Humanities
Religion & Theology
Belief systems as historical, textual and social realities — studied, not preached.
10 fields · 82 topics · 10 curated works
Fields within Religion & Theology
Comparative Religion
8Patterns across traditions.
Definitions of Religion · Myth & Cosmology · Ritual · Sacred Texts Compared · Religious Ethics Compared
Judaism
9Text, law and a long diasporic history.
Hebrew Bible · Talmud & Rabbinic Literature · Jewish Law & Halakha · Second Temple Judaism · Medieval Jewish Thought
Christianity
10The largest tradition, and its many internal divisions.
New Testament Studies · Historical Jesus · Early Church · Church Councils & Creeds · Catholicism
Islam
9Scripture, law and the shape of a civilisation.
The Quran · Hadith · Sharia & Fiqh · Sunni Traditions · Shia Traditions
Hinduism & Indian Traditions
8A family of traditions rather than a single system.
Vedas & Upanishads · Bhagavad Gita · Schools of Vedanta · Bhakti Movements · Yoga Traditions
Buddhism
9A tradition organised around a diagnosis of suffering.
Life of the Buddha · The Four Noble Truths · Theravada · Mahayana · Vajrayana & Tibetan Buddhism
East Asian & Indigenous Traditions
8Traditions that fit poorly into Western categories of religion.
Confucian Religious Practice · Daoist Religion · Shinto · Chinese Folk Religion · African Traditional Religions
Scripture & Textual Criticism
7How sacred texts are dated, compared and edited.
Manuscript Traditions · Textual Criticism Method · Canon Formation · Translation of Sacred Texts · Historical-Critical Method
Mysticism & Contemplative Practice
6The experiential side, across traditions.
Contemplative Prayer · Meditation Traditions · Ascetic Practice · Mystical Experience · Monasticism (Comparative)
Religion, Society & Secularism
8Belief as a social force.
Secularisation Debates · Religion & Politics · Fundamentalism · New Religious Movements · Atheism & Humanism
Reading in Religion & Theology
10Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
- BookWhat the Buddha TaughtWalpola Rahula, 1959
Sets out the four noble truths from the earliest texts, with the mysticism and later accretions deliberately stripped out.
- BookMisquoting JesusBart D. Ehrman, 2005
We have no originals, only copies of copies that disagree — an accessible introduction to how textual criticism actually works.
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
- BookThe AnalectsConfucius, 450 BCE
Short recorded exchanges on ritual, duty and character that became the operating ethic of East Asian public life for two millennia.
- BookThe Bhagavad GitaAnonymous, 200 BCE
A conversation on a battlefield about duty, detachment and action without attachment to its fruits — the core text of Hindu practice.
- BookConfessionsAugustine of Hippo, 398
The first Western autobiography, and still the sharpest account of wanting to want something different from what you want.
- BookThe Varieties of Religious ExperienceWilliam James, 1902
Studies religion empirically through individual experience rather than doctrine, and treats the evidence seriously either way.
- BookThe Sacred and the ProfaneMircea Eliade, 1957
Religious people experience space and time as qualitatively divided, which structures ritual across unrelated traditions.
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
- BookThe Guide for the PerplexedMaimonides, 1190
Reconciles Aristotelian philosophy with Jewish scripture by arguing that almost everything said of God must be read negatively.
- BookThe Venture of IslamMarshall G. S. Hodgson, 1974
Treats Islamic civilisation as a world-historical whole rather than an appendix to European history, and invents the vocabulary to do it.
- BookA Secular AgeCharles Taylor, 2007
Secularity is not subtraction of belief but the arrival of a condition in which belief is one option among many, and that is a historical achievement.