/Reading_and_Reference_johnson

Winter/Spring 2004 / Volume 2, Issue 2

READING AND REFERENCE ROOM Philip Johnson Part • • •

• • • • • • Part • • • • • • •

One: Contemporary Pagan Spirituality Non-Western Pagan Religion & Witchcraft Reference Works on Contemporary Western Pagans Contours of Pagan & Wiccan Spirituality - History - Primers on Pagan & Druid Paths - Shamanism - Primers on Wicca & Witchcraft - Architects of Wicca - Goddess Myth - Jung & Pagan Thought - Ritual Magick - Ferals, New Age Travelers & Rainbow Tribes - Pagan & Wiccan Activism Scholarly Perspectives - Phenomenology & Social Scientific Perspectives - Academic Journals Satanism ≠ Pagan & Wiccan Spiritualities Christian Analyses of Pagan/Wiccan Paths Christianity, Human Rights & The Environment Christianity, Women’s Issues & Thealogy Harry Potter, Witchcraft and Christian Polemics Two: Ancient & Medieval Pagan Religions Pagan Religions in the Ancient Near East Biblical Religion of the Israelites Greco-Roman Pagan Religions & Christianity Apocryphal & Pseudepigraphal Writings Dead Sea Scrolls & Christianity Gnosticism Freke-Gandy Thesis - Historicity of Jesus - Resurrection Narratives & History - Rise of Christianity - Development of Doctrine - Morton Smith’s Theories

•

- Gnostic Evidences - Mandaean Gnostics - Christian Rites Borrowed?

Conversion of Pagan Europe, Renaissance Witchcraft - Conversion of Pagan Europe - Celts - Medieval Witchcraft & Trials

Medieval

&

Post-

The following is an introductory list of articles and books about Pagan and Christian thought, both ancient and contemporary. It does not pretend to be an exhaustive list. Some of the items are written for a popular reading audience, while others are more academic. The inclusion of items here only signifies that the material is available to refer to. Obviously, the editors of Sacred Tribes do not agree with or endorse all items mentioned.

The point of departure for scholarly research into any discipline is not a web-search at Google, but rather ought to begin with the “librarian’s bible”, Robert Balay (ed) Guide to Reference Books (11th ed. Chicago: American Library Association, 1996). Balay’s work provides an analytic description of major reference texts in all scholarly fields, listing bibliographical tools, encyclopedias, dictionaries, periodical and journal abstracting tools, and seminal publications considered important in any public library collection.

Balay’s work will guide the researcher to key works in religion, theology, sociology of religion, psychology of religion and anthropology. This is a standard reference tool that is regularly updated.

Some useful bibliographical tools pertaining to religious studies in general include these works: G. E. Gorman & Lyn Gorman, Theological and Religious Reference Materials: General Resources and Biblical Studies (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 1”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1984).

The American Theological Library Association has produced several indexing tools: Index to Religious Periodical Literature (Chicago: American Theological Library Association) was issued annually between 1949-1977. It was then replaced by Religion Index One: Periodicals, which has been issued since 1977. Allied to this are Religion Index Two: Authors, and Index to Book Reviews in Religion. These three items are also available in electronic format (since 1993) as ATLA Religion Database on CD-Rom.

A different abstracting tool for periodical literature since the 1950s is the annual Religious and Theological Abstracts (Myerstown, PA: Religious & Theological Abstracts Inc), and this is also available in CD-Rom format.

On the sociology of religion start with Roger Homan, The Sociology of Religion: A Bibliographical Survey (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 9”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1986), which has 1,013 entries. A parallel volume is John A. Saliba, Social Science and the Cults: An Annotated Bibliography (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990).

On the psychology of religion see Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Psychoanalytic Studies of Religion: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 39”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), which covers Freudian literature since 1920. Allied to this is John A. Saliba, Psychiatry and the Cults: An Annotated Bibliography (“Garland Reference Library of Social Science, vol. 349. Sects and Cults in America Bibliographical Guides 10”. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1987), which lists over 1,900 items.

PART ONE: CONTEMPORARY PAGAN SPIRITUALITY Contemporary Pagan religions and Witchcraft, as it has developed in modern times in the Western world, needs to be differentiated from other cultures and epochs where the terms “Pagan” and “Witchcraft” have been used as descriptive terms either by observers or opponents of practitioners of magic, primal or tribal forms of religion, etc.

NON-WESTERN PAGAN RELIGION & WITCHCRAFT For literature concerning non-Western forms of Witchcraft it is suggested that readers refer to scholarly publications that examine traditional African religions, Caribbean religions like Voodoo, Native American Indian religions, and the primal religions of Australia and Oceania. By examining these modes of “witchcraft” they can and should be clearly differentiated from modern Western forms of Pagan and Wiccan spirituality.

A useful bibliographical tool is I. Zaretsky & C. Shambaugh, Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America: An Annotated Bibliography (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1978). Traditional African beliefs can be explored in John Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1969).

Specialized studies in traditional African religions are indexed in David Chidester, Chirero Kwenda, Robert Petty, Judy Tobler and

Darrel Wratten, African Traditional Religion in South Africa: An Annotated Bibliography (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 42”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1997). This has over 600 entries on books and essays about the Khoisan, Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho-Tswana, Swazi, Tsonga and Venda traditions. Useful primers on African religion and witchcraft include B. M. G. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). J. Middleton & E. H. Winter (Eds) Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963). J. Beattie & J. Middleton (Eds) Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969). J. R. Crawford, Witchcraft and Sorcery in Rhodesia (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). Geoffrey Parrinder, Witchcraft: European and African (London: Faber & Faber, 1970).

On the religions of the Caribbean start with M. Horovitz (Ed) Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean (New York: Natural History Press, 1971). Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti (Translated by H. Charteris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).

