Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age

This book makes an unparalleled attempt to analyze the rise of comparative religion as a particular response to modernization. In the mid-nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, Western scholars began to interpret religion's history, drawing on prehistorical evidence, recently deciphered texts, and ethnographical reports. Religions that had been rejected as irrational by Enlightenment philosophers were now studied with enthusiasm. Using comparative methods, scholars identified in their own culture traces of ancient, oriental, and tribal religions--not merely as survivals but increasingly as powerful manifestations of a human existence not subdued by rationality. Hans Kippenberg shows how F. Max Muller, E. B. Tylor, W. Robertson Smith, J. G. Frazer, Jane Harrison, R. R. Marett, E. Durkheim, Max Weber, William James, and Rudolf Otto included in their reconstruction of the religious past a diagnosis of modern culture. Mysticism, soul, ritual, magic, pre-animism, world-rejection, and other notions were developed into a theory, disclosing in modern culture an ignored continuity of worldviews and attitudes.These scholars saw the modern world as still dependent on religion and believed that a history of religion could speak to questions about morality and identity that Enlightened thinkers or theologians could no longer answer. The study of ancient and non-Western religions, they believed, could help establish awareness of a genuine human culture threatened by an increasingly mechanized world. Their work shows how the historical concept of religion emerged and became plausible in the context of modernization, and peoples' experiences of modernization determined the meanings that religion assumed.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to the American Edition vii Introduction xiii CHAPTER ONE: From the Philosophy of Religion to the History of Religions 1 CHAPTER TWO: Deciphering Unknown Cultures 24 CHAPTER THREE: What Languages Tell of the Early History of the Religions of Europe 36 CHAPTER FOUR: The Presence of the Original Religion in Modern Civilization 51 CHAPTER FIVE: On the Origin of All Social Obligations: The Ritual of Sacrifice 65 CHAPTER SIX: Under Civilization: The Menacing Realm of Magic 81 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Unfathomable Depths of Life in the Mirror of Hellenic Religion 98 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Productive Force of World Rejection 113 CHAPTER NINE: Competing Models of the Recapitulation of the History of Religions 125 CHAPTER TEN: Religion and the Social Bond 136 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Great Process of Disenchantment 155 CHAPTER TWELVE: Religion as Experience of the Self 175 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: How Descriptions of the History of Religion Reflect Modernization 187 Notes 197 Bibliography 225 Index 257

About the Author :
Hans G. Kippenberg, Professor at the University of Bremen and Fellow at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt, is the editor of the journal Numen, the author of numerous publications in German, and the coeditor of Secrecy and Concealment and Envisioning Magic.

Review :
"Hans Kippenberg has written a masterful study of the rise of the history of religions in the European world. He begins with developments that preceded the rise of the history of religions per se, then turns to thinkers who contributed more directly to the 'discovery' of the history of religions... The faces in this parade are very familiar, but the accounts of each thinker are uniformly lucid and insightful, and both Kippenberg's selection of materials and his analysis have something to teach us... Both for its contributions and the possibilities that it raises, Kippenberg's volume is most welcome."--Gregory D. Alles, Journal of Religion "Hans G. Kippenberg has accomplished what few religion scholars have yet to do: namely, write an intelligent and accessible case for the study of comparative religion."--D. G. Hart, American Historical Review "A rich and fascinating portrayal of the formation of a discipline."--Kocku von Stuckrad, Religious Studies Review