In cuneiform culture the New Year Festival was an important ritual of kingship. The most fundamental source for the reconstruction of this festival is a small corpus of cuneiform ritual texts that describe the ritual actions and prayers to be performed during the first days of the year. Those texts were written by Babylonian priests during the Persian‐Hellenistic period (484–140 BCE), when Babylonia had come under foreign rule. Why were these ritual texts outlining a royal ritual created at a time when Babylonia was governed by foreign rulers, who had little interest in Babylonian religious traditions? Why write down rituals at all? In this paper, I show how these New Year Festival texts are programmatic more than instructional, as they give shape to a new ritual paradigm in which Babylonian priests, not kings, are the central authority of the cult.
{"title":"Writing and imagining ritual in the Babylonian New Year festival texts","authors":"Céline Debourse","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12489","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12489","url":null,"abstract":"In cuneiform culture the New Year Festival was an important ritual of kingship. The most fundamental source for the reconstruction of this festival is a small corpus of cuneiform ritual texts that describe the ritual actions and prayers to be performed during the first days of the year. Those texts were written by Babylonian priests during the Persian‐Hellenistic period (484–140 BCE), when Babylonia had come under foreign rule. Why were these ritual texts outlining a royal ritual created at a time when Babylonia was governed by foreign rulers, who had little interest in Babylonian religious traditions? Why write down rituals at all? In this paper, I show how these New Year Festival texts are programmatic more than instructional, as they give shape to a new ritual paradigm in which Babylonian priests, not kings, are the central authority of the cult.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139956331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tenrikyō, one of Japan's oldest “new religions,” remains one of the archipelago's most fascinating, yet most understudied religious organizations within English-language scholarship. Since its founding in 1838, the group has undergone multiple radical transformations as it has negotiated its place within Japanese society and the fluctuating place of religion therein. Once a rural group of relative outcasts drawn by the healing powers of its foundress, the group became a vital arm of Japanese colonial expansion through missionary work as a Shinto sect in the decades after her death. Since the promulgation of the country's postwar constitution, the movement once again asserted its independence, refocused itself on public service and the teachings of its foundress, and has grown into a complex, transnational religious organization with multiple generations of followers across no fewer than 15 countries. This essay provides a brief overview of the movement's development with particular focus on its history of global expansion and the growth of its cultural institutions. It aims to provide a balanced introduction to the movement by critically reviewing sources and materials produced by non-members, members, scholars from Tenri University (part of Tenrikyō’s secular mission), and the movement's own institutions alike. It offers avenues for potential future research on the movement, paying special attention to diaspora, the formalization of its cultural identity, and its development beyond Japan's borders.
{"title":"Perspectives on the Japanese new religion Tenrikyō: From global expansion to the development of a distinct “Tenri culture”","authors":"Patrick Sanguineti","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12487","url":null,"abstract":"Tenrikyō, one of Japan's oldest “new religions,” remains one of the archipelago's most fascinating, yet most understudied religious organizations within English-language scholarship. Since its founding in 1838, the group has undergone multiple radical transformations as it has negotiated its place within Japanese society and the fluctuating place of religion therein. Once a rural group of relative outcasts drawn by the healing powers of its foundress, the group became a vital arm of Japanese colonial expansion through missionary work as a Shinto sect in the decades after her death. Since the promulgation of the country's postwar constitution, the movement once again asserted its independence, refocused itself on public service and the teachings of its foundress, and has grown into a complex, transnational religious organization with multiple generations of followers across no fewer than 15 countries. This essay provides a brief overview of the movement's development with particular focus on its history of global expansion and the growth of its cultural institutions. It aims to provide a balanced introduction to the movement by critically reviewing sources and materials produced by non-members, members, scholars from Tenri University (part of Tenrikyō’s secular mission), and the movement's own institutions alike. It offers avenues for potential future research on the movement, paying special attention to diaspora, the formalization of its cultural identity, and its development beyond Japan's borders.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"110 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139763840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Buddhists receive encouragement to extend compassion and nonharm throughout a universe that is utterly interconnected across time and space. Such positive extensions result in a strength of the tradition involving some welcome positive treatment of nonhuman animals. However, looking closely in terms of practical outcomes reveals some serious limitations regarding Buddhist environmental ethics. Not all animals receive ethical value and care, for instance, and the tradition provides a historically unstable platform for vegetarianism despite some popular beliefs to the contrary. Even worse, perceived sentience is required to receive substantial Buddhist moral value, in most cases leaving plants, stones, and bodies of water without ecological respect. Since managing climate change precisely includes the moral management of plants, stones, and bodies of water, our ethics regarding these entities must be clear. Buddhist environmental ethics, though, today provide us with few tools for developing such ethics for entities considered by Buddhism to be insentient, although perhaps views are changing.