On Native American Indian religions start with Åke Hultkrantz, Native Religions of North America: The Power of Visions and Fertility (San Francisco & New York: Harper Collins, 1987). Then refer to Catherine Albanese, Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkin Indians to the New Age (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990).

On the religions of Australian Aborigines the most useful bibliographical tool is Tony Swain, Aboriginal Religions in Australia: A Bibliographical Survey (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 18”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1991). This carries 1,076 entries for publications from 1798 up to early 1990. Tony Swain & Garry Trompf, The Religions of Oceania (London & New York: Routledge, 1995) serves as a useful primer on Australian Aboriginal, Maori and Melanesian religions, while Garry W. Trompf, Melanesian Religion (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991) is a comprehensive study on both non-Christian and Christian forms of religion in Melanesia (including cargo cults).

Related texts on Melanesian religious traditions include: G. W. Trompf, Payback: The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), which explores the reasons “why” payback in both its positive and negative dimensions occurs in the life of the social groups or tribes that make up the societies of Melanesia. On contemporary new religions in Melanesia see Garry Trompf (ed) Prophets of Melanesia: Six Essays (Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies/Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies University of the South Pacific, 1977);

and, Carl Loeliger & Garry Trompf (eds) New Religious Movements in Melanesia (Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific and the University of Papua New Guinea, 1985).

On religion in Micronesia the starting point must be Douglas Haynes & William L. Wuerch, Micronesian Religion and Lore: A Guide to Sources, 1526-1990 (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 32”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1995). This indexes 1,193 books and articles on Micronesian myth, magic, folklore and religious beliefs.

The appropriate definitions related to contemporary Western Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities can be established with reference to the literature listed below. For literature pertaining to pre-Christian and pre-Modern paradigms of Pagan religion refer to Part Two of this bibliography.

REFERENCE WORKS ON CONTEMPORARY WESTERN PAGANS Reference works like bibliographies, encyclopedias and dictionaries are an indispensable first port of call for ascertaining basic information on any topic and discovering what major monographs and periodicals deal with the subject.

As regards bibliographies a helpful commencement point is J. Gordon Melton & Isotta Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft and Paganism in America: A Bibliography (2nd Ed. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992). It covers American history from colonial times to the 1980s with 2,540 entries, as well as offering a breakdown of literature for sub-topics on pagan groups and influential figures like Crowley and Gardner. The first edition, which covered over 1,500 items, was solely compiled by Melton and released in 1982.

Another relevant bibliographical work is Anne Carson, Goddesses & Wise Women: The Literature of Feminist Spirituality 1980-1992 An Annotated Bibliography (Freedom CA: The Crossing Press, 1992).

Also do not overlook entries on neo-pagans in Diane Choquette, New Religious Movements in the United States and Canada: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 5”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), and Elisabeth Arweck & Peter B. Clarke, New Religious Movements in Western Europe: An Annotated Bibliography (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 41”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1997).

For doctoral dissertations in the United States of America two helpful tools are Arthur P. Young & E. Jens Holley, Religion and the

American Experience, 1620-1900: A Bibliography of Doctoral Dissertations (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 24.”

Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1992); and, Arthur P. Young & E. Jens Holley, Religion and the American Experience, The Twentieth Century (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 31.”

Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1994). The first volume lists by topic, title and author 4,240 doctoral dissertations up to June 1991.

The second volume is devoted exclusively to the twentieth century and lists 4,215 dissertations. These American post-graduate dissertations can be obtained as off prints or on microfilm from BellHowell UMI Dissertation Services, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1346. Many American theological institutions that are not encompassed by the services of Bell & Howell are covered by the Theological Research Exchange Network (www.tren.com/).

For bibliographical resources on Canadian Witchcraft listing materials published in both English and French and including postgraduate dissertations see “Canadian Paganism & Goddess Spirituality” at http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/canadabib.html A basic one-volume encyclopedia is James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: an encyclopedia of Wiccan and neopagan traditions (Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999). Parallel to that volume is Shelly Rabinovitch and James R. Lewis (eds) The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism (New York: Citadel Press, 2002).

Another useful reference work is The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, edited by J. Gordon Melton & Leslie A. Shepard (2 Vols. 5th Ed. Detroit: Gale, 1999). A more general reference work that has profiles on groups within the Pagan-Magickal traditions is J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions (6th edition.

Detroit: Gale Research, 1999). This work is currently in its 7th edition, and was originally released in two volumes in 1978.

Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (8 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1923-1958) is an important reference work for the information presented and bibliographical data, but the author’s analysis of material is affected by a weak inductivist approach. Although not dealing with modern Pagan and Wiccan thought, as a history of magic it is a vital background work of reference.

Joanne Pearson, A Popular Dictionary of Paganism (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002) is a popular yet scholarly work defining terms and concepts of modern Pagan spiritualities.

These aforementioned texts should be used as a benchmark for comparison with more popular reference works such as Nevill Drury, Dictionary of Mysticism and the Esoteric Traditions (Bridport, Dorset: Prism Press, 1992); the earlier version of Drury’s book is Dictionary of Mysticism and the Occult (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985); Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience (New York: HarperCollins/London: Grange Books, 1991), which is the work of a journalist; and the popular Christian reference text, George A. Mather & Larry A. Nichols, Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1993).

CONTOURS OF PAGAN AND WICCAN SPIRITUALITY Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities are diverse in rituals and emphases.

Perhaps the best introductory text that surveys the spectrum of traditions is Margot Adler, Drawing Down The Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (2nd Ed. Boston MA: Beacon Press, 1986). Adler offers a very clear and sympathetic guide to this spirituality as it is expressed in the United States of America. A simple yet richly illustrated account of a journalistic investigation into modern day witchcraft is Graham Wyley, The Illustrated Guide to Witchcraft (London: Parkgate Books, 1998).

