In this study, Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a person's body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the Early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Furthermore, contrary to many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent, Oriental "Other." Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty methodology. The study of sacred prostitution is, effectively, a historiographical reckoning.

在这项研究中，Stephanie Budin证明了神圣的卖淫，即出售一个人的身体以获得性，其中部分或全部收入用于神灵或寺庙，在古代世界并不存在。重新考虑来自古代近东、希腊-罗马文本和早期基督教作者的证据，Budin表明，传统上被理解为与神圣卖淫有关的大多数资料实际上与这种制度无关。此外，在这个问题上通常被引用的少数文本被严重误解了。此外，与目前的许多假设相反，神圣的卖淫神话的产生与指控的概念或构建一个颓废的东方 "他者 "无关。相反，这个神话的出现是两千多年来错误解释、错误假设和错误方法的结果。对圣洁的卖淫的研究实际上是一种历史学的清算。