Claude Levi-Strauss's mid-twentieth-century work in structural anthropology revolutionized the study of myth, kinship, and totemism, with lasting effects in cultural studies generally and especially in religious studies. This book provides an introduction to this revolution through generous excerpts of some of Levi-Strauss's most important writing on religion. Reactions and responses, both positive and negative, to the revolution are also included, along with some of Levi-Strauss's replies to his critics. A general introduction by volume editor Hans Penner provides a framework for...

Why do many people think religion is subjective? Or symbolic? Or non-rational? This book brings together eighteen important twentieth-century essays on these questions, by authors ranging from Ludwig Wittgenstein to Richard Rorty and Clifford Geertz. The editors show that such questions are both quite modern and powerfully influential in our Western thinking about religious belief. Moreover, they lead directly into the three most popular theories that attempt to make sense of religion: positivism, functionalism, and relativism. Selecting essays that represent each of these three theoretical...

Hans Penner takes a new look at the classic stories of the life of the Buddha. In the first part of the book, he presents a full account of these stories, drawn from various texts of Theravada Buddhism, the Buddhism of South and Southeast Asia. Penner allots one chapter to each of the major milestones in Buddha's life, with titles such as: Birth and Early Life, Flight from the Palace, Enlightenment and Liberation, Last Watch and Funeral. In the process, he brings to the fore dimensions of the myth that have been largely ignored by western scholarship. In Part II, Penner offers his own...