History: Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), is a masterly historical account of the emergence of Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities in England in modern times. Hutton’s work explores the antecedent roots from eighteenth century romantic poets, through to esoteric writers like Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, and scholars such as James G. Frazer and Margaret Murray. Much attention is focused on the mid-twentieth century activities of Gerald Gardner.

Hutton’s earlier text The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual year in Britain (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1996) is likewise an indispensable study of the calendrical festivals such as May Day, Hallowe’en, etc. It sorts through modern-day romantic projections and sinister misconceptions that are popularly associated with many of these festivals. Christian readers in particular need to delve into the two chapters concerning Hallowe’en, where they will find how their fears about this event are baseless and arise from modern folkloric creations. The evidence presented in Hutton’s book makes it very difficult to give credence to the positions taken on Hallowe’en by David Porter, Hallowe’en:

Trick or Treat? (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Monarch, 1993), and David J. Meyer’s articles “Halloween and the Forces of Darkness” http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract10.html and “Halloween and the Occult (A True Story)” http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract_2.html.

A concise treatment by Hutton is his essay “The Roots of Modern Paganism,” in Pagan Pathways: A Guide to the Ancient Earth Traditions, edited by Charlotte Hardman & Graham Harvey (London: Thorsons, 2000), pp. 3-15. Somewhat parallel to this is Michael York, “Invented Culture/Invented Religion: The Fictional Origins of Contemporary Paganism,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 3/1 October 1999, pp. 135-146. York compares the “invention” of modern paganism with the activities of the Meiji restoration in Japan that created artificial origins for Shintoism. (Back issues of Nova Religio can be ordered via www.ucpress.edu/) Dianne Purkis, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth Century Representations (London & New York: Routledge, 1996) explores the concept of the witch as expressed, for example, in Renaissance and Elizabethan literature and drama. The text explores how witchcraft has been represented in European thought, folklore and in North American history, as well as examining how various identities have been constructed around the witch in feminist and pagan thought, and in academic writings.

Practitioners: Books by those who are practitioners of Pagan and Wiccan spirituality must not be overlooked, particularly as they constitute primary sources.

Primers on Pagan & Druid Paths One collaborative text from a North American perspective that brings together several Pagan practitioners, but under the editorial direction of a non-Pagan scholar, is James R. Lewis, Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1996). The book is sub-divided into six parts covering worldview, magic and rituals, history, ethics, Christian-Pagan issues, and literature reviews.

Another collaborative work involving several contributors who are committed to Pagan spiritualities from the British Isles is Charlotte Hardman & Graham Harvey (Eds) Pagan Pathways: A Guide to the Ancient Earth Traditions (London: Thorsons, 2000). It was previously published in 1995 as Paganism Today. Prudence Jones & Caitlín Matthews (Eds) Voices from the Circle: The Heritage of

Western Paganism (Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1990) presents essays by practitioners of Druidry, shamanism and witchcraft in England and Europe.

For a clear apologia on behalf of Pagan spirituality see Gus DiZerega, Pagans & Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 2001). DiZerega seeks to engage in dialogue with Christianity, clearing up misconceptions about Pagan ways and simultaneously challenging Christian thought about God, evil and the environment. DiZerega presents a panentheist view.

Modern-day Druidic spirituality, which comprises a dazzling array of different orders, is clearly expounded by various British and American Druids in Philip Carr-Gomm (Ed) The Druid Renaissance: The Voice of Druidry Today (London: Thorsons, 1996). Other popular books that are interesting to read but need to be critically assessed include Philip Carr-Gomm, The Elements of the Druid Tradition (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1991). Caitlín Matthews, The Elements of the Celtic Tradition (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1989). John Matthews, The Elements of the Grail Tradition (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1990).

Ceisiwr Serith, The Pagan Family: Handing the Old Ways Down (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1994) is a handbook designed for Pagan parents who want to raise their children as Pagans. The text gives an insider’s view of how Pagans can attempt integrate their spirituality with the daily routines of life.

Shamanism In pagan spirituality the cross-cultural figure of the shaman has become important to contemporary practitioners in various ways such as: a paradigmatic figure for interior spiritual exercises, as a source of inspiration for developing rituals (e.g. sweat lodges) and altered states of consciousness (like shamanic drumming), and for metaphysical reflections. A helpful indexing tool is Joel Bjorling, Consulting Spirits: A Bibliography (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 46”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), which offers some cross-cultural references to shamans, magic, mediumship and so forth.

A popular representation of the shamanic figure in pagan and magical religion can be accessed in several books by Nevill Drury including The Shaman and The Magician: Journeys Between the Worlds (London and New York: Arkana, 1982); The Elements of Shamanism (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1989); and The Visionary Human: Mystical Consciousness & Paranormal Perspectives (London and New York: Bantam, 1991).

Of related interest is Michele Jamal, Shape Shifters: Shaman Women in Contemporary Society (London: Arkana, 1987). Jamal profiles the stories of fourteen women who are western practitioners of shamanism.

From the perspective of the phenomenology of religion the literature is immense and one of the classic texts is Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, translated by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964).

However, Eliade’s work needs to be critically compared with the following: Åke Hultkrantz, “A Definition of Shamanism” Temenos, 9 1973 pp. 25-37; Ronald A. Hutton, Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination (London: Hambledon and London, 2002); and Kocku von Stuckrad, “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and Nineteenth-Century Thought,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 70/4 December 2002, pp. 771799.

Primers on Wicca & Witchcraft On Wiccan spirituality generally a useful starting point is Vivianne Crowley, Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age (London: Aquarian Press, 1989; re-released in 1996 by Thorsons). Crowley regards Wicca as a modern day “mystery religion”. Crowley’s essay “Wicca as Nature Religion” in Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World, edited by Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp. 170-179 serves as a more concise outline.

