History of Religious Ideas

"Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision."-Martin E. Marty, The New York Times Book Review This extraordinary work delves into the subject of religion in the prehistoric and ancient worlds-humankind's earliest quests for meaning. From Neanderthal burials to the mythology of the Iron Age, to the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Israel, India, and beyond, it offers both an appreciation of the wide-ranging diversity of religious expression-and a consideration of the fundamental unity of religious phenomena. This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Noble, with audio engineering by Allie McSwain. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The second volume of the extraordinary history that "should be an essential resource for generations to come" (Parabola). In the second volume of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Christianity-all are encompassed in this volume. This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Noble, with audio engineering by Allie McSwain. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The conclusion of the three-volume history "rendered with the talent of one who is not only an academic writer but a novelist of considerable distinction" (David J. Levy, Times Higher Education Supplement). In A History of Religious Ideas. Mircea Eliade examines the movement of Jewish thought out of ancient Eurasia, the Christian transformation of the Mediterranean area and Europe, and the rise and diffusion of Islam from approximately the sixth through the seventeenth centuries. Eliade's vast knowledge of past and present scholarship provides a synthesis that is unparalleled. In addition to reviewing recent interpretations of the individual traditions, he explores the interactions of the three religions and shows their continuing mutual influence to be subtle but unmistakable. As in his previous work, Eliade pays particular attention to heresies, folk beliefs, and cults of secret wisdom, such as alchemy and sorcery, and continues the discussion, begun in earlier volumes, of pre-Christian shamanistic practices in northern Europe and the syncretistic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. These subcultures, he maintains, are as important as the better-known orthodoxies to a full understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Noble, with audio engineering by Allie McSwain. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.