The Price of Monotheism

Assmann, Jan

ISBN 10: 0804761604 / ISBN 13: 9780804761604

Edité par Stanford University Press, 2009

A propos de cet article

Covers clean and bright; underlining and marginal notations in text; book is tight.

N° de réf. du vendeur ABE-1735677302689

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Price of Monotheism
• Éditeur: Stanford University Press
• Date de parution: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0804761604
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780804761604
• Reliure: Soft cover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: Very Good

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Nothing has so radically transformed the world as the distinction between true and false religion. In this nuanced consideration of his own controversial Moses the Egyptian, renowned Egyptologist Jan Assmann answers his critics, extending and building upon ideas from his previous book. Maintaining that it was indeed the Moses of the Hebrew Bible who introduced the true-false distinction in a permanent and revolutionary form, Assmann reiterates that the price of this monotheistic revolution has been the exclusion, as paganism and heresy, of everything deemed incompatible with the truth it proclaims. This exclusion has exploded time and again into violence and persecution, with no end in sight. Here, for the first time, Assmann traces the repeated attempts that have been made to do away with this distinction since the early modern period. He explores at length the notions of primary versus secondary religions, of "counter-religions," and of book religions versus cultic religions. He also deals with the entry of ethics into religion's very core. Informed by the debate his own work has generated, he presents a compelling lesson in the fluidity of cultural identity and beliefs.

À propos de l?auteur

Jan Assmann is Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg. A prize-winning scholar, he has published extensively on religious history and ancient Egypt. Stanford published his Religion and Cultural Memory in 2006.