An equally substantial treatment is Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (Revised edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989). Starhawk (Miriam Simos) provides a very good overview of modern-day Witchcraft, with exercises and rituals included.

Janet Farrar & Stewart Farrar, The Witches’ Way: Principles, Rituals and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft (London: Robert Hale, 1984) is a clear exposition of the modern day Gardnerian tradition as reshaped

by Alex Sanders.

A very concise introduction to the Gardnerian Wiccan approach is Rhiannon Ryall, West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion (Chieveley, Berks: Capall Bann Publishing, 1993). For a concise introduction to Australian Wicca see Matthew Philips & Julia Philips, The Witches of Oz (Chieveley, Berks: Capall Bann Publishing, 1994).

Douglas Ezzy (Ed) Practising the Witch’s Craft: Real Magic Under a Southern Sky (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2003) brings together contributions from fifteen Australian witches and wiccans. Ezzy is Senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania in Hobart.

Several of the contributors are tertiary educated. The contributions are a blend of autobiography about how the contributors discovered witchcraft, and then how they have contextualized the Craft to a southern hemisphere setting. One of the contributors, known as Thea Gaia, was the first woman ordained as a minister in the Congregational Churches of Australia, but after twenty years in the clergy found it necessary in her spiritual quest to leave the church and explore witchcraft.

A comprehensive handbook for Wiccan practitioners is Paul Tuitéan & Estelle Daniels, Essential Wicca (Freedom CA: Crossing Press, 2001). Another primer on ritual exercises and worldview is Silver Ravenwolf, To Ride a Silver Broomstick: New Generation Witchcraft (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1994).

Australian celebrity Deborah Gray claims to be an adept of an order of Druidic Witchcraft, having been initiated by the late Kings Cross personality Eddie Pielke. She presents a practical handbook of magic interspersed with anecdotes about her own journey in How to be a Real Witch (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2001). A different exploration of Witchcraft is presented by Byron Bay witch Ly De Angeles (formerly Ly Warren Clarke), Witchcraft: Theory and Practice (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 2000). De Angeles divides her book into three parts: the disciplines, the way of the goddess, and spell casting, and interrelates into the Craft the Qabalah, astrology and tarot.

The Australian pop star and actor Fiona Horne has been prolific in producing books for the popular market. Her writings are idiosyncratic insofar as they differ from the palates of more serious writers. Her celebrity status (pop music, theatre, radio, TV, Playboy centerfold) undoubtedly irks some practitioners. Horne’s inaugural book was Witch: A Personal Journey (Sydney: Random House, 1998). It was followed by Witch: A Magickal Year (Sydney: Random House, 1999). Horne’s first two books have been combined into a single volume and released in both the UK and USA under the title Witch A Magickal Journey: A Guide to Modern Witchcraft (Thorsons/Harper Collins, 2002). Life’s a Witch! A Handbook for Teen Witches (Sydney: Random House, 2000) is Fiona Horne’s third book. The UK/USA edition is entitled Witchin’: A Handbook for Teen Witches (Thorsons/HarperCollins, 2003). It is complemented by Silver Ravenwolf, Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1999). Horne has now followed on with an update on her career from Australia to Hollywood with details

about the formation of her own coven known as the Dark Light of Lilith, see Fiona Horne, The Coven: Making Magick Together (Sydney: Random House, 2003).

Architects of Wicca As Gerald Gardner is one of the chief creators of modern-day Western Witchcraft one must not overlook his contributions. Gerald B. Gardner, Witchcraft Today (London: Rider, 1954). Idem, The Meaning of Witchcraft (London: Aquarian Press, 1959). On Gardner’s life and role in creating Wicca see Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, mentioned earlier. Also see Aidan A. Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic, Book I: A History of Modern Witchcraft, 1939-1964 (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1991).

Violet Firth, who is better known by the pen name Dion Fortune, is another significant figure. Two biographical studies on her are Alan Richardson, The Life and Magic of Dion Fortune (Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1987), and Janine Chapman, Quest for Dion Fortune (York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1993).

Another influential figure is Raymond Buckland, Witchcraft From the Inside (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1971). Buckland is the inaugurator of the tradition known as Seax-Wicca.

Goddess Myth Wiccans and Witches have produced a prodigious amount of literature on the icon and meaning of the Mother Goddess. A very basic primer is Caitlín Matthews, The Elements of the Goddess (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1989). Naomi Ozaniec, Daughter of the Goddess: The Sacred Priestess (London: Aquarian, 1993) explores the Goddess across antique cultures and in contemporary times. An observer-participant study on two women’s groups in the USA is Wendy Griffin, “The Embodied Goddess: Feminist Witchcraft and Female Divinity,” Sociology of Religion, 56/1 Spring 1995, pp. 35-49.

Beyond mere Wiccan circles a more expansive text, based on the myths of the modern Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, is Shadwynn, The Crafted Cup: Ritual Mysteries of the Goddess & the Grail (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1994). This text, inter alia, seeks to locate the Goddess in the wider western esoteric traditions, and offers a magickal interpretation of the Grail myth and the “mythic Christ”.

The author is a former Christian.

Psychological perspectives on the empowering symbol of the Goddess are explored in Jean Shinoda Bolen, Goddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of Women (New York: Harper &

Row, 1984) and in Jennifer Barker Woolger & Roger J. Woolger, The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths That Shape Women’s Lives (London & Sydney: Rider, 1990). Ginette Paris, Pagan Meditations: Aphrodite, Hestia, Artemis (translated by Gwendolyn Moore. Dallas, Texas: Spring Publications, 1986) offers an archetypal psychological meditation on these three goddesses in the development of a feminist perspective on society.