{"title":"Buddhist environmental ethics and climate change","authors":"Daniel Capper","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12483","url":null,"abstract":"Philosophically, Buddhist ethics would appear to be well-prepared for the climate change age. Buddhists receive encouragement to extend compassion and nonharm throughout a universe that is utterly interconnected across time and space. Such positive extensions result in a strength of the tradition involving some welcome positive treatment of nonhuman animals. However, looking closely in terms of practical outcomes reveals some serious limitations regarding Buddhist environmental ethics. Not all animals receive ethical value and care, for instance, and the tradition provides a historically unstable platform for vegetarianism despite some popular beliefs to the contrary. Even worse, perceived sentience is required to receive substantial Buddhist moral value, in most cases leaving plants, stones, and bodies of water without ecological respect. Since managing climate change precisely includes the moral management of plants, stones, and bodies of water, our ethics regarding these entities must be clear. Buddhist environmental ethics, though, today provide us with few tools for developing such ethics for entities considered by Buddhism to be insentient, although perhaps views are changing.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139062191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article redacts certain sections of the author's recent book on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. Specifically, it offers an updated overview—based on earlier studies—of the TM movement's development and what led to its enormous success, while also providing analysis of the movement using metrics gleaned from the academic study of new religious movements. The author places primary attention on assessing whether or not TM and its attendant philosophy constitutes a religion, and, based primarily on metrics offered by Bainbridge and Stark, argues that it is not only a religion but a variety of Neo-Hinduism. Attention is also given to the TM movement's deep appeal for the youth culture of the 1960s.
{"title":"Whatever happened to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles' guru, and the “TM” movement?","authors":"Dana Sawyer","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12482","url":null,"abstract":"This article redacts certain sections of the author's recent book on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. Specifically, it offers an updated overview—based on earlier studies—of the TM movement's development and what led to its enormous success, while also providing analysis of the movement using metrics gleaned from the academic study of new religious movements. The author places primary attention on assessing whether or not TM and its attendant philosophy constitutes a religion, and, based primarily on metrics offered by Bainbridge and Stark, argues that it is not only a religion but a variety of Neo-Hinduism. Attention is also given to the TM movement's deep appeal for the youth culture of the 1960s.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139062257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay traces the far-reaching legend of Maria/Miriam of Bethezuba, sometimes called Mary, Marie, or Marion, a starving Jewish woman who (according to Flavius Josephus's The Jewish War) ate her own baby during the 70 CE Roman Siege of Jerusalem. This episode of maternal infanticide and cannibalism under occupation is the culmination of Biblical curses and prophecies, a complicated reference to the Eucharist, and an emblem of Jewish (women's) suffering and culpability across time. It is also a key to Jewish-Christian arguments about futurity and the writing of history. Scholarly developments in the past decade prompt a new look at this episode. These include research on Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic and other translations of Josephus that demonstrate complex relationships among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readerships and modern English translations of key Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez (Ethiopic), and Middle English versions of the story. This essay provides a brief literary and theological history of Maria's story informed by the new scholarship, with particular attention to medieval Jewish-Christian relations, and suggests additional directions for research.
