This concise reader creates a useful mix of classic and contemporary responses to issues in the study of religion, ideal for those coming to the subject for the first time. Pairing pivotal theorists and theories of religion alongside cutting-edge criticism from both their contemporaries and modern-day scholars, this vibrant collection enables students to gain a balanced understanding of the diverse methods, theories, and theorists involved. The major historical and methodological developments in the study of religion in the West are traced through the works of leading theorists including Herbert of Cherbury, David Hume, Georges Sorel, Baruch de Spinoza, Friedrich Max Muller, Edward Burnet Tylor, William Robertson Smith, James George Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud and Emile Durkheim. Each of these primary figures meets their critical match in contributions from contemporary scholars designed to raise questions - both for and against - their approach and work. Along with Ivan Strenski's textbook, Thinking about Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion, this reader offers a complete resource for introductory students of religious studies.

Introduction

Part I: The Quest for Natural Religion

1. Herbert 's Prayer: Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury

2. Common Notions concerning Religion: Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury

3. The Natural History of Religion: David Hume

4. Hume's Natural History of Religion and the Beginning of the Social Scientific Study of Religion: Robert A. Segal

Part II: Biblical Criticism and the Critique of Religion

5. The History of the Origins of Christianity. Book I. Life of Jesus: Ernest Renan

6. The Historical System of Ernest Renan: Georges Sorel

7. A Theologico-Political Treatise and a Political Treatise: Baruch de Spinoza

8. The Bible and Religion in a Century of Genius:

Part III: The Hidden Dialogue of Spinoza's Tractatus: J. Samuel Preus

Part III: The Shock of the Old: Max Muller's Search for the Soul of Europe

9. Preface to Chips from a German Woodshop: Friedrich Max Muller

10. On the Philosophy of Mythology: Friedrich Max Muller

11. Forgotten Bibles: Friedrich Max Muller

12. Muller on the Science of Religion: William Dwight Whitney

Part IV: The Shock of the "Savage ": Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution and Spirits

13. Anahuac: Or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern: Edward Burnet Tylor

14. The Religion of Savages: Edward Burnet Tylor

15. Primitive Culture: Edward Burnet Tylor

16. Edward Burnett Tylor and the Mission of Primitive Man: George W. Stocking

Part V: Evolution in the Religion of the Bible: William Robertson Smith

17. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: William Robertson Smith

18. Renan's Histoire du Peuple D'Israel: William Robertson Smith

19. William Robertson Smith: James George Frazer

Part VI: Setting the Eternal Templates of Salvation: James George Frazer

20. The Golden Bough: James George Frazer

21. Outcast from the Islands: Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Modern Anthropology: George W. Stocking

Part VII: From Evolution to Religious Experience: Phenomenology of Religion

22. The Meaning of Religion: Lectures in the Phenomenology of Religion: William Brede Kristensen

23. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: Bronislaw Malinowski

24. The Idea of the Holy: Rudolf Otto

25. Towards a Theory of the Configurations of Religion: Ninian Smart

Part VIII: Religious Experience Creates the World of the Modern Economy: Max Weber

26. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Max Weber

27. Capitalism and Protestantism: Sidney Hook

28. Religion and Development: Weber and the East Asian Experience: Winston Davis

Part IX: Tales from the Underground: Freud and the Psychoanalytic Origins of Religion

29. The Future of an Illusion: Sigmund Freud

30. Sigmund Freud: Karl Menninge

r31. The Neurosis of Civilization: Henry Hazlitt

32. Freud: The Mind of a Moralist: Philip Rieff

Part X: Malinowski and Functionalism: Religion is What Religion Does

33. Magic, Science and Religion: Bronislaw Malinowski

34. Souvenir of Malinowsky: Claude Levi-Strauss

35. Anthropology and the Science of the Irrational: Malinowski's Encounter with Freudian Psychoanalysis: George W. Stocking

Part XI: Seeing the Sacred with the Social Eye: Emile Durkheim 's "Religious Sociology "

36. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: Emile Durkheim

37. Concerning the Definition of Religious Phenomena: Emile Durkheim

38. Contribution to Discussion "Religious Sentiment at the Present Time ": Emile Durkheim

39. Individualism and Intellectuals: Emile Durkheim

40. Pragmatism and Protestantism in the Development of Durkheim's Sociology of Religion: Robert Alun Jones

Part XII: Mircea Eliade: The "Worm of Doubt " Turns

41. Patterns in Comparative Religion: Mircea Eliade

42. Crisis and Renewal: Mircea Eliade

43. Cosmogonic Myth and "Sacred History ": Mircea Eliade

44. Mircea Eliade: Apolgia pro Opere suo: Bryan Rennie

Index