study of religion

Introduction
Nature and significance
- The essence of religion and the context of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions
- Neutrality and subjectivity in the study of religion
  - Subjectivity in the study of religion
  - Neutrality in the study of religion
History of the study of religion
- The Greco-Roman period
  - Early attempts to study religion
  - Later attempts to study religion
- The Middle Ages to the Reformation
  - Theories of the Middle Ages
  - Theories of the Renaissance and Reformation
- The beginnings of the modern period
  - The late 17th and 18th centuries
  - The early 19th century
Basic aims and methods
- Historical, archaeological, and literary studies
  - Historical and literary studies
  - Archaeological studies
- Anthropological approaches to the study of religion
  - Theories concerning the origins of religion
  - Functional and structural studies of religion
  - Specialized studies
- Sociological studies of religion
  - Theories of stages
  - Comparative studies
  - Other sociological studies
- The psychology of religion
  - Psychological studies
  - Psychoanalytical studies
  - Other studies
- Philosophy of religion
  - The concerns of the philosophy of religion
  - Theories of Schleiermacher and Hegel
  - Empiricism and pragmatism
  - Modern existentialist and phenomenological studies
  - Relationship between Western and non-Western philosophy in regard to religion
- Theological studies
  - Historical-critical studies
  - Neo-orthodoxy and demythologization
  - The relationship of Western Christianity to other religions
- History and phenomenology of religion
  - Modern origin and development of the history and phenomenology of religion
  - The Chicago school
  - Other studies and emphases
Problems and directions
- Interdisciplinary perspective
- Cross-cultural perspective

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion

Portrait of Karl Barth, Swiss theologian, wearing round glasses, a suit, and tie, photographed in 1957 with a slight smile.

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, shown in dark robes and cap, writing with a quill at a desk, after Quinten Massijs, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Claude Levi-Strauss wearing large glasses, a dark suit, and a red tie, standing indoors at his office in the College de France, Paris.

study of religion: Media

academic discipline

Images

Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion

Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion

Detail of Religion, mural in lunette from the Family and Education series...

Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-highsm-02028)

Portrait of Karl Barth, Swiss theologian, wearing round glasses, a suit, and tie, photographed in 1957 with a slight smile.

Karl Barth

Karl Barth, 1957.

© Fritz Eschen—ullstein bild/Getty Images

Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod, detail of a mosaic by Monnus, 3rd century; in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum,...

Courtesy of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Ger.

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, shown in dark robes and cap, writing with a quill at a desk, after Quinten Massijs, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Desiderius Erasmus

Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus.

Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant, print published in London, 1812.

© Photos.com/Getty Images

Max Müller

Max Müller

Max Müller.

Courtesy of the Curator of the Senior Common Room, Christ Church, Oxford

Rudolf Otto

Rudolf Otto

Rudolf Otto, 1925.

Foto-Jannasch, Marburg/Art Resource, New York

Claude Levi-Strauss wearing large glasses, a dark suit, and a red tie, standing indoors at his office in the College de France, Paris.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, 2001

French social anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Joel Robine—AFP/Getty Images

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist Karl Marx.

From "Karl Marx's Oekonomische Lehren", by Karl Kautsky, 1887

Max Weber

Max Weber

Max Weber, 1918.

Leif Geiges

William James

William James

William James.

Courtesy of the Harvard University News Service

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, 1921.

Mary Evans/Sigmund Freud Copyrights (courtesy of W.E. Freud)

Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm.

Courtesy of Michigan State University

Rudolf Bultmann, an older man with a mustache, looks at the camera while holding a pipe to his mouth.

Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Bultmann.

© Würth GmbH/Swiridoff—ullstein bild/Getty Images

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant, lithograph after a drawing by Hans Veit Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, engraving by Lazarus Gottlieb Sichling...

Courtesy Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, Portrait Collection 21/32

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard, drawing by Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840; in a private collection.

The Royal Library, Copenhagen, National Collections Department, Prints and Photographs (ke007091)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre, photograph by Gisèle Freund, 1968.

Gisele Freund

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

German philosopher of phenomenology Edmund Husserl, c. 1930.

Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin

Martin Buber

Martin Buber

Martin Buber.

Courtesy of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, photo, courtesy of the Consulate General of Israel in New York

Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade

Historian of religions Mircea Eliade.

Courtesy of the University of Chicago

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