{"title":"Cannibal Maria in the Siege of Jerusalem: New approaches","authors":"Mo Pareles","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12479","url":null,"abstract":"This essay traces the far-reaching legend of Maria/Miriam of Bethezuba, sometimes called Mary, Marie, or Marion, a starving Jewish woman who (according to Flavius Josephus's <i>The Jewish War</i>) ate her own baby during the 70 CE Roman Siege of Jerusalem. This episode of maternal infanticide and cannibalism under occupation is the culmination of Biblical curses and prophecies, a complicated reference to the Eucharist, and an emblem of Jewish (women's) suffering and culpability across time. It is also a key to Jewish-Christian arguments about futurity and the writing of history. Scholarly developments in the past decade prompt a new look at this episode. These include research on Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic and other translations of Josephus that demonstrate complex relationships among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim readerships and modern English translations of key Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez (Ethiopic), and Middle English versions of the story. This essay provides a brief literary and theological history of Maria's story informed by the new scholarship, with particular attention to medieval Jewish-Christian relations, and suggests additional directions for research.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138537991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Analytic theology is often described as something like the application of analytic philosophy's tools to theological studies, but what this means can be unclear. In this paper, I offer a primer on analytic theology which clarifies this common description of the field. Particularly, following Sarah Coakley, I sketch an account of analytic theology on which it consists of a relation of familial resemblance. That is, analytic theologians are those who investigate theological loci in ways akin to those seen in contemporary analytic philosophy. In so doing, I also briefly describe how analytic theology is conceptually distinct from both philosophical theology and analytic philosophy of religion. I then provide a threefold typology for understanding analytic theology's literary landscape whereby its practitioners can generally be understood to produce works which are either philosophically-inclined, theologically-inclined, or mixed in their inclination. Finally, I offer a brief survey of new frontiers being explored by analytic theologians.
{"title":"Analytic theology","authors":"Aaron Brian Davis","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12481","url":null,"abstract":"Analytic theology is often described as something like the application of analytic philosophy's tools to theological studies, but what this means can be unclear. In this paper, I offer a primer on analytic theology which clarifies this common description of the field. Particularly, following Sarah Coakley, I sketch an account of analytic theology on which it consists of a relation of familial resemblance. That is, analytic theologians are those who investigate theological loci in ways akin to those seen in contemporary analytic philosophy. In so doing, I also briefly describe how analytic theology is conceptually distinct from both philosophical theology and analytic philosophy of religion. I then provide a threefold typology for understanding analytic theology's literary landscape whereby its practitioners can generally be understood to produce works which are either philosophically-inclined, theologically-inclined, or mixed in their inclination. Finally, I offer a brief survey of new frontiers being explored by analytic theologians.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138537987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“Scriptures” is a term provoking no shortage of anxiety for postmodern scholars. This literature review introduces theorists to a subfield committed to theorizing about that term in critical and comparative terms. Revisiting the contributions of classic and contemporary scholars, readers will learn how the analytical study of scriptures is being unbound from the baggage of the term's Christian provenance while also keeping its history, politics, and mediation in the fore.
{"title":"Revisiting scriptures: Unbinding a critical comparative subfield","authors":"Ritchard Newton","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12480","url":null,"abstract":"“Scriptures” is a term provoking no shortage of anxiety for postmodern scholars. This literature review introduces theorists to a subfield committed to theorizing about that term in critical and comparative terms. Revisiting the contributions of classic and contemporary scholars, readers will learn how the analytical study of scriptures is being unbound from the baggage of the term's Christian provenance while also keeping its history, politics, and mediation in the fore.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138543455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Scholars across the academic spectrum have written about the renewed interest in psychedelics that is commonly called the Psychedelic Renaissance (PR). Psychedelic religion is a major component of the PR, as psychedelic churches are growing exponentially and as people who consume and who research psychedelics routinely contend that these substances induce or occasion religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences. Scholars have noticed the growing association of psychoactive substances and religiosity, and they have addressed this association from a variety of academic fields, methods, and methodologies. Part one of this article (“Entheogens: Psychedelic religion in the United States, Part One”) explored the historiography of associations of psychoactive substances and religiosity in the United States from the 1800s to the 1980s. Part two of this article continues the historiographical analysis of this literature beginning in the 1980s and ends with recent scholarship. Collectively, this analysis highlights the evolving political, legal, and sociocultural capital associated with psychoactive substances and religion.
