Early Religion Research Articles

Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion

Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion

Opening up the ritual casket: patterns of concealment and disclosure in early and medieval chinese religion

Ritual caskets—potent containers of precious stone or metal housing divinely granted treasures and esoteric texts—appear with some frequency in the literature of early medieval Daoism. These caskets reveal a rich complex of mythic narratives and ritual practices in Chinese religion as a whole. This article focuses on three aspects of religious practice involving a range of ritual caskets from the ancient to the early medieval period, including: (1) the vessels' function in the acquisition of the Heavenly Mandate tianming for imperial rulership as well as for immortality; (2) their mediating role in disclosing the revelation of sacred texts, especially from the Latter Han and into the narratives of early Daoism; and (3) their use in ritualizing expiation in early medieval Daoism through the depositing of “substitute bodies” into hidden caches and the advancing of liturgical petitions to otherworldly offices. On the most fundamental level, the ritual casket is a container that both conceals as well as reveals. We may thus see the hollow of the casket as a generative emptiness into which have been inserted a multiplicity of applications and interpretations over time, illustrating an esoteric dimension lying at the heart of the Daoist tradition.

Goddesses and the divine feminine: a Western religious history

Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History. By Rosemary Radford Ruether. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. ? + 382; acknowledgments, introduction, photographs, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 cloth, $18.95 paper) Contemporary popular culture is now so full of claims surrounding the divine feminine drat it's difficult to sort them out. Some ideas include that early human cultures were peaceful and productive because they worshipped goddesses; that the gnostic gospels preserve the idea of the feminine divine, and for that reason were excluded from orthodoxy; that the worship of the Virgin Mary is a continuation of this veneration, a form of feminist resistance to patriarchal oppression; that Hildegard of Bingen was an early feminist theologian; that the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe is really an ancient Aztec goddess, Tonatzin. Many of these claims have become dogma in their own right among practitioners of feminist spirituality and New Age religions. But is there any truth to them? Feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether comes to the rescue with this gem - a scholarly study of the female faces of the divine in their various iterations, from prehistoric times into the present, based on solid evidence rather than wishful thinking, and written with the insight of a religious historian. Ruether's central goal in this book is not to sort out the relative truth or fiction of competing claims, but to trace the history that connects ancient religions with contemporary feminist attempts to re-examine, revive and reclaim aspects of them for the purpose of building a more satisfying and just way of being in the world. As such, it grows out of her own lifelong experience as a both a theologian and a politically committed feminist. Her hope is that this book will be of value to feminists all along the religious spectrum, from Jewish and Christian spiritual feminists, to radical witches and neo-pagans, in that it illustrates their shared roots and common values and works to create alliances among them. But it will also appeal to a much broader audience seeking historically accurate information about putative links between early religions and contemporary adaptations of them. It would be ideal for use in classes on women and religion, and more broadly on Western religious history. Ruether started her career as a religious historian of the ancient Near East, and it's here that she begins her story by tackling the problems inherent in teasing out clues about gender and religious praxis from prehistoric archeological evidence, a partial record of material culture that is notoriously difficult to interpret. In order to properly contextualize contemporary archeological ways of understanding evidence, she must also present a history of earlier archeological theories of cultural and social evolution, including nineteenth-century models (and their twentieth-century redactions) that are often adopted uncritically and enthusiastically by some spiritual feminists. That she does this as clearly and judiciously as she does, despite lacking archeological training, is to her credit. …

Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age by Hans G. Kippenberg , Barbara Harshav (review)

