Stanley Stowers

History and the Study of Religion

The Ancient Mediterranean as a Test Case

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

What is religion? How is religion constituted as a social entity? Is religion a useful category for historians, anthropologists, and sociologists? In History and the Study of Religion Stanley Stowers addresses these questions and discusses examples from ancient Greek, Roman, Judean and especially early Christian religion to illustrate a theory of religion as a social kind. He explains how ancient Mediterranean religion consisted of four sub-kinds: the religion of everyday social exchange, civic religion, the religion of literate and literary experts, and the religion of literate experts with political power. Through these categories he shows how Christianity arose and succeeded.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press, USA
• Seitenzahl: 400
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Juni 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780197775677
• ISBN-10: 0197775675
• Artikelnr.: 69963137

Autorenporträt

Stanley Stowers taught in the areas of ancient Mediterranean religion and philosophy and the theory of religion at Brown University from 1981 until his retirement in 2013. He has written five books and some sixty articles and chapters in books. He directed many dissertations in the areas of Christianity and religion in the Roman Empire, Hellenistic philosophy, and the study of religion.

Inhaltsangabe

* Acknowledgments
* 1. History and the Study of Religion
* Part 1: Religion as a Social Kind
* 2: Realism and Anti-Realism About Religion
* 3. Theorizing Social Kinds
* 4. Theorizing Religion as a Social Kind
* Part 2: Religion and Social Theory
* 5. Social Theory: The Search for the Magic Glue and the Status of
Religion
* 6. Thinking the Ontology of Religion: Toward a Better Social Ontology
* Part 3: Christian Formation in the Ancient Mediterranean as a Test
Case
* 7. Early Christianity as Evidence for Socially Superior Religion
* 8. The Formation of Christianity: Freelance Literate Experts,
Literate Experts with Political-Institutional Power, and Non-Expert
Insiders
* 9. Explaining the Evidence of Ancient Christian Formation
* 10. Concluding Arguments: Does Kinds Theory Aid Social Ontological
Analysis?
* Index