{"title":"Entheogens: Psychedelic religion in the United States, part two","authors":"Brad Stoddard","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12477","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars across the academic spectrum have written about the renewed interest in psychedelics that is commonly called the Psychedelic Renaissance (PR). Psychedelic religion is a major component of the PR, as psychedelic churches are growing exponentially and as people who consume and who research psychedelics routinely contend that these substances induce or occasion religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences. Scholars have noticed the growing association of psychoactive substances and religiosity, and they have addressed this association from a variety of academic fields, methods, and methodologies. Part one of this article (“Entheogens: Psychedelic religion in the United States, Part One”) explored the historiography of associations of psychoactive substances and religiosity in the United States from the 1800s to the 1980s. Part two of this article continues the historiographical analysis of this literature beginning in the 1980s and ends with recent scholarship. Collectively, this analysis highlights the evolving political, legal, and sociocultural capital associated with psychoactive substances and religion.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"60 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135410138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper considers the role in which women played within religious organisations within the 19th and 20th centuries. Using the Northampton Boot and Shoe industry as a focus, it will explore the philanthropic activities carried out by women connected to the industry, and how they were able to support the local churches. The paper also considers the importance of women's history within a local history study as well as showing women's contribution to society and their local community.
{"title":"Women's philanthropy and religion: The ladies of the Northampton shoe trade, 1870–1950","authors":"Kathrina Perry","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12478","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper considers the role in which women played within religious organisations within the 19th and 20th centuries. Using the Northampton Boot and Shoe industry as a focus, it will explore the philanthropic activities carried out by women connected to the industry, and how they were able to support the local churches. The paper also considers the importance of women's history within a local history study as well as showing women's contribution to society and their local community.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"40 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The matha is an important yet understudied public religious, political, and educational institution with wide‐ranging influence in the formation of the structures and theology of Hinduism and Jainism. Recently, scholars of South Asian religion have turned their attention to understand these institutions and their role in the creation of sectarian identity and theology, as educational and economic centers, and symbols of sovereign power. This essay is not attempting thorough historical account of ascetic institutions in India. Instead, its focus is to highlight the existing and recent scholarship on the matha to encourage more research on the topic. Therefore, this essay provides an overview of recent trends in the scholarship of mathas in India, focusing on exemplary works that have helped us to understand the history of these institutions more deeply, providing an overview of the matha through an overview of recent work.
{"title":"<i>Mathas</i>, toward understanding the public religious, educational, and political ascetic institution in South Asian religions","authors":"Caleb Simmons","doi":"10.1111/rec3.12476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12476","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The matha is an important yet understudied public religious, political, and educational institution with wide‐ranging influence in the formation of the structures and theology of Hinduism and Jainism. Recently, scholars of South Asian religion have turned their attention to understand these institutions and their role in the creation of sectarian identity and theology, as educational and economic centers, and symbols of sovereign power. This essay is not attempting thorough historical account of ascetic institutions in India. Instead, its focus is to highlight the existing and recent scholarship on the matha to encourage more research on the topic. Therefore, this essay provides an overview of recent trends in the scholarship of mathas in India, focusing on exemplary works that have helped us to understand the history of these institutions more deeply, providing an overview of the matha through an overview of recent work.","PeriodicalId":44397,"journal":{"name":"Religion Compass","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135254311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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