Insights from Cognitive and Ritual Studies
A Response to Kaler’s and Tite’s Papers on Religious Experience in Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i1.22Keywords:
religious experience, ritual studies, cognitive science of religion, Nag HammadiAbstract
Since the 1990s, scholarly debates and discussions in Gnostic or Nag Hammadi studies have largely revolved around the issues of whether the category of “Gnosticism” is helpful or detrimental in the analysis of ancient texts and how to classify the texts that were traditionally labeled “gnostic” as well as the groups that produced them. The debate about the category of “Gnosticism” in particular has brought up important issues concerning the ideological commitments of the scholars working on the Nag Hammadi texts and helped to analyze the identity formation process that shaped the history of the variety of early Christian groups during the first three centuries, but the debate has also somewhat exhausted itself. There is certainly room for new approaches and research questions. The panel on religious experience organized by the SBL Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism section and the two papers by Michael Kaler and Philip Tite presented in the panel and published in BSOR can be seen as welcome moves towards something new. Both papers share an interest in what might be called religious experience studies and therefore engage themselves in cross-disciplinary theoretical reflection and cross-fertilization between recent trends in religious studies and gnostic studies. This paper provides a critical response to these two papers with a particular emphasis on ritual and cognitive studies.
References
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———. 1976. Possession. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharf.
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———. 2010. “Altered States of Consciousness: Visions, Spirit Possession, Sky Journeys.” In Understanding the Social World of the New Testament, edited by Dietmar Neufeld and Richard E. DeMaris, 126–46. London: Routledge.
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———. 2010b. “Rewriting and Textual Fluidity in Antiquity: Exploring the Social-cultural and Psychological Context of Earliest Christian Literacy.” In Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer, edited by J. H. F. Dijkstra, J. E. A. Kroesen, and Y. B. Kuiper, 425–41. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2012. “Filled with New Wine? Neuroscientific Correlates of Religious Experience in the New Testament.” In Experientia, Volume 2, edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, 71–90. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Czachesz, István, and Risto Uro, eds. Forthcoming. Mind, Morality, and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies. London: Acumen.
d’Aquili, Eugene, and Andrew B. Newberg. 1999. The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience, Theology and Sciences. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Davies, Stevan L. 1995. Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity. London: SCM.
DuBois, Thomas A. 2009. An Introduction to Shamanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Flannery, Frances, Colleen Shantz, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. 2008. Experientia, Volume 1: Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, Symposium Series 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Goodman, Felicitas. 1988. Ecstacy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hurtado, Larry W. 2000. “Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament.” The Journal of Religion 80: 183–205.
———. 2003. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
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Rozin, Paul, and Carol Nemeroff. 1990. “The Laws of Symphathetic Magic: A Psychological Analysis of Similarity and Contagion.” In Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development, edited by James W. Stigler, Richard A. Shweder and Gilbert Herdt, 205–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rubin, David C. 1995. Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schank, Roger C., and Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlblaum.
Shantz, Colleen. 2009. Paul in Ecstasy: The Neurobiology of the Apostle’s Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2012. “Opening the Black Box: New Prospects for Analyzing Religious Experience.” In Experientia, Vol. 2: Linking Text and Experience, edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, 1-16. Symposium Series 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.,
Shantz, Colleen, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. 2012. Experientia, Vol. 2: Linking Text and Experience. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Sharf, Robert H. 2000. “The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 7: 267–87.
Sosis, Richard. 2004. “The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual.” American Scientist 92: 166–72.
———. 2006. “Religious Behaviors, Badges, and Bans: Signaling Theory and the Evolution of Religion.” In Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion? Vol. One: Evolution, Genes and the Religious Brain, edited by Patrick McNamara, 61–85. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Uro, Risto. 2007. “A Cognitive Approach to Gnostic Rituals.” In Explaining Christianity Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, edited by Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro, 115–37. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2011a. “Cognitive and Evolutionary Approaches to Ancient Rituals: Reflections on Recent Theories and Their Relevance for the Historian of Religion.” In Mystery and Secrecy in Late Antique Thought and Praxis, edited by John Turner, Christian H. Bull and Liv Ingeborg Lied, 487–510. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2011b. “Ritual, Memory and Writing in Early Christianity.” Temenos 46: 159–82. Weingarten, Carol Popp, and James S. Chisholm. 2009. “Attachment and Cooperation in Religious Groups: An Example of a Mechanism for Cultural Group Selection.” Current Anthropology 50: 759–85.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 1995. Inside the Cult: Religious Innovation and Transmission in Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Clarendon.
———. 2000. Arguments and Icons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Batluck, Mark. 2010. “Religious Experience in New Testament Research.” Currents in Biblical Research 9: 339– 63.
Bourguignon, Erika. 1973. Religion, Altered State of Consciousness, and Social Change. Columbus,: Ohio State University Press.
———. 1976. Possession. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharf.
Bowlby, John. 1946. “Psychology and Democracy.” Political Quarterly 17: 61–76.
Boyer, Pascal, and Pierre Liénard. 2006. “Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29: 595–650.
Boyer, Pascal, and James V. Wertsch. 2009. Memory in Mind and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Craffert, Pieter F. 2008. The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective. Matrix: The Bible in Mediterranean Context. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.
