Preface -- p..xi
PART ONE. THE FACTS OF RELIGION
Chapter One. Introduction -- p..3
The Question of Beginnings -- p..3
Two Sides -- p..7
The Perspective of the History of Religions -- p..13
The Name “History of Religions” -- p..15
A Bridge Between the Two Sides -- p..17
Chapter Two. The History of Religions -- p..20
Object and Task of the History of Religions -- p..20
What Is Religion? -- p..22
Religious Symbolization -- p..23
The Right Use of Words: Religion, (Religious) Symbolism -- p..27
The Right Use of Words: Tradition -- p..28
The Right Use of Words: Faith -- p..37
The Right Use of Words: Worldview, Supernatural, Ideology -- p..38
The Right Use of Words: The Problem of Feelings -- p..41
Chapter Three. The Ordinariness of Religion -- p..46
Religion Is Everywhere -- p..46
Three Modes of Religious Expression -- p..48
Mythical Elements in Modern Industrial Society -- p..60
Religion and Our Personal Wishes -- p..63
Social and Ethical Impact -- p..65
Political Impact -- p..69
Religious Symbolism and Science -- p..74


Chapter Four. Myth and Poetry -- p..81
Myth and Poetry? -- p..81
Emily Dickinson -- p..85
Variations in Culture -- p..92
Chapter Five. Beginning to Understand Religions -- p..100
“The Religions of the World” -- p..100
Knowledge -- p..101
Prophetic or Historical Religions -- p..103
Another Type: Natural Religions -- p..105
The Major Difficulty with Typologies -- p..106
Empiricism and Common Sense -- p..107
Truth -- p..117
PART TWO. HISTORICAL SURVEY OF WESTERN
INTELLECTUAL APPROACHES TO RELIGION
Chapter Six. From the Classics to the Renaissance -- p..125
Why an Intellectual History? -- p..125
“Our” Classical World Within the World -- p..127
Greeks and Romans and Their Influence -- p..132
The World of the Bible -- p..138
Early Christianity -- p..141
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance -- p..144
Learning and Discussions Between Religions -- p..149
Chapter Seven. Toward Modernity -- p..154
“The Birth of Reason” -- p..154
Philosophers -- p..157
Empiricism -- p..163
The Wider Movement Toward Modernity -- p..168
The Enlightenment -- p..171
David Hume -- p..179
Reason in Two Exceptional Figures: Vico and Hamann -- p..182
Eighteenth-Century Historians of Religions -- p..189
Chapter Eight. The Romantic Movement -- p..193
Johann Gottfried Herder -- p..195
Friedrich Schleiermacher -- p..199
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling -- p..202
William Blake, Herman Melville, and Soren Kierkegaard -- p..206
New Religious Data -- p..212
Romantics Who Studied the New Data: Benjamin Constant, -- p..216
Joseph von Gorres, Friedrich Creuzer, Karl Otfried Muller, and Friedrich Max Muller
Chapter Nine. The Nineteenth Century -- p..228
Economic Thinkers -- p..229
Theologians and Missionaries -- p..232
Social Studies -- p..238
Philosophers and Anthropologists -- p..242
Chapter Ten. The Painful Birth of Society: The Twentieth Century -- p.249
Joseph Conrad, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Charles Peguy -- p..251
Great Modem Thinkers: Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl -- p..260
Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein and Karl Jaspers -- p..266
"Reductionisms." More Philosophy. The Search for -- p..Certainty -- p..271
Many Ways of Study -- p..275
Twentieth-Century Historians of Religions -- p..279
Twentieth-Century Historians of Religions (Continued) -- p..283
The History of Religions in the United States -- p..288
Chapter Eleven. Farewell to Too Much of a System -- p..297
Conclusions and More Questions -- p..297
Orientations Today in the United States -- p..302
Farewell to Too Much of a System -- p..309
Index -- p..315