatrologiaGraeca
PL PatrologiaLatina
PT PalestinianTalmud
Q. Qur’an
SBL SocietyofBiblicalLiterature
SC Sourceschrétiennes
SM SpiritualMeadow
TTH TranslatedTextsforHistorians
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
Note on Transliteration
Arabic names have been transliterated with only two diacritics, those for
hamza and ayn. Since there are at least three sets of international conven-
tions in use, I have chosen the simplest system: a single closing inverted
commaforthevoicelessglottalstophamza,asinru’ya;andasingleopening
inverted comma for the voiced pharyngeal fricative ayn, as in Sa‘d. Other
diacriticsareomittedexceptwheretheseoccurinthetitlesofworkscitedin
thebibliography.IhavealsousedtheAnglicizedversionofplacenameslike
MeccaandMedina.
OUPCORRECTEDAUTOPAGEPROOFS–FINAL,21/10/2020,SPi
