Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
away as nothing but psychology, sociology, biology, etc. 5 Or, functionalist definitions
may fail to clarify how their proposed understanding of religion identifies
a distinctive subset of human activity. Watching a football game or attending
a rock concert can create social solidarity. Are these examples of religion?
Finally, in as much as substantivist and functionalist definitions attempt to circumscribe
the genuine essence of a “transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon,”
they may reflect a kind of epistemological idealism and/or conceal an
implicit theological assumption on the part of their wielder. 6
Given these problems and pitfalls of defining the concept, some scholars refuse
to define religion at all and content themselves with deconstructing what
people might mean by the term. 7 Others, such as Jonathan Z. Smith, have argued
that scholars simply ought to recognize that religion as such does not actually,
objectively exist in space and time but can be understood as something
constructed by scholars and wielded usefully as an analytical category for understanding
cultural data (i.e., observable human activities and the products
thereof). 8 In this case, the ideas and perspectives offered by substantivist and
functionalist definitions, without their absolutist claims, may be incorporated
into this approach in an eclectic manner, if such ideas and perspectives are
deemed useful for the scholar’s purposes. This latter option is adopted here.
Before deciding how to construct this category called religion, it is important
to note that the recognition of “religion” and its continued use among
scholars as a useful category for understanding human culture are the product of
a specific confluence of historical circumstances in the West, especially the
European Enlightenment. 9 This need not negate religion’s analytical usefulness,
since every concept is a product of some place and time and has a history. 10
5 It is well-known, e.g., that Durkheim, Freud, and Marx, all three major figures in functionalist
approaches to religion, were ardent atheists and believed their theories explained transcendental
religious claims away. For the important distinction between metaphysical and methodological
(see below) reductionism, see Russel T. McCutcheon, Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public
Study of Religion (Issues in the Study of Religion; Albany: State University of New York, 2001), x–
xi.
6 “Transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon” are the words of Talal Asad, quoted in Arnal,
“Definition,” 30. The work of Mircea Eliade, an important and popular twentieth century historian
of religion, is often criticized for its implicit theological assumption (see, e.g., Pals, Eight
Theories of Religion, 223).
7 This is Arnal’s preference (“Definition,” 30). See also Timothy Fitzgerald’s provocative The
Ideology of Religious Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
8 Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago Studies in the History
of Judaism; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), xi. Human claims
about the gods and their actions, for example, are observable and therefore count as data.
9 This is argued forcefully by Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power
in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), especially 27–
54, who dismantles Geertz’s once dominant definition of religion. For details about the struggle
of the philosophes against Christianity, see, e.g., Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation,
vol. 1, The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York: Knopf, 1967).
10 See Lincoln, Holy Terrors, 2, who counters Asad in this manner.