Acknowledgements

The editors would be gravely remiss if we did not acknowledge our debt to all those who helped to shape this volume and the conference on which it is based. Neither would have been possible without Peter Schafer. From the day that we first conceived of the topic in early 2001 to the day that we submitted the manuscript of this volume, Prof. Schafer has been a constant source of guidance, inspiration, support, and encouragement ­both in his capacity as an advisor and as the editor, together with Martin Hengel, of Mohr Siebeck's Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism series. For all this, we are deeply appreciative.

John F. Wilson, formerly Dean of Princeton University's Graduate School, provided the financial support for the series of workshops and colloquia of which this project is a part. He granted this funding to encourage innovative approaches to facilitating collaboration between graduate students and faculty in the Religions of Late Antiquity sub-field of Princeton's Department of Religion, and we hope that the present volume communicates in some small way the contribution that these workshops and colloquia have made to the intellectual life of students in our sub-field. In addition, Princeton's Program in the Ancient World, Program in Jewish Studies, and Program in Late Antiquity helped to defray the costs involved in the preparation of the present volume.

We would also like to acknowledge those responsible for the Oxford-Princeton cooperation that lies at the very heart of this volume. Fritz Graf first conceived of the idea to integrate the " Ways that Never Parted" workshop and colloquium with the Oxford-Princeton Research Partnership. It was indeed providential that we first discussed our plans for this project with Prof. Graf on the eve of his trip to Oxford University in April 2001 - just in time for him to propose a collaborative endeavor at the initial planning meeting for the joint " Culture and Religion of the Eastern Mediterranean" project, which he convened together with Simon Price.

The logistical challenges of coordinating a trans-Atlantic project were more than outweighed by the great honor and pleasure of working with Martin Goodman and Simon Price, who oversaw the Oxford side of this joint venture: the seminar on the " Ways that Never Parted" at Oxford (Michaelmas term, 2001), at which a number of the articles in this volume were first presented, and the visit of a group of Oxford faculty and students for the culminating conference at Princeton (January 9-11, 2002). Both contributed enormously to the success of the conference itself, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the ongoing efforts of the broader " Culture and Religion of the Eastern Mediterranean" project. Insofar as this endeavor exemplifies the interdisciplinary approaches to ancient and late antique religions that are so sorely needed at this point in the history of research, we feel especially fortunate that we could be a part of it.

The Oxford-Princeton Research Initiative generously funded the collaborative component of this project. We would also like to express our appreciation to all the graduate students and faculty, on both sides of the Atlantic, who participated in the workshop on the " Ways that Never Parted" at Princeton and in the parallel seminar at Oxford; indeed, the contents of the present volume reflect the lively dialogues and debates that took place in these twin working-groups during fall semester 2001, no less than the conference itself.

Thanks also go to Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, Martina Troeger, and Juliane Haag at Mohr Siebeck, for their patience and efficiency in shepherding this book to publication, and to Paulo Asso, Peggy Reilly, and Kerry Smith for their invaluable aid at various stages of this project. In addition, Adam Becker would like to express his appreciation to Angela Zito and Janine Paolucci at New York University, for providing office space during the summer of 2002 for his work on this project. The editors owe special debts of gratitude to Ley la B. Aker, for her super­numerary but less than remunerative labors on the book, and to Dove C. Sussman, for volunteering his technical prowess and providing constant feedback.

Last but not least, the editors would like to take this opportunity to congratulate John G. Gager on the occasion of his 65th birthday. When we were determining whom to invite to the " Ways that Never Parted" conference, we were rather stunned by the large number of scholars who are on the cutting-edge of research on this topic and who, at some point in their careers, studied with Prof. Gager. From our own experience, we suspect that this is not a coincidence. He has played a major role in inspiring our own research interests in this area, and he has never ceased to push us to look behind and beyond the " master narratives" of modern scholarship, questioning unquestioned assumptions, exposing deeply-ingrained biases, and seeking to recover - to whatever degree that we can - the realities " on the ground. " For this, as for so much else, we offer him our warmest thanks.