History of Religion

Author(s):  
Lester L. Grabbe

This chapter discusses (1) the general discipline of the History of Religions; then, in line with the focus of the volume as a whole, (2) it moves to developments in the study of the History of Ancient Israel; finally, (3) it gives a short overview of the History of Ancient Israelite Religion. The History of Religions movement is traced through the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as it influenced study on the History of Ancient Israelite Religion. The changing methods and results of the History of Israelite Religion in different periods of study are noted, culminating in the general approach of the present generation. Some of the main writers, works, and influences are mentioned and their contributions (whether positive or negative) are briefly summarized. The contribution of the social sciences is brought in.

Author(s):  
HANS M. BARSTAD

There can be little doubt about the enormous importance of the work of Fernand Braudel and the French Annales tradition for the academic study of history. Together with its many ramifications, the Annales ‘school’ constitutes what is known today as the (French) ‘New History’. In France, the scientific nature of history was never really doubted. History formed (as it does today) a part of the social sciences. For this reason, Braudel stressed the necessity of using empirical data, often quantifiable, to be able to identify the structures underlying social and cultural phenomena. Later, this was referred to as histoire sérielle. The reason why Annales should be considered in some detail in the present context is that some biblical researchers have claimed that the Braudel heritage may be useful for the study of the history of ancient Israel. Knowledge of climate, biology, geography, population movements, and economic trends in Palestine during the Iron Age is relevant to the student of the history of ancient Israel.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-37
Author(s):  
Phillip Charles Lucas

The Modern Advaita movement has undergone a split between two factions: one remains committed to a more traditional articulation of Advaita Vedanta, and the other has departed in significant ways from this traditional spiritual system. Over the past fifteen years, the Traditional Modern Advaita (TMA) faction has launched sustained and wide-ranging criticism of Non-Traditional Modern Advaita (NTMA) teachers and teachings. This article identifies the main themes of TMA criticisms and interprets their significance using insights from the social sciences and history of religions. I suggest that some reconfiguring of the Advaita tradition is necessary as it expands in transnational directions, since the structures of intelligibility from one culture to another are rarely congruent. Indeed, adaptation, accommodation and reconfiguration are normal and natural processes for religious traditions expanding beyond their indigenous cultural matrices. In the end, the significant questions for Advaita missionaries to the West may be how much accommodation is prudent, how rapidly reconfiguration should take place, and what adaptations are necessary for their spiritual methodology not only to survive but also thrive in new cultural settings.


1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.


Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.


Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Jami

Abstract In recent decades research in the social sciences, including in the history of science, has shown that women scientists continue to be depicted as exceptions to the rule that a normal scientist is a man. The underlying message is that being an outstanding scientist is incompatible with being an ordinary woman. From women scientists’ reported experiences, we learn that family responsibilities as well as sexism in their working environment are two major hindrances to their careers. This experience is now backed by statistical analysis, so that what used to be regarded as an individual problem for each woman of science can now be identified as a multi-layered social phenomenon, to be analysed and remedied as such. Over the last five years, international scientific unions have come together to address these issues, first through the Gender Gap in Science Project, and recently through the setting up of a Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science (SCGES) whose task is to foster measures to reduce the barriers that women scientists have to surmount in their working lives.


Book Reviews: Studies in Sociology, Race Mixture, Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe, Interpretations, 1931–1932, Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion, Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science, The Reorganisation of Education in China, Social Decay and Eugenical Reform, The Social and Political Ideas of Some Representative Thinkers of the Revolutionary Era, L. T. Hobhouse, His Life and Work, Corner of England, World Agriculture—An International Study, Small-Town Stuff, Methods of Social Study, Does History Repeat Itself? The New Morality, Culture and Progress, Language and Languages: An Introduction to Linguistics, The Theory of Wages, The Santa Clara Valley, California, Social Psychology, A History of Fire and Flame, Sin and New Psychology, Sociology and Education, Mental Subnormality and the Local Community: Am Outline or a Practical Program, Tyneside Council op Social Service, Reconstruction and Education in Rural India, The Contribution of the English Le Play School to Rural Sociology, Kagami Kenkyu Hokoku, President's, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Birth Control and Public Health, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Ourselves and the World: The Making of an American Citizen, The Emergence of the Social Sciences from Moral Philosophy, The Comparable Interests of the Old Moral Philosophy and the Modern Social Sciences, The World in Agony, Sheffield Social Survey Committee, Housing Problems in Liverpool, Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Forest Land Use in Wisconsin, The Growth Cycle of the Farm Family, The Farmer's Guide to Agricultural Research in 1931, A History of the Public Library Movement in Great Britain and Ireland, The Retirement of National Debts, Public and Private Operation of Railways in Brazil, The Indian Minorities Problem, The Meaning of the Manchurian Crisis, The Drama of the Kingdom, Social Psychology, Competition in the American Tobacco Industry, New York School Centers and Their Community Policy, Desertion of Alabama Troops from the Confederate Army, Plans for City Police Jails and Village Lockups

1933 ◽  
Vol a25 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-109
Author(s):  
R. R. Marbtt ◽  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard ◽  
E. O. Jambs ◽  
Florence Ayscough ◽  
C. H. Desch ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  

This volume examines Arnold Gehlen’s theory of the state from his philosophy of the state in the 1920s via his political and cultural anthropology to his impressive critique of the post-war welfare state. The systematic analyses the book contains by leading scholars in the social sciences and the humanities examine the interplay between the theory and history of the state with reference to the broader context of the history of ideas. Students and researchers as well as other readers interested in this subject will find this book offers an informative overview of how one of the most wide-ranging and profound thinkers of the twentieth century understands the state. With contributions by Oliver Agard, Heike Delitz, Joachim Fischer, Andreas Höntsch, Tim Huyeng, Rastko Jovanov, Frank Kannetzky, Christine Magerski, Zeljko Radinkovic, Karl-Siegbert Rehberg and Christian Steuerwald.


HUMANIKA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Sindung Tjahyadi

This article discusses about a paradigm shift in the social sciences based on "the history of science" perspective. The key question is how the recent development of the discourse about the paradigms of the social sciences. The paradigmatic and methodological development forward directed through a post-empirical approach to the exclusion of desire unification cause or structure as the objective theory of social action, and develop a multi-theoretical paradigms on the basis of variations in the structure that can be applied to the various regions and types of action. Furthermore, elaborated further needed is to develop methodological pluralism and theoretical unification in the social sciences are expected to confirm the two sides of the comprehensive-pluralistic approach in the philosophy of social sciences. The main thing about the legitimacy of the methodology underlying the study is to examine the criteria on what should have knowledge of it. Finally, that the dimensions of "ontological" social science should be "liberated" from the illusion of objectivism


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