Recommend a Religious book that's not religious

[lewisnotmiller]

I'm not great with the Title-thing... :sorry1:

Basically, I am looking for some recommendations of interesting books which cover the topic of religion, but are in no way religious texts. History books or similar, I suppose.
I'll give a couple of examples of books I have found interesting which feature religion as an important or central theme, but which are not religious texts.

1. God and the Gun (Martin Dillon)
Looks at how Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries reconciled violence with faith, and interviews men of God in terms of the position the conflict placed them in, and their role in it.

2. Millenium (Tom Holland) - also released as The Forge of Christendom
Examines the time 100 years prior to and post 1000 CE, and focuses on Western Europe in this period. Religion plays a central role, in particular around the belief that the year 1000 might mark the End of Days.

3. The Shadow of the Sword (Tom Holland)
Looks at the origins of Christian and Islamic religion, and the decline of the Roman and Persian empires in the same period. Might touch on Jewish faith as well, but I've leant out the book, and I honestly can't remember...!

4. The History of Christianity (Diarmaid MacCulloch)
Looks at the foundation and growth of Christianity, and attempts to encompass the entirety of the Christian faith.

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In terms of their depth, the first three listed are pretty easy reads. God and the Gun is fairly anecdotal in nature, but relies on firsthand interviews, and is quite frankly fascinating to me. The two Tom Holland books can be fairly described as narrative histories, rather than academic histories. They provide a very approachable introduction to their topics, and are interesting. I think anything taken from them in terms of knowledge needs to be corroborated from other sources, though. And the History of Christianity is a much more 'serious' attempt at history, I suppose. It's well written, I think, but the scope of the book is actually much harder to manage, and it is less narrative in nature by far than the other three.

 

[Kalidas]

The God delusion? I know I'm a bad Hindu I LOVE reading Richard Dawkins

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Christ-myth Theory and its Problems by Robert Price

Highly recommended if you take a historical Jesus for granted on mainstream consensus

 

[fallingblood]

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Not a religious book at all; however, it deals with a central idea in religion, the problem of suffering.

 

[LuisDantas]

So you want books about the impact of religion? If so, then I am at a loss.

But if you want books that should be considered religious out of wisdom alone, you can't do much better than Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save".

 

[lewisnotmiller]

So you want books about the impact of religion? If so, then I am at a loss.

But if you want books that should be considered religious out of wisdom alone, you can't do much better than Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save".

Yeah, more the impact of religion. The history. The behavioural impact, etc.
So, the ones I listed all deal with religion, but none of them are obviously pro or anti religion. People might have issues with the way their religions are portrayed to some degree, but these are largely objective books.

God and the Gun, for example, looks at both the Protestant and Catholic 'side'. It includes interviews with Catholic priests who have both heard confessionals from killers prior to the murders, and others who have heard confessional after a murder, and then decided to report the killers to the police.

Thanks for contributions so far. It is kinda hard to find books about these sort of topics, on the whole, so any suggestions gratefully accepted.

 

[Nehustan]

Why gods persist; a scientific approach to religion, Hinde, R. A., 1999, Routledge, NY, NY, USA.

But if you want a fictional book that is about religion and a brilliant book if you like science fiction try 'A Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert A. Heinlein

 

[Levite]

Basically, I am looking for some recommendations of interesting books which cover the topic of religion, but are in no way religious texts. History books or similar, I suppose.

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.

^^ +1 for this one. Big time.

If you like histories, I recommend H.H. Ben-Sasson's History of the Jewish People.

Also, though they are perhaps tangential or only overlapping with the subject of religion, I would highly recommend the essays "Liminality and Communitas" by the anthropologist Victor Turner and "Nomos and Narrative" by the great Constitutional Law scholar Robert Cover. And also, just as a magnificent work of philosophy, The Plague, by Camus.

