History and Religion: Narrating a Religious Past PDF
Preview History and Religion: Narrating a Religious Past
History and Religion Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten Herausgegeben von Jörg Rüpke und Christoph Uehlinger Band 68 History and Religion Narrating a Religious Past Edited by Bernd-Christian Otto, Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke with the support of Andrés Quero-Sánchez ISBN 978-3-11-044454-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-044595-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043725-6 ISSN 0939-2580 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ∞ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Table of Contents History and Religion 1 Section I Origins and developments Introduction 21 Johannes Bronkhorst The historiography of Brahmanism 27 Jörg Rüpke Construing ‘religion’ bydoing historiography: The historicisation of religion in the Roman Republic 45 Anders Klostergaard Petersen The use of historiography in Paul: A case-study of the instrumentalisation of the past in the context of Late Second Temple Judaism 63 Ingvild Sælid Gilhus Flirty fishing and poisonous serpents: Epiphanius of Salamisinside his Medical chest against heresies 93 Sylvie Hureau Reading sutras in biographies of Chinese Buddhist monks 109 Chase F. Robinson History and Heilsgeschichte in early Islam: Some observations on prophetic history and biography 119 Per K. Sørensen The development and formation of religious historiography in Tibet 151 Pekka Tolonen Medieval memories of the origins of the Waldensian movement 165 VI TableofContents Yves Krumenacker The use of history by French Protestants and its impact on Protestant historiography 189 Section 2 Writing histories Introduction 205 Shahzad Bashir A Perso-Islamic universal chronicle in its historical context: Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn Khwāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-siyar 209 Jon Keune Conditions for historicising religion: Hindu saints, regional identity, and social change in western India, ca. 1600–1900 227 Susanne Rau Practitioners of religious historiography in early modern Europe 241 Martin Mulsow Impartiality, individualisation, and the historiography of religion: Tobias Pfanner on the rituals of the Ancient Church 257 Hannah Schneider ‘The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it’: The narrative of the victorious Church in French Church histories of the nineteenth century 269 Franziska Metzger Conflicting historiographical claims in religiously plural societies 287 Philipp Hetmanczyk Religion and economic development: On the role of religion in the historiography of political economy in twentieth century China 307 Section 3 Transforming narratives Introduction 327 TableofContents VII Benedikt Kranemann The notion of tradition in liturgy 333 Gabriella Gustafsson Verbs, nouns, temporality and typology: Narrations of ritualised warfare in Roman Antiquity 355 Cristiana Facchini Judaism: An inquiry into the historical discourse 371 Renée Koch Piettre President de Brosses’s modern and post-modern fetishes in the historiography and history of religions 393 Reinhard G. Kratz Historia sacra and historical criticism in biblical scholarship 407 Bernd-Christian Otto A Catholic ‘magician’ historicises ‘magic’: Éliphas Lévi’s Histoire de la Magie 419 Giovanni Filoramo Locating the history of Christianity between the history of the Church and the History of Religions: The Italian case 445 Contributors 455 Index 459 History and Religion Historyisoneofthemostimportantculturaltoolstomakesenseofone’ssitua- tion, to establish identity, define otherness, and explain change. As a conse- quence, the scientific discipline of history is not only practiced, but the study ofhistoriographyhasadvancedtoathrivingfieldofresearch.Infact,animpres- siveamountoftheoreticalliteratureonhistoriographyhasbeenbroughtforward over the past decades.We have learned from studies focussing on the issue of narrativitythathistoriographyisusuallyimbuedwithtendentiousrhetoricalpat- terns and ‘generic story types’ that significantly influence the selection and in- terpretation of the ‘sources’ it allegedly relies on.¹ The debate on postmodern history has, particularly through its core notion of ‘master narrative’, once again highlighted the problem of historical ‘truth’ and thereby also problema- tisedtheinstrumentalisationofhistoriographyfornumerousother(non-historio- graphic) purposes.