The icon of the Goddess as it pertains to Pagan sexuality is discussed by Sirona Knight, Greenfire: Making Love With the Goddess (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1995).

An important anthology of various feminist perspectives, including those of Pagans such as Zsuzsanna Budapest, is Carol P. Christ & Judith Plaskow (Eds) Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (Revised edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992). Of related interest is Diane Stein, The Women’s Spirituality Book (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1993), which explores the Wiccan Wheel of the Year myth, creation goddesses, tarot, I Ching, visualization and healing.

Kenneth Ray Stubbs (Ed) Women of the Light: The New Sacred Prostitute (Larkspur CA: Secret Garden, 1994) is concerned with the integration of sexuality with spirituality. Stubbs has collected the stories of today’s women that illustrate what he sees as the archetypal goddess embodied in female sexuality. Specifically the stories recounted include those of a nurse, a fire brigade officer, meditation teacher, artist, masseuse, porn star and prostitute.

A related topic concerns the ritual celebration of menstruation.

Jason Elias & Katherine Ketcham, In the House of the Moon: Reclaiming the Feminine Spirit of Healing (Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995). Judy Grahn, Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). Lara Owen, Her Blood is Gold: Reclaiming the Power of Menstruation (London: Aquarian, 1993). Penelope Shuttle & Peter Redgrove, The Wise Wound: Menstruation and Everywoman (London: Harper Collins, 1994) offer a poetic-literary approach. Kisma K. Stepanich, Sister Moon Lodge: The Power & Mystery of Menstruation (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1992). Also see the Marxist-anthropological view presented by Chris Knight, Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture (New Haven CT/London: Yale University Press, 1991).

Jung & Pagan Thought The psychoanalytic theory of Carl Gustav Jung is reflected in Pagan interpretations of myth and symbol, as well as in the structure of Pagan acts of the Will in ritual magick (on magick see next

heading). Jung’s influence in Pagan thought is discussed in Vivianne Crowley, Principles of Jungian Spirituality (London: Thorsons, 1998). Another scholarly primer is Roderick Mann, “Religion, science and the New Age,” in Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age, edited by Joanne Pearson (Aldershot, Hants/Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing/Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2002), pp. 173-222.

Jung’s ideas and his occult interests have generated much controversy. One of the most strident analyses is Richard Noll, The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994/London: Fontana, 1996). Jung’s connections with spiritualism are explored in F. X. Charet, Spiritualism and the Foundations of C. G. Jung’s Psychology (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1993). A moderate assessment of Jung is Robert Ellwood, The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1999). Another sympathetic perspective is David Tacey, Jung and the New Age (Hove, East Sussex/Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge, 2001).

Ritual Magick Ritual or natural magick is an integral part of Pagan and Wiccan pathways. A useful introductory essay is Síân Reid, “As I Do Will, So Mote It Be: Magic as Metaphor in Neo-Pagan Witchcraft,” in James R. Lewis (Ed) Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 141-167. A basic introductory book is Marian Green, The Elements of Ritual Magic (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1990).

Other primers include Catherine Summers & Julian Vayne, Seeds of Magick: An Exposé of Modern Occult Practices (London: Quantum, 1990). Lady Sabrina, Reclaiming the Power: The How and Why of Practical Ritual Magic (St. Paul MN: Llewellyn, 1992).

A popular general history of western magic, written by one who has training in anthropology but is also a practitioner of the esoteric arts, is Nevill Drury, The History of Magic in the Modern Age (London: Constable, 2000). Much of the text of Drury’s previous book has been reassembled, together with material from his writings on shamanism into a richly illustrated hardcover book Magic and Witchcraft: From Shamanism to the Technopagans (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003). The occult spiritual traditions in Australia are traced by Nevill Drury & Gregory Tillett, Other Temples Other Gods: The Occult in Australia (Sydney: Methuen Australia, 1980). For New Zealand’s history of alternative spirituality see Robert S. Ellwood, Islands of the Dawn: The Story of Alternative

Spirituality in New Zealand (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993).

Ferals, New Age Travelers & Rainbow Tribes Pagans who have adopted a counter-cultural lifestyle are known in Australia as “Ferals”, in England as “New Age Travellers”, and in the USA as “Rainbow Tribes”. On the UK scene see Fiona Earle, Alan Dearling, Helen Whittle, Roddy Glasse & Gubby, A Time To Travel?

An introduction to Britain’s newer travellers (Lyme Regis, Dorset: Enabler Publications, 1994). Alan Dearling, No Boundaries: new Travellers on the road (outside of England) (Lyme Regis, Dorset: Enabler Publications, 1998). Richard Lowe & William Shaw, Travellers: Voices of the New Age Nomads (London: Fourth Estate, 1993).

On the Australian scene start with Alan Dearling & Brendan Hanley (Mook Bahloo) (Eds) Alternative Australia: celebrating cultural diversity (Lyme Regis, Dorset: Enabler Publications, 2000). On the US scene refer to Michael I. Niman, People of the Rainbow: a nomadic utopia (Knoxville TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1997).

Pagan & Wiccan Activism Many Pagans and Wiccans are concerned about issues such as equal rights, environmental rights, sexual discrimination and resisting globalization. For some background on issues that have coalesced into American Pagan views about the environment see Charles Reich, The Greening of America (New York: Random House, 1970/London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1971).

Starhawk’s Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (Revised edition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988) is a very important book for ascertaining the cultural-political vision that inspires many Wiccans to be social activists and eco-feminists.