Book Reviews 165 Hans G. Kippenberg, Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age (trans. Barbara Harshav; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 263. ISBN 0691009090. $22.95. Given Max Weber's wide-ranging and penetrating preoccupation with religion, his friendship with Ernst Troeltsch, his justified admiration for the latter's Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (1911), and his friendship with Georg Simmel whose Die Religion (1906) appeared in Martin Buber's remarkable series Die Gesellschaft, Religionsgeschichte should properly be a concern to all those interested in Max Weber's work and the consequences of that work for better understanding humanity and its history. Beyond the specifics of Weber's analysis but entirely in its spirit, one should thus recognize that there is a pressing relevance and importance to the investigation into the modern foundations of the history of religion. First and above all, such an investigation openly confronts the difficult problem of clarifying 'what is religion'? This problem, in tum, can not avoid addressing the character of human understand ing and action. Specifically, such an investigation should not avoid the problem of humanity's place within the animal kingdom, or, alternatively formulated, the con sequences of the ordeal of consciousness, that is, 'mind'.56 Clarifying the nature of the peculiar place of humanity within the animal kingdom has consequences for the social sciences and philosophy, leading to a methodological judgment between, on the one hand, a monistic utilitarianism and, on the other, a pluralistic and conflicting Lebensordnungen, specifically Wertsphären, as Max Weber recognized.57 Second, such an investigation ought to lead to a critical reflection on today's fash ionable categories of analysis that are usually and mostly wrongly taken for granted. The time is long overdue for a critical re-evaluation of the heuristic merit of the cate gory of 'modernity' that would, it is hoped, expose its polemical intentions. Given the persistence and significance of religion in human affairs, such a re-evaluation is surely warranted. In this regard, it is incumbent on scholars of Max Weber's work to set right a misconception of the contribution of Weber's analysis of religion. While it is clear that Weber sought from his studies on religion to provide a 'Beitrag zur Typologie und Soziologie des Rationalismus' ('Zwischenbetrachtung', p. 537, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1), that contribution has been woefully misunderstood as indicating a uniform process of rationalization within and across the various spheres of life. In contrast to the never ending and simplistic drivel about the 'iron cage' and bureaucratization that one encounters today, Weber recognized conflicts among the demands of consistency between the different spheres of life and within each. Thus, clarification is badly needed about just what is meant by, and the merit of the use of, the term 'secularization'. These kinds of re-evaluations and clarifications will open other problems for examination: a clarification of the conceptually flabby category of 'civil religion';58 a reconsideration of the boundaries of the categories polytheism, 56. For a recent analysis of this problem, see Walter Burkert, Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). 57. For my views on these philosophical implications, see Steven Grosby, 'Plural ism in the Thought of Oakeshott, Shils and Weber', Journal of Classical Sociology 2.1 (2002), pp. 43-58. 58. For my criticism of the category, see Steven Grosby, 'Nationality and Religion', in Steven Grosby, Biblical Ideas of Nationality: Ancient and Modern (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), pp. 235-56.© Max Weber Studies 2005. 166 Max Weber Studies paganism, monotheism; and the extent to which it is legitimate to speak of religious 'development' and even 'evolution'. All of this is especially in order if Hans Kippen berg is correct (and it seems to me that he is) when he states that 'the genealogy of modern culture is located in religious history' (p. 132). Such are some of the tasks that fall to the students of Max Weber's work. These tasks are not to be pursued by merely repeating Weber's insights into religion and human action, thereby grossly violating the spirit of Weber's contribution. Those insights are to...

The English “Post‐Reformation”?

A new term is infiltrating the lexicon of historians of early modern English religion. What was once neutral shorthand for an indeterminate period after the English Reformation is acquiring greater significance. Its initial uses were adjectival: “the patchwork of beliefs” to be found in England by 1600 “may be described as distinctively ‘post-Reformation,’ but not thoroughly ‘Protestant,’” concluded Tessa Watt; “we are beginning to see the outlines of a religious culture which if not thoroughly protestant by exacting clerical standards, was distinctively post-Reformation,” agrees Alexandra Walsham. But occasionally this quality of English religious culture has hardened into a noun—as in the title of John Bossy’s Peace in the Post-Reformation—for in Bossy’s view this term has the “benefit of putting due weight on the state of affairs, on both sides of the confessional fence, as the seismic upheavals of the sixteenth century settled down into everyday continuity.”1 The Post-Reformation, then, is all about living with the Reformation; it is a label to describe the quotidian business of rubbing along with Protestantism. We are, however, still living with the effects of the Reformation. So when did the “PostReformation” end? And when, for that matter, did it begin? When was England “post” the Reformation? Those who favor the term tend to work on the decades

Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton

Note on Text. Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. The Background of Newton's Jewish Studies. 3. Judaism in Newton's History of Early Religion. 4. Judaism in Newton's Study of Scriptural Prophecy. 5. The Temple of Jerusalem in Newton's Thought. 6. Judaism in Newton's Church History. 7. Kabbalah and the Corruption of the Primitive Church. 8. Conclusion. Appendices: A. From the Irenicum (Keynes, MS. 3). B. From Of the Church (Bodmer MS., Ch. 9/10). C. From Of the Church (Bodmer MS., Ch. 3, 4, 5, 12/13). D. From Of the Church (Bodmer MS., 'Additional Chapters', Ch. 1). E. From Of the Church (Bodmer MS., 'Additional Chapters', fragments). F. From Of the Prophecy (Yahuda MS. 9.2). Bibliography. Index.

The goddess and the warrior: the naked goddess and mistress of animals in early Greek religion

The goddess and the warrior: the naked goddess and mistress of animals in early Greek religion

BURKERT (Walter), Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

BURKERT (Walter), Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

Asceticism in early Taoist religion

Asceticism in early Taoist religion

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Walter Burkert

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksCreation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Walter Burkert Scott A. FieldScott A. Field Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 74, Number 1Mar., 1999 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/392960 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1999 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Religion and the American Experience: A Social and Cultural History, 1765-1997

Religion in the USA manifests itself in many forms and this book examines them, from religion in the early republic, to early African American religion, reform, nativism movements, and fundamentalism, up to the contemporary culture wars, in a study that spans almost 250 years.

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religion

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religion

BURKERT, Walter. Creation of the sacred. Tracks of biology in early religions

BURKERT, Walter. Creation of the sacred. Tracks of biology in early religions

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

Preface Culture in a Landscape: Situating Religion Beyond Culture Sociobiology? A Common World: Reduction and Validation Escape and Offerings Finger Sacrifice Biology, Fantasy, and Ritual Castration and Circumcision Scapegoats Life for Life The Core of a Tale Caught up in Tales The Propp Sequence: The Quest From Biological Programs to Semantic Chains The Shaman's Tale The Initiation Tale: The Maiden's Tragedy Hierarchy The Awareness of Rank Rituals of Submission The Strategy of Praise Two-Tiered Power The Language of Power: The Envoy Guilt and Causality Religious Therapy and the Search for Guilt Present Sufferings The Foundation of Cults The Mediators: Risks and Opportunities Explanatory Models: Fetters, Wrath, Pollution The Reciprocity of Giving Le don in Perspective Giving in Religion Genealogy of Morality? Failing Reciprocity: Religious Criticism Failing Reciprocity: The Facts of Ritual Gift and Sacrifice Aversion and Offerings: From Panic to Stability The Validation of Signs: A Cosmos of Sense Accepting Signs: Divination Decision through Signs: The Ordeal Creating Signs: Territory and Body Language Validated: The Oath Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

Creation of the sacred: tracks of biology in early religions

Creation of the sacred: tracks of biology in early religions

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

Appraising Grace

Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions by Walter Burkert

Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies

Ed Dinesh Bhugra Routledge, pounds sterling50, pp 236 ISBN 0 415 08955 7 The product of two conferences held at the Institute of Psychiatry in the early 1990s, Psychiatry and Religion is edited by a psychiatrist, with chapters by experts in philosophy, psychiatry, sociology, and theology. Its main purpose is the sharing of information, thoughts, and philosophies. As we live in a multicultural society encompassing numerous different religious faiths, the book …

The Cain myth: a discussion of its historical roots and an interpretation

The biblical story of Cain is approached as a myth in this article. The polytheistic and mythical nature of early Israelite religion will be explained. Should the Cain myth be superimposed upon the...

NATURE AS THE IMAGE OF GOD: REFLECTIONS ON THE SIGNS OF THE SACRED

Abstract. This is a brief survey of aspects of the modern scientific view of nature to see if implied therein are signs or traces of the sacred–as early religious apprehension surely supposed. Nature's power and order are discussed as is the strange dialectic of death and life, evident in modern biology as it also is in all early religion.