Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theories of Research. Vol. 1. Introduction and Anthology by Jacques Waardenburg (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 399 Cla.'Ssical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theories of Research. Vol. 1. Introduction and Anthology. By JACQUES WAARDENBURG. The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1973. Pp. 742. $21.75. This is the most significant work in an impressive series on method and theory in religion study now being published by Mouton under the general editorship of Jacques Waardenburg. Waardenburg's own contribution to the series is a two-volume resource book. The first volume consists of a full historical introduction to scholarly research and an anthology of those scholars who have contributed most to the methodological framework in the study of religion. Reflection on the history of religion study is compounded by the multiplicity of disciplines, methodologies, and subjects that scholars employ. Clarification of method and discipline in religion study began with the first university chairs in religion in the 1870's and continues with greater refinement today. Resources in the history of religions'Wissenschaft have been somewhat scattered and thus limited to a few scholars, but the book under consideration both gathers together resources and encourages reflection on the history of religion study. From its inception in the last century to the present, religion study reflected both the history of the emergence of new disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology, and new methodologies such as historical, comparative, and phenomenological approaches to religious understanding . Waardenburg, beginning in the introduction with the new rationalism of the 18th century, traces the interests of 19th-century scholars who forged the new disciplines and methodologies and finally grounds the search for intelligibility in religion study in the 20th century. A supplemental text which offers greater comprehensiveness at this point is The Study of Religion by Jan de Vries (New York: 1967), who begins his historical survey with the Greek philosophers to the moderns. Waardenburg , nonetheless, is especially good within the limits set to show the changing subject matter in religion study as it advances from myth to origin questions, and from the broad range of religious phenomena to phenomenological structures. The contributions of the early anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists in their methodological framework and their religious questions set the stage for contemporary religion study. A fivefold framework is employed in both the introduction and the anthology itself, namely, the study of religion established as an autonomous discipline, connections with other disciplines, religion as a special subject of research, contributions from other disciplines, and finally perspectives of a phenomenological study of religion. A genetic understanding of the history of the field and the development of method is set forth. Other works which have attempted to do what Waardenburg does are usually thematic. 400 BOOK REVIEWS In Walter H. Capps' Ways of Understanding Religion (New York: 1972), for example, an excellent thematic anthology and methodological study is presented which offers a more readable text for teacher and student but remains inferior as a resource tool. The anthology is limited to forty-one scholars. The perimeters are set by Max Muller, the so-called father of religionswissenschaft, from the middle of the last century to the middle of this century, thus excluding any living scholar. An anthology obviously needs perimeters, but by eliminating living scholars a whole moment has been lost. Waardenburg is specifically concerned with the birth and development of the phenomenological method in religion study, but by excluding important contributions from Mircea Eliade, C. J. Bleeker, and Ninian Smart, all living scholars, the anthology becomes significantly dated. Moreover, the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith in the history of religions, Claude Levi-Strauss and Georges Dumezil in structural understanding have advanced religion study so greatly that to exclude them immediately dates the field prior to the 1950's. In fact, the anthology should more properly be titled religion study from 1870 to 1950. These comments are not meant to reduce the value of this book but to indicate that with limited supplemental works, a complete overview of the field may be grasped. The selection of texts is generally excellent, showing constructive editorial skill. In order to delineate Frazer's method in the Golden Bough, for example , excerpts from the three different prefaces of the three editions of the study trace the...