Charlene Spretnak & Fritjof Capra, Green Politics: The Global Promise (London: Paladin, 1985) captures the general mood and vision of those committed to eco-politics. This text was released at the height of Green consciousness in the 1980s in West German politics. Although not an explicitly Pagan text, Spretnak and Capra’s work is interfused with an eco-spiritual ethos. Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age neatly complements the previous text, but also shows Spretnak’s interests in indigenous spiritualities, the Gaia myth, and East Asian spiritualities.

Pagan voices on resistance to globalization can be found in George McKay (Ed) DiY Culture: Party & Protest in Nineties Britain (London & New York: Verso, 1998). Not all of the contributors to McKay’s volume are Pagan, but there are several essays related to road protests, ecology and the raver-dance culture, which Pagans have overlapping interests in. An earlier book written by McKay complements this Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties (London & New York: Verso, 1996). A comparable volume on the Australian scene is Graham St. John (Ed) Free NRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor (Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing, 2001). Also see Graham St. John (ed) Rave Culture and Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2003).

SCHOLARLY PERSPECTIVES Phenomenology & Social Scientific Perspectives: Several scholars from disciplines such as religious studies and sociology have formed a network where academic interests and exchanges of information about Pagan spiritualities occur. It is known as Nature Religions Scholars Network and the present URL for this network is http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/ (This link may need to be re-checked through search engines).

The basic contours of Pagan spirituality have been charted with scholarly precision in Graham Harvey, Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth (Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 1997). Harvey’s book was released in Britain as Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism (London: Hurst, 1996). Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel (Eds) Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998) brings together both academics and practitioners to profile the contours of Pagan spirituality and its impact and relevance for the contemporary world.

An essay that explores the stereotypes of the Witch is Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “From the Devil’s gateway to the Goddess within: the image of the witch in neopaganism,” in Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions, edited by Ria Kloppenborg & Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Leiden: Brill, 1995).

An anthropological study of contemporary witchcraft in England is T. M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (London: Picador, 1994). A comparable study on the Australian scene is Lynne Hume, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia (Carlton South, Victoria; Melbourne University Press, 1997). On the New Zealand scene refer to the specific study on feminist Wicca Kathryn Rountree, Embracing The Witch and The Goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand (London and New

York: Routledge, 2003). For the United States of America refer to Helen Berger, A Community of Witches: Contemporary NeoPaganism and Witchcraft in the United States (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). A specialized anthropological and theological study on the community established

by Starhawk is Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted Feminism: Ritual, Gender and Divinity among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).

A sociological study comparing New Age and Pagan spiritualities is presented in Michael York, The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-Pagan Movements (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995). For sociological studies regarding the occult start with Edward Tiryakian (Ed) On the Margin of the Visible: Sociology, the Esoteric and the Occult (New York: Wiley, 1974). Also see Jon P. Bloch, New Spirituality, Self and Belonging: How New Agers and Neo-Pagans talk about Themselves (Westport CT: Praeger, 1998).

A brief chapter on “New Age, witchcraft and Paganism” appears in George D. Chryssides, Exploring New Religions (London & New York: Cassell, 1999), pp. 315-341. Joanne Pearson (Ed) Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality and the New Age (“Religion Today: Tradition, Modernity and Change.” Volume 5.

Aldershot Hants/Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing/Milton Keynes: Open University, 2002) is a basic reader-textbook designed for tertiary students. A short profile on neo-paganism is provided in James R. Lewis, Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy (Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), pp. 310-324.

An earlier collection of essays from a phenomenological standpoint is Mircea Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions: Essays in Comparative Religions (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1976). Eliade applies his theory about archaic human beliefs, myth and symbol, and contemporary religious transformation to the phenomena of occult and Pagan spiritualities in the modern world.

Readers who are interested in Eliade’s general theory about religion need to be aware of scholarly assessments of his work. Some of these include G. W. Trompf, “Mircea Eliade and the Interpretation of Cargo Cults,” Religious Traditions, 12 1989, pp. 31-64. D. Allen, “Recent defenders of Eliade: a critical evaluation,” Religion, 24/4 1994, pp. 333-351. Robert Ellwood, The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1999). William W. Quinn, “Mircea Eliade and the Sacred Tradition (A Personal Account),” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 3/1 October

1999, pp. 147-153. Steven M. Wasserstrom, Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).

Academic Journals: Various facets of Pagan thought are taken up in several academic essays published in journals. One journal devoted exclusively to the topic is The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies. Details about this can be obtained via http://chass.colostatepueblo.edu/natrel/.

One electronic journal (or e-journal) concerned with religious studies is Diskus. The issue of authority in Pagan spirituality is discussed in Graham Harvey, “The Authority of Intimacy in Paganism and Goddess Spirituality,” Diskus, 4/1 1996, pp. 34-48.

This edition can be accessed at www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/harvey.html.

The entire edition of Diskus volume 6 2000, which was co-edited by Marion Bowman and Graham Harvey, is devoted to the theme “Pagan Identity”. Each of the eleven essays found in this edition are listed as follows with the current URLs: Jenny Blain, “Speaking Shamanistically: Seidr, Academia and Rationality,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/blain.html.

Marion Bowman, “Nature, The Natural and Pagan Identity,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/bowman_2.html.

Tanice G. Foltz, “Sober Witches and Goddess Practitioners: Women’s Spirituality and Sobriety,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/foltz.html.

Ann-Marie Gallagher, “Weaving a Tangled Web? Pagan Ethics and Issues of History, ‘Race’ and Ethnicity in Pagan Identity,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/gallagher.html.

Melissa Harrington, “ ‘Conversion’ to Wicca?” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/harrington.html.

Graham Harvey, “Fantasy in the Study of Religions: Paganism as Observed and Enhanced by Terry Pratchett,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/harvey_2.html.

Andy Letcher, “ ‘Virtual Paganism’ or Direct Action? The Implications of Road Protesting for Modern Paganism,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/letcher.html.

