The Past as Simulacrum

Shifting Our Focus in Studying “Religion” in the Ancient World

Abstract

Willi Braun’s corpus apart from being very influential among those whose work is located within Early Christianity, has also been very much grounded in a theoretical and methodological approach that makes it of relevance for anyone in the field of Religious Studies. In many ways his work is also an invitation to a shift of approach in how we describe and use “the past,” in understanding that, as Braun once phrased it, any “history and its repertoire of symbols” is “an instance of ordinary human history-making.” This paper will take up on Willi Braun’s invitation for this shift of approach.