Sacrifice--ranging from the sacrifice of virgins to circumcision
to giving up what is most valued--is essential to all religions.
Could there be a natural, even biological, reason for these
practices? Something that might explain why religions of so many
different cultures share so many rituals and concepts? In this
extraordinary book, one of the world's leading authorities on
ancient religions explores the possibility of natural religion--a
religious sense and practice naturally proceeding from biological
imperatives.
Because they lack later refinements, the earliest religions from
the Near East, Israel, Greece, and Rome may tell us a great deal
about the basic properties and dynamics of religion, and it is to
these cultures that Walter Burkert looks for answers. His book
takes us on an intellectual adventure that begins some 5,000 years
ago and plunges us into a fascinating world of divine signs and
omens, offerings and sacrifices, rituals and beliefs unmitigated by
modern science and sophistication. Tracing parallels between animal
behavior and human religious activity, Burkert suggests natural
foundations for sacrifices and rituals of escape, for the concept
of guilt and punishment, for the practice of gift exchange and the
notion of a cosmic hierarchy, and for the development of a system
of signs for negotiating with an uncertain environment. Again and
again, he returns to the present to remind us that, for all our
worldliness, we are not so far removed from the first "Homo
religiosus."
A breathtaking journey, as entertaining as it is provocative,
"Creation of the Sacred" brings rich new insight on religious
thought past and present and raises serious questions about the
ultimate reasons for, and the ultimate meaning of, human
religiousness.
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