The First Chapter from Relating Religion, Essays in the Study of Religion by Jonathan Z. Smith
Hellenistic religion – by Jonathan Z. Smith. Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Apr. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hellenistic-religion. Accessed 16 March 2024.
Below is the content of a slide Tabor presents as what Smith taught. Tabor acknowledges he extracted this from Smith’s Britannica entry linked above. Tabor says in the video this is how Smith “characterizes the two modes of being religious in the ancient world.” Note Smith’s title, per Tabor, for each mode is in brackets at the end of each paragraph.
The archaic religions of the Mediterranean world were primarily religions of etiquette. At the centre of these religions were complex systems governing the interrelationships between gods and humans, individuals and the state, and living people and their ancestors. The entire cosmos was conceived as a vast network of relationships, each component of which, whether divine or human, must know its place and fulfill its appointed role. [Smith called this the Locative view. Pronounce LOCK-a-tiv.]
In the Hellenistic period a new religious world was experienced that required new religious expressions. The old religions of conformity and place no longer spoke to this new religious situation and its questions. What if the law and order of the cosmos was no longer seen as the creative expression of limits and the delineation of roles, but rather as an evil, perverse, confining structure from which man and the cosmos must escape? Rather than the archaic structures of celebration and conformity to place, the new religious mood spoke of escape and liberation from place and of salvation from an evil, imprisoned world. The characteristic religion of the Hellenistic period was dualistic. People sought to escape from the despotism of this world and its rulers (exemplified by the seven planetary spheres) and to ascend to another world of freedom. [Smith called this the Utopian view]
