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13 - The scholarly discovery of religion in early modern times

from Part Three - Religion and Religious Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Guy Stroumsa
Edited by
Jerry H. Bentley ,
Sanjay Subrahmanyam  and
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Jerry H. Bentley
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the conception of religion and on the new vistas for a comparative study of the religions of the world, vistas opened up by a number of early modern scholars, both Catholics and Protestants. The early modern transformation of the late medieval conception of religion was due, first of all, to the dramatic change of scale in the contacts between cultures and civilizations, which to a great extent had had until then very limited relations, if at all. The early modern study of religion is no exception to this rule. Its close connection to the critique of Christianity, by both Catholic and Protestant practitioners, is too obvious to need elaboration. What is less obvious, however, is the fact that this new science was born from the relationship between Catholic and Protestant intellectuals. The paradigm shift entailed the passage from a subjective to an objective approach to religion.

Keywords

armed European migrationsintermediariesglobal migrationsEuropean settler migrationslabor regimesSoutheast Asian societiesmacro-regional migration
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 313 - 333
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Further Reading

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