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Title: A History of Religious Ideas: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries by Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask ISBN: 0-226-20401-4 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: April, 1981 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Very much detail, very little synthesis
Comment: Referring to the first two parts of the series: The scope of material included in the books is certainly amazing, but I think it results in too many small details being mentioned and too little material with a broader view on religious thinking. Hence for a general reader it reads like a long list with each item a separate an independent part. I can imagine that a specialist in religious history would find it much more rewarding since he can draw comparisons on a general level by himself.
Rating: 5
Summary: The human and the spiritual
Comment: Mircea Eliade has spent a lifetime exploring the origins, meaning and mysteries of mankind's spiritual inner being. He is the Joseph Campbell of religion - not myth. This first volume was ably translated (from the French) into clear and direct English - a hallmark of his writing. It is difficult to speak knowingly of neolithic religion because the evidence is largely circumstantial and evolutionary. That is, we divine from our own religious present what must have existed prior to the forming of current ideas.
One of his main points is that peoples around the world, for whatever reason, seemed to be instinctually drawn toward the worship of something - an object, animal, human or unseen god or goddess. In this first volume he explores various cultures and their beliefs - the Mayas, Greeks, Iranians, neolithic man, Egypt, other Middle East groups...a dazzling array of cultures and societies. As the imagination grew, so did belief in an unseen world.
Of particular interest is the section on ancient Israeli beliefs and the origins of Yahweh. The chapters on religion in Greece were notable for their abundant detail. Even in the most isolated areas, the same rites and beliefs emerged - the idea of sacrifice, the belief in another life, the battle of good vs evil, the idea of holy representatives and eventually the thought of eternal life.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great, but let me mention some criticisms
Comment: I like to say that Eliade's work is the first--but not the last--word in comparative religion. The best introduction to his thought is "Patterns in Comparative Religion."
The greatness of this history is that Eliade actually writes about almost everything, ever. So these three volumes are a solid introduction to the totality of religion. Since all of us lack familiarity with something, we can all fill in some significant gaps in our knowledge with these books.
But unfortunately, it's not the best introduction to any specific thing that it covers. If you already know about some subject, then Eliade's coverage of it proves completely useless and superficial. It seems that Eliade's purpose was to show how every important religious phenomenon in history relates to his pet theories. In his defense, perhaps this is simply inevitable when one person tries to write about all of religion in 1000 pages. Certainly, there is nothing else like this out there because the task is enormous. If nothing else, the fact that Eliade researched and wrote this is amazing.
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Title: A History of Religious Ideas: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms by Mircea Eliade, Alf Hiltebeitel, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona ISBN: 0226204057 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: March, 1988 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Patterns in Comparative Religion by Mircea Eliade, Rosemary Sheed, John C. Holt ISBN: 0803267339 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: November, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Sacred and Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade, Willard Trask ISBN: 015679201X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1968 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Images and Symbols by Mircea Eliade, Philip Mairet ISBN: 069102068X Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History by Mircea Eliade, Willard Trask ISBN: 0691017778 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 November, 1971 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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