The Invention of "Religion"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm having a further read through Brent Nongbri's book\u00a0Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2013), where\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2015\/08\/the-invention-of-religion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Invention of "Religion"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm having a further read through Brent Nongbri's book\u00a0Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2013), where\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2015\/08\/the-invention-of-religion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Euangelion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/michael.bird.33\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-03T06:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-07-26T22:10:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51jelPFtutL._AA160_.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael F. 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{"id":8439,"date":"2015-08-03T02:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T06:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/?p=8439"},"modified":"2015-07-26T18:10:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-26T22:10:05","slug":"the-invention-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2015\/08\/the-invention-of-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invention of “Religion”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>I\u2019m having a further read through Brent Nongbri\u2019s book\u00a0Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept<\/em> (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2013), where he argues that there is no ancient word equivalent to \u201creligion\u201d because modern notions of \u201creligion\u201d are rooted in a modern dichotomy between religion and secularism. According to Nongbri, the idea of \u201creligion\u201d as something separate from politics, economics, and science is a recent development in European history, one that has been projected outward in space and backwards in time with the result that religion appears to be a naturally part of our world. He writes: \u201cOne of my central claims is that religion is a modern and not ancient concept \u2026 The combined effects of events that occurred over that span [of modernism] (the Reformation, the invention and spread of the printing press, the discovering and colonization of the New World) had far-reaching consequences that brought about a reorganization of the material and intellectual lives of people all over the world. The especially tricky part is that this period is the very time I see religion being formed into a recognizable category. For example,\u00a0\u201cJudaism\u201d is not the religion of the Jews, but designates the ethnic and civic customs that bind Judeans together. That is to say, the existence of the religious\/secular division is part of what constitutes the modern world\u201d (p. 12). Accordingly to translate ancient terms like religio (Latin), threskeia (Greek), din (Arabic), dharma<\/a> (Sanskrit), dao (Chinese), and jao (Japanese) as religion over and against a secular world, is misleading. A very important\u00a0book to consult when we talk about Greek, Jewish, and Christian \u201creligion\u201d in antiquity.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"