History of Study
The school of religious history called the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule was a 19th century German school of thought which was the first to systematically study religion as a socio-cultural phenomenon. It depicted religion as evolving with human culture, from primitive polytheism to ethical monotheism.
The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule appeared at a time when scholarly study of the Bible and church history was flourishing in Germany and elsewhere (see higher criticism, also called the historical-critical method). The study of religion is important because religion has been a major force in many human cultures. Religion has often shaped civilizations' law and moral codes, social structure, art and music.
Read more about this topic: History Of Religions
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or study:
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)