May 2014
Beginner
376 pages
13h 21m
English
From the time when religions mingled in the Graeco-Roman world, thinkers have been compelled to evaluate their own beliefs and practices in relation to those of other peoples and races, but it was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century of our era that a serious attempt was made to apply scientific principles to the comparative and historical study of the subject.
—William James 1961 [1902]: 15
As is by now well known, the notion of “syncretism” as an analytical category in the academic study of religion derives from J. G. Droysen’s nineteenth-century description of Hellenistic culture as “the east and west mixture of people” occasioned by the conquests of Alexander ...
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