El Cristianismo en sus Orígenes ¿una Religión del Libro?.

Sin resume

Robert Bellah on the origins of religion. A Critical Review

This book, as hefty as it is ambitious, represents the opus maximum of the great American sociologist of religion Robert Bellah. The author establishes his quest, from the ‘big Bang’ to Karl Jaspers’ ‘axial age,’ in the middle of the first millennium B.C.E., upon Durkeimian and Weberian principles, and studies in turn the civilizations of Israel, of Greece, of India and of China. Doing this, he ignores Iran, and does not reach up to Christianity and Islam, which appeared later. The failure of the enterprise is at the level of its ambitions. It is an honorable one.L’opus maximum du grand sociologue américain de la religion Robert Bellah est aussi imposant qu’ambitieux. Du « Big Bang » à la « période axiale » chère à Karl Jaspers, au milieu du premier millénaire avant notre ère, l’auteur, se fondant à la fois sur l’héritage de Durkheim et sur celui de Max Weber, tente de reconstituer la formation du champ religieux tel que nous le connaissons, à travers les civilisations d’Israël, de la Grèce, de l’Inde et de la Chine. Ce faisant, il ignore l’Iran et ne traite ni du christianisme ni de l’islam, apparus plus tard. L’échec de l’entreprise est à la hauteur de ses ambitions. C’est toutefois un échec honorable

John Spencer and the roots of idolatry

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'All is pure for the pure’: redefining purity and defilement in early Greek Christianity, from Paul to Origen

This thesis examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as they were articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. As purity and defilement are especially suited for articulating difference, hierarchy and change, these concepts were essential for early Christians, shaping their understanding of human nature, sin, history, and ritual. In parallel, the major Christian practices embodying difference and change, baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, emoted and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, were at the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was a substantive motivation: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion, and the integration of purity traditions and concepts into these worldviews and theories. The second was a polemic motivation: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking the purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagan or “heretics”) as false. I trace the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing food abstentions, death defilement, sexuality and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. This thesis demonstrates three central arguments. First, purity and defilement are central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those current in contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.This thesis is not currently available in ORA

Dream cultures : explorations in the comparative history of dreaming/ Edit.: David Shulman

x, p. 325: ill.; 30 c