History Of Religions
The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,000 years ago (3000 BCE) in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. The timeline of religion is a comparative chronology of religion.
The word "religion" as it is used today does not have an obvious pre-colonial translation into non-European languages. Daniel Dubuisson writes that "what the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name 'religion' is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history." The history of other cultures' interaction with the religious category is therefore their interaction with an idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of Christianity.
Read more about History Of Religions: History of Study, Overview, Origin, Religion At The Neolithic Revolution, Axial Age, Middle Ages, Modern Period, Development of New Religions
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or religions:
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)