² Postcolonial scholars have enhanced this critique by point- ingto the unavoidablycontingent (that is,time- and culture-bound) position of historiographers and stressed the issues of political power, reciprocal interfer- ences, and multi-perspectivity.³ Out of these circumstances arose lively debates onwhetherhistoricalthinkingisperse‘Western’,⁴orhowoneoughttoproduce non-eurocentric, comparative, multiperspective, or entangled historiography.⁵ The vast area of historical discourse analysis⁶ as well as studies on historio- graphicpractices⁷havefurthercomplicatedthematterbybringinglong-neglect- edbackgroundfactorsofhistoriographytothefore–suchasthedependenceon culture-boundterminologyandrulesofargumentation,religiousandsocietalin- fluences,or monetary requirements and career perspectives. Theliteratureisoverwhelming,thusallfollowingreferencesareexemplary;however,special attention is given to standard works and recent introductory handbooks, readers, or com- panions;seeontheissueofnarrativityWhiteand;Ricœur–;id. and;Munzand;Ankersmit;Conermann;Hühnetal.;Jobs, Lüdtke;Martínez,Scheffel;Georgietal.. Cf.Conrad, Kessel;Jenkins; Cox,Stromquist;Windschuttle;Roberts ;Stuart. Cf.Freitag;Codell,Macleod;Duara;Conrad,Randeria;Cooper; Chakrabartyand. Cf.Rüsen;Kramer,Maza;partlyFeldherretal.. Cf.Rüsen;Wang,Iggers;Fuchs,Stuchtey;Buddeetal.;Haupt,Kocka . Cf.Barthes;Bieder;Sarasinand;Stuckrad. Cf.deCerteau();Rau,Studt. 2 HistoryandReligion When combingthroughthisvastarrayoftheoreticalliteratureon historiog- raphy, one makes a surprising discovery: religion is largely absent from these studies.⁸Ofcourse,religioustraditionshavebeenusedtoexemplifycertainthe- oreticalarguments,ornovelhistoriographicaltoolshavebeenappliedtospecific religious arenas. However, religion has rarely been treated as an independent, potentiallyinteresting,exceptional,orproblematiccaseinthetheoreticallitera- tureonhistoriography.Toourknowledge,thereisnosystematic(overalland/or comparative) scholarly study devoted to determining or disentangling the com- plexrelationshipbetweenhistoryandreligion,takingintoaccountreligioustra- ditionsbothasproducersofhistoricalnarrativesaswellasdistincttopicsofhis- toriography(considerthegenresofhagiography,salvationhistory,orconversion stories).⁹Itthusseemstousthatreligionhasnotyetreceivedappropriateatten- tion in the theoretical literature on historiography. Thisissurprisinginsofarasreligion,inverydifferenttraditionsofresearch, is acknowledged as a major factor for the construction of identities as it is ad- dressed as a major factor in the course of history. Historical claims relating to religionareofutmostimportanceforalargenumberofhistoricalaswellaspres- ent(andpressing)politicalconflictsoverterritoryanddominance,withinEurope as much as globally. Religious groups have adopted history to strengthen their identity,justifytheologicalorritualmatters,conceptualiseextraordinarybeings andevents,orexcludetheologicaloppositionsandnon-believers.Avastnumber of historical narratives has been composed by religious elites or has been pro- duced under the patronage of religious institutions: Roman priests or magis- trateswritingabouttheirownorothers’cults,bishopswritingfortheirdioceses, cardinalswritingfortheRoman-CatholicChurch,Buddhistmonksor‘lay’histo- rianswritingformonasteriesortemples,Muslimbiographerswritinghadithsor universalchronicles(tonameonlyafewexamplesaddressedinthisvolume).As aconsequence,our‘sources’forreligiousaswellassecularhistoryareoftenim- bued with religious terminology, arguments and modes of thought (and these have,toagreaterorlesserdegree,alsomadetheirwayintoscholarlyhistoriog- raphy).Infact,untiltodayreligioustraditionsarenotmerelytopics,butproduc- ersandworld-widedistributorsofhistoricalnarratives.Religionshavebeenand Seethefollowingintroductoryhandbooksonhistoriography:Kocka,Nipperdey–; Bentley;Kramer,Maza;Lambert,Schofield;Tellingly,withinthethreevolumes ofBurns,onlyonearticle–Rudolph–isdevotedtoreligioushistoriography;seealso Feldherretal.. Apartfromratherspecificstudiesonsacredhistory(Lewis,VanLiereetal.)orthe impactofreligiouspluralisationonhistoriographyinearlymoderntimes(Rau;Wallniget al.;Rau,Laudin).
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