Religious Studies: A Global View

1998–2005) and the Theologische Realenzyklopädie(36 vols, 1977–2004).

Both, however, are predominantly theological in focus.

Textbooks and historical survey works

The most well-known examples of textbooks along the lines established

by Tiele and Chantepie come from two scholars who migrated to the US,

Mircea Eliade (1976–1983) and Ninian Smart (1989). Early in her career,

Annemarie Schimmel (1951) published a very brief survey. Two well-known

Swedish historians of religion, Helmer Ringgren and Åke V. Ström (1909–

1994), jointly wrote a survey that ran to nine editions (1957 to 1993). In earlier

decades, several other European scholars also published survey works in

various languages, mostly for teaching purposes.

In addition to textbooks and surveys produced single-handedly, several

collective works have been published, often running into several volumes and

through several editions. In Denmark, two early leading Danish historians of

religion, Edward Lehmann (1862–1930) and Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948),

published the first edition of the Illustreret religionshistorie (1924). In 1948

Grønbech published a second edition jointly with the Arabist Johannes

Pedersen. Twenty years later the Iranologist Jes P. Asmussen and the Assyrio-

logist Jørgen Lassøe published a new version of the work, now in three heavy

volumes. In 1971, Carsten Colpe published a slightly revised German version

of the third edition under the title Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte. Signi-

ficantly, none of the versions included a chapter on Christianity. While Protes-

tants tended to avoid Christianity, Catholics tended to engage in apologetics.

For example, one aim of the three-volume work Christus und die Religionen

der Erde: Handbuch der Religionswissenschaft(1951) edited by the Orientalist,

theologian, and later archbishop Franz König (1905–2004) is to illustrate the

unique position of Christianity in the history of religions.

Another handbook, Historia Religionum(2 vols, 1969, 1971), was published

by the then president and general secretary of the IAHR, Geo Widengren

(1907–1996) and Bleeker (1898–1983). The editors attempted to introduce a

standard pattern for presenting the single religions in order to facilitate

comparability among the different religions, but that attempt clearly failed.

The most comprehensive of these surveys is the French Histoire des religions

(Puech [ed.] 1970–1976). The three volumes cover regional, doctrinal, and

organizational varieties and dissonances within an extremely broad spectrum

of religious history.

Italy also has a rich tradition of surveys, starting with a work in two massive

volumes (1934, 1936) by the Jesuit church historian Pietro Tacchi Venturi

(1861–1956). Giuseppe Castellani assumed editorship with the three-volume

fifth edition (1962), followed by the sixth edition (1970–1971) in five bulky

volumes. In the mid 1990s Giovanni Filoramo edited a successor to this series:

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MICHAEL STAUSBERG