History and Religion: Narrating a Religious Past

472 Pages·2015·2.625 MB·English

by  Bernd-Christian Otto (editor), Susanne Rau (editor), Jörg Rüpke (editor)

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
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
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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
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Printed in Germany
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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;seeontheissueofnarrativityWhiteand;Ricœur–;id.
and;Munzand;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;
Chakrabartyand.
 Cf.Rüsen;Kramer,Maza;partlyFeldherretal..
 Cf.Rüsen;Wang,Iggers;Fuchs,Stuchtey;Buddeetal.;Haupt,Kocka
.
 Cf.Barthes;Bieder;Sarasinand;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).