Synopses & Reviews
Max Müller is often referred to as the “father of Religious Studies,” having himself coined the term "science of religion" (or religionswissenschaft) in 1873. It was he who encouraged the comparative study of myth and ritual, and it was he who introduced the oft-quoted dictum: “He who knows one [religion], knows none.” Though a German-born and German-educated philologist, he spent the greater part of his career at Oxford, becoming one of the most famous of the Victorian arm-chair scholars. Müller wrote extensively on Indian philosophy and Vedic religion, translated major sections of the Vedas, the Upanisads, and all of the Dhammapada, yet never visited India. To be sure, his work bears the stamp of late 19th-Century sensibilities, but as artifacts of Victorian era scholarship, Müller's essays are helpful in reconstructing and comprehending the intellectual concerns of this highly enlightened though highly imperialistic age.
Review
Praise for Stones
On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism:
"...Stones study is an excellent introduction to the history of American evangelicalism." -- Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
This reader offers a comprehensive collection of essays by Max Müller, the “Father of Religious Studies”, and one of the most famous of the Victorian arm-chair scholars. His essays help reconstruct and comprehend the intellectual concerns of this enlightened though imperialistic age.
About the Author
Jon R. Stone is Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at the California University in Bakersfield. He is the author of
On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism and
The Craft of Religious Studies. Table of Contents
Semitic Monotheism (1860) * Lecture on the Vedas, or the Sacred Books of the Brahmans (1865) * Preface to
Chips from a German Workshop (1867) * Buddhist Nihilism (1869) * On False Analogies in Comparative Theology (1870) * The Science of Religion: Lecture One (1870) * On the Migration of Fables (1870) * On the Philosophy of Mythology (1871) * The Perception of the Infinite (1878) * Is Fetishism a Primitive Form of Religion? (1878) * The Ideas of Infinity and Law (1878) * Forgotten Bibles (1884) * Physical Religion (1890) * Religion, Myth, and Custom (1890) * Discovery of the Soul in Man and in Nature (1891) * What Was Thought about the Departed (1891) * The Divine and the Human (1891) * The Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893 (1894) * Science of Religion: A Retrospect (1898)