Author: Walter Burkert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674175709
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Sacrifice is essential to all religions. Could there be a natural, even biological, reason? Why are sacrifice and numerous other religious rituals and concepts shared by so many different cultures? In this extraordinary book, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient religions explores the possibility of natural religion.
Author: Walter Burkert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674253183
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Sacrifice—ranging from the sacrifice of virgins to circumcision to giving up what is most valued—is essential to all religions. Could there be a natural, even biological, reason for these practices? Something that might explain why religions of so many different cultures share so many rituals and concepts? In this extraordinary book, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient religions explores the possibility of natural religion—a religious sense and practice naturally proceeding from biological imperatives. Because they lack later refinements, the earliest religions from the Near East, Israel, Greece, and Rome may tell us a great deal about the basic properties and dynamics of religion, and it is to these cultures that Walter Burkert looks for answers. His book takes us on an intellectual adventure that begins some 5,000 years ago and plunges us into a fascinating world of divine signs and omens, offerings and sacrifices, rituals and beliefs unmitigated by modern science and sophistication. Tracing parallels between animal behavior and human religious activity, Burkert suggests natural foundations for sacrifices and rituals of escape, for the concept of guilt and punishment, for the practice of gift exchange and the notion of a cosmic hierarchy, and for the development of a system of signs for negotiating with an uncertain environment. Again and again, he returns to the present to remind us that, for all our worldliness, we are not so far removed from the first Homo religiosus. A breathtaking journey, as entertaining as it is provocative, Creation of the Sacred brings rich new insight on religious thought past and present and raises serious questions about the ultimate reasons for, and the ultimate meaning of, human religiousness.
Author: Jonathan Black
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781780874876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510
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Book Description
'The Sacred History' is an account of the workings of the supernatural in history. It tells the epic story of angels from creation to evolution, through to the operations of the supernatural in the modern world.
Author: Rian Thum
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067496702X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet—have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing’s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past. Beyond broadening our knowledge of tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government, this meditation on the very concept of history probes the limits of human interaction with the past. Uyghur historical practice emerged from the circulation of books and people during the Qing Dynasty, when crowds of pilgrims listened to history readings at the tombs of Islamic saints. Over time, amid long journeys and moving rituals, at oasis markets and desert shrines, ordinary readers adapted community-authored manuscripts to their own needs. In the process they created a window into a forgotten Islam, shaped by the veneration of local saints. Partly insulated from the rest of the Islamic world, the Uyghurs constructed a local history that is at once unique and assimilates elements of Semitic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic traditions—the cultural imports of Silk Road travelers. Through both ethnographic and historical analysis, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History offers a new understanding of Uyghur historical practices, detailing the remarkable means by which this people reckons with its past and confronts its nationalist aspirations in the present day.
Author: Richard Elliott Friedman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498294936
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 106
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Book Description
"The study of the Bible is at a vital juncture." Thus begins this merger of a stellar group of scholars of both literary and historical perspectives on the Hebrew Bible: Robert Alter, Baruch Halpern, Shemaryahu Talmon, Jacob Milgrom, Nahum Sarna, and Jack Miles, and edited by Richard Elliott Friedman. In this seminal work they raise questions of conception, technique, and audience, treating of both the Bible's authors and editors. At bottom, the question that all are addressing is: in what way(s) is the study of the Bible different from the study of other literature? Their answers, it should come as no surprise, all have to do with the Bible's special life as sacred literature. Book jacket.
Author: Virginia M. Fields
Publisher: Scala Books
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
Offers a unique perspective on Mayan culture, documenting the
Author: Christal Whelan
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824818241
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
In 1865 a French priest was visited by a small group of Japanese at his newly built church in Nagasaki. They were descendants of Japan's first Christians, the survivors of brutal religious persecution under the Tokugawa government. The Kakure Kirishitan, or "hidden Christians," had practiced their religion in secret for several hundred years. Sometime after their visit the priest received a copy of the Kakure bible, the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, "Beginning of Heaven and Earth," an intriguing amalgam of Bible stories, Japanese fables, and Roman Catholic doctrine. Whelan offers a complete translation of this unique work accompanied by an illuminating commentary that provides the first theory of origin and evolution of the Tenchi. Today, the few Kakure Kirishitan communities still in existence view the Tenchi as strange and flawed, expressing a distorted form of Christianity. It is, however, the only text produced by the Kakure Kirishitan that depicts their highly syncretistic tradition and provides a colorful window through which to examine the dynamics of religious acculturation.
Author: Susan Suntree
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803231989
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
"Sacred Sites honors the power and beauty of our indigenous heritage and homeland. By knowing our history we better understand the present and our journey into the future."---Anthony Morales, tribal chair, Gabrielino Tongva Council of San Gabriel --
Author: James W. Watts
Publisher: Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
ISBN: 9781781798843
Category : Books and reading
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
In this volume an international team of scholars address the theme of books as sacred beings from an impressively diverse range of primary material and perspectives. Yet, as a group, they meld to engage and advance previous research to solidify the conclusion that human cultures, especially religious groups, often ritualize bodies as sacred books and books as divine beings. The studies collected here not only increase the range of examples of this phenomenon. They also show the wide variety of ways in which the identity of books, bodies and beings gets both ritualized and theorized. The articles are bracketed by an introduction to the collection, and then by a concluding essay that extrapolates the theme of books as sacred beings on a more general level.
Author: Richard Heath
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594777195
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
An exploration of the origins and influences of number from prehistory to modern time • Reveals the deeper meaning of the symbols and esoteric knowledge of secret societies • Explains the numerical sophistication of ancient monuments • Shows how the Templar design for Washington, D.C., represents the New Jerusalem The ubiquitous use of certain sacred numbers and ratios can be found throughout history, influencing everything from art and architecture to the development of religion and secret societies. In Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization, Richard Heath reveals the origins, widespread influences, and deeper meaning of these synchronous numerical occurrences and how they were left within our planetary environment during the creation of the earth, the moon, and our solar system. Exploring astronomy, harmony, geomancy, sacred centers, and myth, Heath reveals the secret use of sacred number knowledge in the building of Gothic cathedrals and the important influence of sacred numbers in the founding of modern Western culture. He explains the role secret societies play as a repository for this numerical information and how those who attempt to decode its meaning without understanding the planetary origins of this knowledge are left with contradictory, cryptic, and often deceptive information. By examining prehistoric and monumental cultures through the Dark Ages and later recorded history, Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization provides a key to understanding the true role and meaning of number.