 

[Nehustan]

...the essays "Liminality and Communitas" by Victor Turner

The ritual process; structure and anti-structure, Turner, V., 2008, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

...is where you'll find it; it's worth reading the whole book. If you're going to read some anthropology of religion there's a book which is pretty much on every reading list...

The anthropology of religion, Bowie, F., 2000, Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

 

[freethinker44]

Doubt: A History, from Jennifer Michael Hecht.

Basically a history of atheism or religious skepticism. A little dry at times, but thoroughly researched and very informative.

 

[ZVBM]

Hi!

Try "As a Driven Leaf" by the late Milton Steinberg. It is a novel, a fictiional biography of 2nd-century CE Rabbi Elisha Ben Abuya, one of Judaisn's most controversial figures (like Spinoza but even moreso). It's about a man who acquired/had deep faith & then lost it. I recommended it to a cyberfriend of mine, a retired Presbyterian minister, & he loved it.

It's still in print (it has never gone out of print). My wife & I found it to be utterly, utterly fascinating. It is one of the best, most thought-provoking books I have ever read (really).

ZVBM

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

- Frank Moore Cross​

Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel

- Frank Moore Cross​

The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts

- Mark S. Smith​

God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World

- Mark S. Smith​

Who Wrote the Bible?

- Richard Elliott Friedman​

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

- Emanuel Tov​

How the Bible Became Book

-Schniedewind​

Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible

- Karel van der Toorn​

The Religions of Rome (Volumes I & II)

- Beard, North, Price​

The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries

- Manfred Clauss​

The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings

- Udo Schnelle​

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Hi!

Try "As a Driven Leaf" by the late Milton Steinberg. It is a novel, a fictiional biography of 2nd-century CE Rabbi Elisha Ben Abuya, one of Judaisn's most controversial figures (like Spinoza but even moreso). It's about a man who acquired/had deep faith & then lost it. I recommended it to a cyberfriend of mine, a retired Presbyterian minister, & he loved it.

It's still in print (it has never gone out of print). My wife & I found it to be utterly, utterly fascinating. It is one of the best, most thought-provoking books I have ever read (really).

ZVBM

A GREAT novel!

By the way, a related (nonfiction) text is:

The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach by Alon Goshen-Gottstein​

 

[Caladan]

The Historical Jesus in Context, Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, and John Dominic Crossan (editors)

Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Dale Launderville

Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, Walter Burket

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Reza Aslan

The Masks of God (four volumes), Joseph Campbell

Just a few off the top of my head.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Reza Aslan

Thanks for the recommendation.

Also (although not relevant to this thread) Levine's The Jewish Annotated New Testament is well worth having.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Awesome, thanks for the suggestions. We're starting to build a pretty decent list I think. Another one I missed earlier...

Rome and Jerusalem (Martin Goodman)
Looks at the period between 66CE and 312CE, and the interactions between Rome and Jerusalem, including the destruction, and then rebuild of the city. Also looks at the longer term implications for the church, and the growth of anti-semitism.

 

[LuisDantas]

Such a strong emphasis on Abrahamic Faiths... I wonder if I misunderstood the OP.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Such a strong emphasis on Abrahamic Faiths... I wonder if I misunderstood the OP.

Might be more of a result of the posters (including myself).
I have some religious-explorations of other faiths, in particular some indigenous stuff. From a history and impact point of view, I have tended to focus primarily on Western history (in shorthand). I actually have plenty of history from other parts of the world, but not specifically on the religious impact.

If anyone has good sources for that in relation to Hinduism, or Buddhism (or anything else really) I'd be more than interested.

 

[LuisDantas]

Come to think of it, you might be interested in reading about the early history of the Bab and Bahai Faiths as well.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Come to think of it, you might be interested in reading about the early history of the Bab and Bahai Faiths as well.

Yeah...they have to fit in 'anything else'...lol
It's cultural slant, really. I have no preference in this case, but when I'm listing religions, I start with the Abrahamic centric view of the world and work out. Just don't include Scientology on the list, and we'll get along fine.