PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

Cézar Enia, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France
Le temps et l’éternité dans les religions archaïques selon Mircea Eliade: les éléments
préfiguratifs de l’Incarnation dans l’ontologie primitive
In a previous article, I tried to show that, contrary to the commonly accepted belief, the
historian of religion Mircea Eliade, does not conceive time from the perspective of eternity,
that is, he does not read the historical religions in relation to the archetypal paradigm of the
eternal return, because he considers the Incarnation of Christ to be the supreme hierophany and
the other hierophanies to be its prefigurations. That means, among other things, that he does
not interpret Christianity from the perspective of the primitive religion, as many has blamed
him to do, but, quite on the contrary, he uses Christianity as a model to understand archaic
religion. The purpose of this lecture is to present Eliade’s conception of time and eternity in
archaic religion in such a way that one can recognize how, for him, despite the so-called
Platonic structure of the primitive ontology, the Incarnation of Christ is already operational
inside of it.
Christian Euvrard, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France
Mormon Perception of their Scriptures: the case of French Mormons
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Wed 16 th , 9.40, Classroom 13
Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints, have the unique
position in the Christian world of believing in “continuing revelation” and in an open canon. In
addition to the Bible, they believe that the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price and the
Doctrine and Covenants are Scriptures revealed since the days of their founding prophet:
Joseph Smith. We will investigate the place of each “Standard Work” in the life, teachings and
preaching of Latter-day Saints through the available data from the US. We will compare it to
the practices of French Mormons in personal and family life, as these have appeared through
our surveys in 2007 and 2009. We will try to answer, in the light of statistics, if the “modern
Scriptures” really play a more important part in the life of today’s converts.
Cristiana Facchini, University of Bologna, Italy
Tue 15 th , 11.00, Classroom 9
Orientalistica ed Ebraismo. Note culturali su David Castelli e Giorgio Levi della Vida
This paper will explore the relationship between the disciplinary field of "Oriental Studies",
that was structured and developed in European universities during the second half of 19 th
century and the construction of Judaism, the religion of the Jews. Because of the religious
polemical tradition, Judaism has been perceived through the accumulation of negative images
and discourse. Scholarly discourse in 19 th century developed a partially new representation of
Judaism - drawing from the field of Biblical scholarship and Oriental Studies. I will approach
the Italian reaction to these fields of scholarship through the investigation of the works of
David Castelli and Giorgio Levi della Vida, who both were orientalists and Jews. Though their
contribution to history of Judaism was accomplished within the European intellectual context
they, nevertheless, had to translate it into the Italian intellectual field with its peculiar and
national traits. Their representation of Judaism will be analysed in the background of the