What Comes to an End When a “Religion” Comes to an “End”? Reflections on a Historiographical Trope and Ancient Mediterranean History of Religion
Abstract This article argues that the neglect of narratives about the end of religious traditions is due to a complex entanglement of our positions as historical narrators and specifics of the sources for histories of religions, that is of emic and academic narrators. Typically, academic histories a...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2021
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| In: |
Numen
Year: 2021, Volume: 68, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 204-229 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Mediterranean area
/ Religion
/ Decline
/ Religious change
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| IxTheo Classification: | AA Study of religion AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AF Geography of religion AG Religious life; material religion BC Ancient Orient; religion BE Greco-Roman religions |
| Further subjects: | B
group formation
B dimensions of religion B imperial collapse B Historiography B Narrative B Religious Change B Religions |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Rights Information: | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
| Summary: | Abstract This article argues that the neglect of narratives about the end of religious traditions is due to a complex entanglement of our positions as historical narrators and specifics of the sources for histories of religions, that is of emic and academic narrators. Typically, academic histories are not only based on emic narratives, but also tend to accept their conceptual frameworks with regard to the unities of description. It will be shown that such an entanglement has consequences for the neglect of the end of religious practices or groups. Against this background an analytical grid for change and discontinuation of different dimensions of “religion” will be offered and exemplified in an analysis of the “end of Paganism” in the late ancient Roman Empire. The most problematic implications of such narratives, the article will argue, are assumptions about the coherence of the religious protagonists brought center-stage. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
| Access: | Open Access |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Numen
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341621 |