———. 2010. “Altered States of Consciousness: Visions, Spirit Possession, Sky Journeys.” In Understanding the Social World of the New Testament, edited by Dietmar Neufeld and Richard E. DeMaris, 126–46. London: Routledge.
Czachesz, István. 2010a. “Long-term, Explicit Memory in Rituals.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 10: 321–33.
———. 2010b. “Rewriting and Textual Fluidity in Antiquity: Exploring the Social-cultural and Psychological Context of Earliest Christian Literacy.” In Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer, edited by J. H. F. Dijkstra, J. E. A. Kroesen, and Y. B. Kuiper, 425–41. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2012. “Filled with New Wine? Neuroscientific Correlates of Religious Experience in the New Testament.” In Experientia, Volume 2, edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, 71–90. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Czachesz, István, and Risto Uro, eds. Forthcoming. Mind, Morality, and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies. London: Acumen.
d’Aquili, Eugene, and Andrew B. Newberg. 1999. The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience, Theology and Sciences. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Davies, Stevan L. 1995. Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity. London: SCM.
DuBois, Thomas A. 2009. An Introduction to Shamanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Flannery, Frances, Colleen Shantz, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. 2008. Experientia, Volume 1: Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, Symposium Series 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Goodman, Felicitas. 1988. Ecstacy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hurtado, Larry W. 2000. “Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament.” The Journal of Religion 80: 183–205.
———. 2003. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. 1998. Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Kazen, Thomas. 2011. Emotions in Biblical Law: A Cognitive Science Approach, Hebrew Bible Monographs 36. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 2005. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion. New York: Guilford Press.
Lawson, Thomas E., and Robert N. McCauley. 1990. Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liénard, Pierre, and Pascal Boyer. 2006. “Whence Collective Rituals? A Cultural Selection Model of Ritualized Behavior.” American Anthropologist 108: 814–27.
Luomanen, Petri, Ilkka Pyysiäinen, and Risto Uro, eds. 2007. Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science. Biblical Interpretation Series 89. Leiden: Brill.
Malina, Bruce J. 1999. “Assessing the Historicity of Jesus’ Walking on the Sea.” In Authenticating the Activities of Jesus, edited by Bruce Chilton and Graig E. Evans, 351–72. Leiden: Brill.
Marjanen, Antti. 2008. “Gnosticism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, edited by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter, 203–20. New York: Oxford University Press.
McCauley, Robert N., and Thomas E. Lawson. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nemeroff, Carol, and Paul Rozin. 2000. “The Making of pathetic Magical Thinking.” In Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children, edited by Karl S. Rosengren, Carl N. Johnson, and Paul L. Harris, 1–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Newberg, Andrew B., M. Pourdhnad, A. Alavi, and Eugene D’Aquili. 2003. “Cerebral Blood Flow During Meditative Prayer: Preliminary Findings and Methodological Issues.” Perceptual & Motor Skills 97: 625– 30.
Persinger, Michael A. 1987. Neurospychological Bases of God Beliefs. New York: Praeger.
Pilch, John J. 2011. Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Experiences in the Biblical World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2001. How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion. Cognition and Culture, 1. Leiden: Brill.
Rozin, Paul, and Carol Nemeroff. 1990. “The Laws of Symphathetic Magic: A Psychological Analysis of Similarity and Contagion.” In Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development, edited by James W. Stigler, Richard A. Shweder and Gilbert Herdt, 205–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rubin, David C. 1995. Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schank, Roger C., and Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlblaum.
Shantz, Colleen. 2009. Paul in Ecstasy: The Neurobiology of the Apostle’s Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2012. “Opening the Black Box: New Prospects for Analyzing Religious Experience.” In Experientia, Vol. 2: Linking Text and Experience, edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, 1-16. Symposium Series 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.,
Shantz, Colleen, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. 2012. Experientia, Vol. 2: Linking Text and Experience. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Sharf, Robert H. 2000. “The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 7: 267–87.
Sosis, Richard. 2004. “The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual.” American Scientist 92: 166–72.
———. 2006. “Religious Behaviors, Badges, and Bans: Signaling Theory and the Evolution of Religion.” In Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion? Vol. One: Evolution, Genes and the Religious Brain, edited by Patrick McNamara, 61–85. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Uro, Risto. 2007. “A Cognitive Approach to Gnostic Rituals.” In Explaining Christianity Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, edited by Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro, 115–37. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2011a. “Cognitive and Evolutionary Approaches to Ancient Rituals: Reflections on Recent Theories and Their Relevance for the Historian of Religion.” In Mystery and Secrecy in Late Antique Thought and Praxis, edited by John Turner, Christian H. Bull and Liv Ingeborg Lied, 487–510. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2011b. “Ritual, Memory and Writing in Early Christianity.” Temenos 46: 159–82. Weingarten, Carol Popp, and James S. Chisholm. 2009. “Attachment and Cooperation in Religious Groups: An Example of a Mechanism for Cultural Group Selection.” Current Anthropology 50: 759–85.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 1995. Inside the Cult: Religious Innovation and Transmission in Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Clarendon.
———. 2000. Arguments and Icons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Published
2013-03-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Uro, R. (2013). Insights from Cognitive and Ritual Studies: A Response to Kaler’s and Tite’s Papers on Religious Experience in Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 42(1), 22-28. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i1.22