Jo Pearson, “Demarcating the Field: Paganism, Wicca and Witchcraft,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/pearson.html.

Shelley Tsivia Rabinovitch, “Heal the Universe and Heal the Self: Bateson’s Double-Bind and North American Wiccan Practice,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/rabinovitch.html.

Catherine Robinson, “Druids and Brahmins: A Case of Mistaken Identity?” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/robinson.html.

Michael York, “Nature Religion as a Contemporary Sectarian Development,” www.unimarburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/diskus/york_2.html.

For social-scientific profiles about American Pagans and the middle class see Danny L. Jorgensen & Scott E. Russell, “American Neopaganism: The Participants’ Social Identities,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 38/3 September 1999, pp. 325-338.

Methodological questions facing academic researchers are discussed

by Joanne Pearson, “Going native in reverse: the Insider as Researcher in British Wicca,” Nova Religio: the Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 5/1 October 2001, pp. 52-63.

Pearson’s essay is reproduced in Elizabeth Arweck & Martin Stringer (Eds) Theorising Faith: the Insider/Outsider Problem (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press, 2002). Pearson indicates her personal commitment to Wicca.

Some Australian perspectives on Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities are discussed in the Australian Religion Studies Review. Angela Coco, “Searching for Reflections: Women’s paths to a feminist pagan spirituality group,” Australian Religion Studies Review, 14/1 Autumn 2001, pp. 19-30. Coco’s essay derives from an observer-participant approach to a feminist pagan spirituality group known as “Shades” that operated in Brisbane between 1992-1999. The participants had rejected Christianity and through “Shades” were seeking a spirituality that affirmed women.

Douglas Ezzy, “The Commodification of Witchcraft,” Australian Religion Studies Review, 14/1 Autumn 2001, pp. 31-44, assesses how Witchcraft in Australia has been commodified by comparing

three Internet sites run by Australian celebrities: Fiona Horne, Wendy Rule and Deborah Gray. Ezzy explores how connections between popular witchcraft and the New Age may exist in “New Age Witchcraft? Popular spell books and the re-enchantment of everyday life,” Culture and Religion, 4/1 May 2003, pp. 47-65. Ezzy revisits the question of commodified witchcraft in “New Age Witchcraft?

Popular spell books and the re-enchantment of everyday life,” Culture and Religion, 4/1 May 2003, pp. 47-65. In this essay Ezzy examines three popular Australian spell books and considers how these texts enable teenage females to pursue relationships with the opposite sex and ostensibly material prosperity.

Graham St. John, “ ‘Heal thy Self – thy Planet’: ConFest, EcoSpirituality and the Self/Earth Nexus,” Australian Religion Studies Review, 14/1 Autumn 2001, pp. 97-112. Based on St. John’s doctoral thesis, the essay explores how pagan eco-spirituality is expressed in Australia’s largest alternate cultural event the Downto-Earth’s Confest.

Philip Hughes and Sharon Bond, “Nature Religions,” Pointers: Bulletin of the Christian Research Association, 13/2 June 2003, pp.

1-6 comprises a comparative statistical profile of Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities in Australia based on the 1996 and 2001 National censuses. The report indicates that in the six-year period from 1996 to 2001, the Nature Religions were the fastest growing spiritualities of all. The report gives a cursory profile about Druid, Pagan and Wiccan beliefs, largely based on Joanne Pearson’s Belief Beyond Boundaries. The statistical profile relies of course on the census figures gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. However, it should be noted that the 2001 census figures are incomplete with respect to whole population. There are several pockets in the Australian bush land, especially in Rainforest areas, where many people pursue an alternate lifestyle and Pagan spirituality. Some of these people are nomadic or pitch teepees in rainforest areas are beyond the reach of census officials. Also within urban areas, teenagers who participate in Wiccan spirituality may not be properly accounted for in the census, particularly where parents are not Pagan themselves and may not even be cognizant of the fact that their children are Pagan. To obtain the Hughes and Bond report go the CRA website at www.cra.org.au Shawn Arthur, “Technophilia and Nature Religion: The Growth of a Paradox,” Religion, 32/4 October 2002, pp. 303-314, explores the seeming paradox between practitioners of Wicca who are interested in the natural world and yet rely very heavily on the “non-natural” realm of computer technology to communicate and develop their ideas and spiritual experiences.

Melissa Raphael, “Truth in Flux: Goddess Feminism as a Late Modern Religion,” Religion, 26/3 July 1996, pp. 199-213. Raphael’s essay abstract reads as follows: “Goddess feminism is a new emancipatory religion which appears to typify postmodern religion, but which, using Anthony Giddens' social theory, I prefer to understand as having a peculiarly late modern reflexive character. And it is, I suggest, Goddess religion's reflexivity that imposes immense strains on its capacity to be or become the world-altering religion most of its adherents would want it to be. This religion is founded within a modern political struggle to bring about the demise of patriarchy: a system of non-relation held to be global and structurally continuous over 5000 years. Goddess feminism is premised on the necessity of a collective moral confrontation with patriarchy and the planetary injustice and suffering it causes. And yet thealogians' reflexive criticism of the authoritative nature of traditions makes them unable to ground their religion in a fully collective, normative, ontological and moral account of the Goddess. Goddess feminists' struggle for sexual, economic and environmental justice may also be impeded by their configuration of the Goddess as a female trinity whose hypostases sacralise moral ambiguity and by their resistance to divine and human authoritative judgements. My task in this paper is not that of arguing for the truth or falsity of thealogical claims, but that of showing how Goddess religion's late modern reflexivity is both liberative and may ultimately stunt its own development. “ Bron Taylor, “Earthen Spirituality or Cultural Genocide? Radical Environmentalism’s Appropriation of Native American Spirituality,” Religion, 27/2 April 1997, pp. 183-215. Bron Taylor, “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 1) From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism,” Religion, 31/2 April 2001, pp. 175-193 and “Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part 2) From Earth First! And Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and The New Age,” Religion, 31/3 July 2001, pp. 225-245. These three interrelated essays explore the nexus between radical environmental protests, as exemplified by the activist group Earth First!, and nature-based spirituality.

