Table of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction The Problem of Sacrificing Gods 3 I Ancient Greek Gods in Ritual Performance 1 Is Libation Sacrifice? 27 2 Iconographic Evidence 57 3 "Terribly Strange and Paradoxical": Literary Evidence 101 4 "Divine Libation": A Century of Debate 121 5 The Problem Defined and a Proposed Solution: Divine Reflexivity in Ritual Representation 161 II The Wider Indo-European World: Polytheism Introduction Ritualizing Gods in Indo-European Religious Traditions 183 6 Zoroastrian Heresy; Zurvan's Thousand-Year Sacrifice 189 7 "Myself to Myself": The Norse Odin and Divine Autosacrifice 213 III The Peoples of the Book: Monotheism and Divine Ritual Introduction The Special Interpretive Challenge of Divine Ritual in Monotheism 239 8 The Observant God of the Talmud 249 9 "God and His Angels Pray for the Prophet": A Qur'anic Paradigm 283 Conclusion: "Religion of the Gods" 307 Notes 317 Bibliography 457 Index 483