Oddly enough, the comparative study of the three main monotheistic religions is nowadays not a common epistemological stance among historians of religions. We should reflect on the reasons for the relative dearth of serious comparative studies, and on the implicit and explicit entailments of such studies. A methodological assumption demands that the so-called major religions should not be perceived as distinct monolithic blocks which are then to be compared with each other. Rather, we should conceive the development of these major religious and ethical traditions as a result of constant processes of exchange, adaptation, and demarcations. The lecture seeks to identify the conditions for a heuristically fruitful comparative approach to monotheistic systems by approaching the topic through the main categories of any religious system, theoria versus praxis, or myths and doctrines versus rituals and institutions. In order to avoid hypostatizing "the three monotheisms" as a singular unit, rather than three individual religions, the structural and phenomenological approach should remain anchored in the specific historical and cultural contexts.
Biography:
Guy Stroumsa is Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions and Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford and Martin Buber Professor of Comparative Religion Emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Most of his research has dealt with Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Early Christianity, and religious contacts in the Roman world of late antiquity. Among his recent publications are: The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations of Late Antiquity (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009); A New Science: the Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).