Author : Page duBois
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 44,60 MB
Release : 2014-06-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0674728831
As A Million and One Gods shows, polytheism is considered a scandalous presence in societies oriented to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim beliefs. Yet it persists, even in the West, perhaps because polytheism corresponds to unconscious needs and deeply held values of tolerance, diversity, and equality that are central to civilized societies.
Author : Jonathan Kirsch
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 29,14 MB
Release : 2005-01-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780142196335
"Lively… points out that the conflict between the worship of many gods and the worship of one true god never disappeared." —Publishers Weekly "Jonathan Kirsch has written another blockbuster about the Bible and its world." —David Noel Freedman, Editor-in-Chief of the Anchor Bible Project "Kirsch tackles the central issue bedeviling the world today - religious intolerance… A timely book, well-written and researched." —Leonard Shlain, author of The Alphabet and the Goddess and Sex, Time and Power "An intriguing read." —The Jerusalem Report "A timely tale about the importance of religious tolerance in today’s world." —San Francisco Chronicle "Kirsch is a fine storyteller with a flair for rendering ancient tales relevant and appealing." —The Washington Post
Author : Jan Assmann
Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 33,54 MB
Release : 2008-06-17
Category : History
ISBN : 0299225534
For thousands of years, our world has been shaped by biblical monotheism. But its hallmark—a distinction between one true God and many false gods—was once a new and radical idea. Of God and Gods explores the revolutionary newness of biblical theology against a background of the polytheism that was once so commonplace. Jan Assmann, one of the most distinguished scholars of ancient Egypt working today, traces the concept of a true religion back to its earliest beginnings in Egypt and describes how this new idea took shape in the context of the older polytheistic world that it rejected. He offers readers a deepened understanding of Egyptian polytheism and elaborates on his concept of the “Mosaic distinction,” which conceives an exclusive and emphatic Truth that sets religion apart from beliefs shunned as superstition, paganism, or heresy. Without a theory of polytheism, Assmann contends, any adequate understanding of monotheism is impossible. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the Public Library Association
Author : Benjamin D. Sommer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 351 pages
File Size : 43,77 MB
Release : 2009-06-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0521518725
Sommer utilizes a recovered ancient perception of divinity as having more than one body, fluid and unbounded selves.
Author : Sarah Iles JOHNSTON
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 44,1 MB
Release : 2009-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0674039181
Religious beliefs and practices, which permeated all aspects of life in antiquity, traveled well-worn routes throughout the Mediterranean: itinerant charismatic practitioners peddled their skills as healers, purifiers, cursers, and initiators; and vessels decorated with illustrations of myths traveled with them. This collection of essays, drawn from the groundbreaking reference work Religion in the Ancient World, offers an expansive, comparative perspective on this complex spiritual world.
Author : Sigmund Freud
Publisher : Leonardo Paolo Lovari
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 18,89 MB
Release : 2016-11-24
Category : History
ISBN : 8898301790
The book consists of three essays and is an extension of Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory as a means of generating hypotheses about historical events. Freud hypothesizes that Moses was not Hebrew, but actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was probably a follower of Akhenaten, an ancient Egyptian monotheist. Freud contradicts the biblical story of Moses with his own retelling of events, claiming that Moses only led his close followers into freedom during an unstable period in Egyptian history after Akhenaten (ca. 1350 BCE) and that they subsequently killed Moses in rebellion and later combined with another monotheistic tribe in Midian based on a volcanic God, Jahweh. Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels regretted their action, thus forming the concept of the Messiah as a hope for the return of Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. Freud said that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better.
Author : Jan Assmann
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 167 pages
File Size : 35,46 MB
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 9774166310
The shift from polytheism to monotheism changed the world radically. Akhenaten and Moses--a figure of history and a figure of tradition--symbolize this shift in its incipient, revolutionary stages and represent two civilizations that were brought into the closest connection as early as the Book of Exodus, where Egypt stands for the old world to be rejected and abandoned in order to enter the new one. The seven chapters of this seminal study shed light on the great transformation from different angles. Between Egypt in the first chapter and monotheism in the last, five chapters deal in various ways with the transition from one to the other, analyzing the Exodus myth, understanding the shift in terms of evolution and revolution, confronting Akhenaten and Moses in a new way, discussing Karl Jaspers' theory of the Axial Age, and dealing with the eighteenth-century view of the Egyptian mysteries as a cultural model.
Author : Joel Ryce-Menuhin
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 27,97 MB
Release : 1994
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780415104142
This book provides an exploration of some of the essential aspects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Leading Jungian analysts, theologians and scholars bring to bear psychological, religious and historical perspectives in an attempt to uncover the nature and psychology of the three monotheisms.
Author : Jordan Paper
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 172 pages
File Size : 26,39 MB
Release : 2012-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0791483622
The Deities Are Many is a lively and learned introduction to polytheism. Drawing from both his scholarly research and his personal experience, author Jordan Paper is the ideal guide into this milieu. Paper was drawn to polytheism through his love of nature, seeing it as a source of the divine. In this book he focuses on Chinese and Native American religious traditions, as well as West African, African-Brazilian, Hindu, Polynesian, and circum-Polar traditions, to describe the theology of polytheism. The book provides a topology of polytheistic deities, focusing on the cosmic couple, Father Sky and Mother Earth; animal, plant, and mineral deities; ancestral spirits; divine ghosts; and culture heroes and tricksters. Paper also shows how monotheists misunderstand polytheism and provides a polytheist perspective on what it means to be human when the "deities are many." This is a fascinating, illuminating book, especially for those raised in monotheistic societies.
Author : Helmut Richard Niebuhr
Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 34,54 MB
Release : 1993-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780664253264
This reissue of a classic work of H. Richard Niebuhr, one of the most influential and creative theological ethicists of the twentieth century, highlights his mature thinking. By using path-breaking interpretations of faith as a basic dimension of human life and culture as an arena of faith in conflict, Niebuhr encourages further thought. This volume should be required reading for anyone interested in recent perspectives on theology and ethics. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.
