E-grāmata: Theorizing Religions Past: Archaeology, History, and Cognition

In the second of three international symposia, held in August 2002 at the University of Vermont, archaeologists, classicists, historians, and historians of religion assess the prediction of the doctrinal and imagistic modes of religion as proposed by British anthropologist Whitehouse in 1995. Using the theory as a framework, they trade views on such topics as prehistorical religiosity, Greco-Roman religions, the beginnings of Christianity and its medieval and Reformation developments, and diverse cases of modern religion. The discussions are intended to pave the way for theory-oriented research on the history of religion to replace the idiosyncratic agendas that are here said to have dominated the field previously. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Historians bound by their singular stories and archaeologists bound by their material evidence donOt typically seek out broad comparative theories of religion. But recently Harvey WhitehouseOs Omodes of religiosityO theory has been attracting many scholars of past religions. Based upon universal features of human cognition, WhitehouseOs theory can provide useful comparisons across cultures and historical periods even when limited cultural data is present. In this groundbreaking volume, scholars of cultures from prehistorical hunter-gatherers to 19th century Scandinavian Lutherans evaluate WhitehouseOs hypothesis that all religions tend toward either an imagistic or a doctrinal mode depending on how they are remembered and transmitted. Theorizing Religions Past provides valuable insights for all historians of religion and especially for those interested in a new cognitive method for studying the past.