Standing at the very foundation of monotheism, and so of Western culture, Moses is a figure not of history, but of memory. As such, he is the quintessential subject for the innovative historiography Jan Assmann both defines and practices in this work, the study of historical memory--a study, in this case, of the ways in which factual and fictional events and characters are stored in religious beliefs and transformed in their philosophical justification, literary reinterpretation, philological restitution (or falsification), and psychoanalytic demystification.
To account for the...
Standing at the very foundation of monotheism, and so of Western culture, Moses is a figure not of history, but of memory. As such, he is the quint...
This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt offers a distillation of Jan Assmann's views on ancient Egyptian religion, with special emphasis on theology and piety. Deeply rooted in the texts of ancient Egypt and thoroughly informed by comparative religion, theology, anthropology, and semiotic analysis, Assmann's interpretations reveal the complexity of Egyptian thought in a new way.
Assmann takes special care to distinguish between the "implicit" theology of Egyptian polytheism and the...
This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt of...
"Perhaps Hermeticism has fascinated so many people precisely because it has made it possible to produce many analogies and relationships to various traditions: to Platonism in its many varieties, to Stoicism, to Gnostic ideas, and even to certain Aristotelian doctrines. The Gnostic, the esoteric, the Platonist, or the deist has each been able to find something familiar in the writings. One just had to have a penchant for remote antiquity, for the idea of a Golden Age, in order for Hermeticism, with its aura of an ancient Egyptian revelation, to have enjoyed such outstanding success." from...
"Perhaps Hermeticism has fascinated so many people precisely because it has made it possible to produce many analogies and relationships to various...
This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt offers a distillation of Jan Assmann's views on ancient Egyptian religion, with special emphasis on theology and piety. Deeply rooted in the texts of ancient Egypt and thoroughly informed by comparative religion, theology, anthropology, and semiotic analysis, Assmann's interpretations reveal the complexity of Egyptian thought in a new way.
Assmann takes special care to distinguish between the "implicit" theology of Egyptian polytheism and the...
This classic work by one of the world's most distinguished Egyptologists was first published in German in 1984. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt of...
In ten brilliant essays, Jan Assmann explores the connections between religion, culture, and memory. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's idea that memory, like language, is a social phenomenon as well as an individual one, he argues that memory has a cultural dimension too. He develops a persuasive view of the life of the past in such surface phenomena as codes, religious rites and festivals, and canonical texts on the one hand, and in the Freudian psychodrama of repressing and resurrecting the past on the other. Whereas the current fad for oral history inevitably focuses on the actual memories...
In ten brilliant essays, Jan Assmann explores the connections between religion, culture, and memory. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's idea that memory,...
In ten brilliant essays, Jan Assmann explores the connections between religion, culture, and memory. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's idea that memory, like language, is a social phenomenon as well as an individual one, he argues that memory has a cultural dimension too. He develops a persuasive view of the life of the past in such surface phenomena as codes, religious rites and festivals, and canonical texts on the one hand, and in the Freudian psychodrama of repressing and resurrecting the past on the other. Whereas the current fad for oral history inevitably focuses on the actual memories...
In ten brilliant essays, Jan Assmann explores the connections between religion, culture, and memory. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's idea that memory,...
This collection of papers from two workshops - held in Heidelberg, Germany, in July 1996 and Jerusalem, Israel, in October 1997 - is concerned with anthropological rather than theological aspects of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions, ranging from the 'primary' religions of the archaic period and their complex developments in Egypt and Mesopotamia to the 'soteriological' movements and 'secondary' religions that emerged in Late Antiquity. The first part of the book focuses on "Confession and Conversion," while the second part is devoted to the topic of "Guilt, Sin and Rituals of...
This collection of papers from two workshops - held in Heidelberg, Germany, in July 1996 and Jerusalem, Israel, in October 1997 - is concerned with an...
Der Mensch, durch sein berma an Wissen aus den Ordnungen der Natur herausgefallen, muss sich eine knstliche Welt erschaffen, in der er leben kann. Das ist die Kunst. Die Kunst fungiert als Fantasma der Unsterblichkeit oder vermittelt zumindest die Idee einer gewissen Fortdauer ber unser allzu kurzes Erdendasein hinaus, ohne die der Mensch nicht leben kann.Doch so einfrmig sich der Tod aus biologischer Sicht ausnehmen mag, seine kulturelle berformung und Bewltigung nimmt tausendfltige Gestalten an. Ein kulturwissenschaftlicher Vergleich dieser Gestalten steht noch aus. Jan Assmann liefert...
Der Mensch, durch sein berma an Wissen aus den Ordnungen der Natur herausgefallen, muss sich eine knstliche Welt erschaffen, in der er leben kann. Das...
Ob Christentum, Judentum oder Islam - alle monotheistischen Weltreligionen sind Kinder einer Revolution: die Ablsung der vielen Gtter durch den alleinigen Gott. Diese Umwlzung brachte fr unsere Vorstellung von der Welt, fr unser Menschenbild und fr unsere Ethik fundamentale Vernderungen mit sich. Dass der Kultur- und Religionstheoretiker Jan Assmann sie zugleich als Quelle von Intoleranz, Gewalt, Hass und Ausgrenzung sieht, macht seinen Essay zu einer explosiven Provokation.
Ob Christentum, Judentum oder Islam - alle monotheistischen Weltreligionen sind Kinder einer Revolution: die Ablsung der vielen Gtter durch den allein...
Die Totenreligion der alten Ägypter bedeutet den größten Triumph der menschlichen Imagination und Fiktion über die harten Fakten der Existenz. Keine andere Kultur hat die altägyptischen Gegenbilder zu Sterben und Tod an Kühnheit und Farbigkeit übertroffen oder auch nur von ferne erreicht. Dabei und das ist das Besondere der ägyptischen Totenreligion haben diese Gegenbilder die Erfahrung des Todes in keiner Weise verdrängt und verleugnet, sondern geben ihr umfassend und schonungslos Ausdruck, um von dieser Grundsituation ausgehend alternative Wege und Räume zu erschließen. Jenseits...
Die Totenreligion der alten Ägypter bedeutet den größten Triumph der menschlichen Imagination und Fiktion über die harten Fakten der Existenz. Kei...
