Abstract
The focus in this article is on the developments in the study of religion in Norway during the last fifty years, reflecting over continuities and breaks with the past, over changes in themes, theories and methods as well as over relations to the surrounding world.
Highlights
The focus in this article is on the developments in the study of religion in Norway during the last fifty years
Before Schencke’s appointment, there had been a discussion whether the professorship in the History of Religions should be placed in the Faculty of Theology or in the Faculty of Arts
Schencke argued that to qualify as a university subject, all aspects of theology should on principle be subject to critical research (Kyllingstad & Rørvik 2011, 173), and should be replaced by a secular study of religion
Summary
Wilhelm Brede Kristensen (1867–1953) was the first historian of religions in Norway. He received a research grant (universitetsstipend) at the University of Oslo in 1898, but was called to the University of Leiden in 1901 to succeed Cornelis P. His special field of research was the religions of the Middle East and the Mediterranean world, but he wrote on Buddhism and was interested in Japanese religions.13 His language skills included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syrian, Arabic, Ancient Egyptian and Coptic, as well as Sanskrit and Avesta, and he published in a wide area of subjects in journals such as Numen, Temenos and Acta Orientalia, and frequently in Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift. Ludin Jansen had a lifelong interest in mysticism, published on Plotin and Meister Eckhart, and was one of the pioneer scholars who studied the Coptic texts from Nag Hammadi, especially the Gospel of Truth (cf Kværne 1986; 1988) Among his Nordic colleagues, his closest connection was to Geo Widengren.. Several of his pupils got positions at the universities, among them Alv Kragerud, who was the first professor at the University of Bergen, but he too was a theologian, and had worked as a Lutheran minister.
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