The grass roots interest in ecological issues has dovetailed with projected ideas about an ancient universal belief in a Mother Earth.

Tony Swain has unraveled part of a tangled web of modern projected ideas about Mother Earth on Australian Aboriginal religion disclosing how early academics, missionaries, colonialists and then third and fourth world peoples have “invented” the concept. See Tony Swain, “The Mother Earth Conspiracy: An Australian Episode,”

Numen, 38/1 June 1991, pp. 3-26. Swain draws attention to the work of Sam Gill, which underscores the same problem in Native American religion. Swain briefly remarks on this same problem in A Place For Strangers: Towards a history of Australian Aboriginal being (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

SATANISM ≠ PAGAN & WICCAN SPIRITUALITY All too often contemporary Western-based Pagan religion and Western Witchcraft is popularly equated with Satanism. Satanism is an entirely different phenomenon from that of Western Pagan and Western Witchcraft religions. Indeed much of what is popularly conceived as Satanism — namely devil-worship with human sacrifices in a black mass — is grossly misconceived and ill informed. Much of contemporary Satanism is atheistic with practitioners denying the existence of God and the Devil. The philosophy that under girds Satanism is an amalgam of ideas deriving from Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and the anarchist Ragnar Redbeard.

A basic scholarly reference work is James R. Lewis, Satanism Today: an encyclopedia of religion, folklore, and popular culture (Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001). Graham Harvey, “Satanism in Britain Today,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 10/3 1995, pp.

283-296, is a useful introductory essay as it pertains to Britain.

Gavin Baddeley, Lucifer Rising: sin, devil worship & rock ‘n’ roll (London: Plexus, 1999) provides a popular insider’s view of atheistic Satanism. Also refer to Gareth Medway, Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism (Washington Square New York: New York University Press, 2001).

Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (Lexington KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2000), provides interesting scholarly insights on the role of folklore in the construction of social and religious perceptions about Satanism and Witchcraft. Ellis is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Of related importance is Ellis’, Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture (Lexington KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2003), wherein he argues that the occult represents a popular attempt to access the mythic realm, and examines the social functions of occult practices.

On the problems associated with claims about extensive networks of Satanic cults see James T. Richardson, Joel Best & David G. Bromley (Eds) The Satanism Scare (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1991). Christian comedian-evangelist Mike Warnke came to

notoriety in the 1970s with his testimony of being a converted exSatanist priest. His book The Satan Seller became a popular guidebook for many people both inside and outside Church circles.

Warnke’s testimony was carefully excoriated and discredited in Mike Hertenstein & Jon Trott, Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal (Chicago: Cornerstone Press, 1993).

John Smulo, “Christ’s Advocate: An Incarnational Apologetic to Satanism” is a B. Min honours thesis (2001) that debunks many misconceptions about Satanism, whilst simultaneously seeking to intellectually challenge practitioners. It is available on the Internet at www.dutchdevilden.org/satan/js.html. The thesis has also been serialized in two parts at: www.australiansatanism.com/gazette/issue2.pdf www.australiansatanism.com/gazette/issue3.pdf CHRISTIAN ANALYSES OF PAGAN/WICCAN PATHS Unfortunately a lot of Christian literature produced for the mass market has been very poor in terms of its accuracy in describing and understanding Pagan and Wiccan spiritualities. However some Christian writers have been exploring primary source material and interacting with practitioners. Most of the works listed here are primarily directed toward a Christian readership.

Perhaps the first port of call is J. Gordon Melton, “Witchcraft: An Inside View,” Christianity Today, October 21, 1983, pp. 22-25.

Although now somewhat dated, Melton gives a first hand account of the rites and rituals of a particular Pagan group. Melton briefly discusses the misconceptions many Christians have about Pagans, and toward the end of the article offers reflections on what points a Christian response ought to cover.

Another short introductory article is Nicola Hoggard Creegan, “Christians and the New Pagans,” Reality, April/May 2001, pp 1317. Reality magazine is published by the Bible College of New Zealand, and this article is reproduced in this edition of Sacred Tribes.

Among the better quality book length treatments is the text by the English evangelical anthropologist David Burnett, Dawning of the Pagan Moon (Eastbourne: Monarch, 1991). Burnett maps out the basic territory of Pagan spiritualities interspersed with Christian reflections and observations.

Some basic theological reflections about Pagan spirituality and Christian dialogue are discussed in Andrew J. Mclean, “NeoPaganism: Is Dialogue Possible?” Lutheran Theological Journal, 36/3 December 2002, pp. 112-125 (and reproduced in this edition of Sacred Tribes). Another theologically reflective work is Aida Besançon Spencer, Donna F. G. Hailson, Catherine Clark Kroeger & William David Spencer, The Goddess Revival (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 1995).

Loren Wilkinson’s twin essays repay reading, “The Bewitching Charms of Neo-Paganism,” Christianity Today, 15 November 1999, pp. 58-63, and, “Circles and the Cross: Reflections on NeoPaganism, Postmodernity, and Celtic Christianity,” Evangelical Review of Theology, 22/1 January 1998, pp. 28-47. Wilkinson’s articles map out some of the challenges that Pagan spiritualities pose for Christians, and he considers some apologetic directions to take by way of response.

Craig S. Hawkins, Witchcraft: Exploring the World of Wicca (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 1996) presents a philosophically oriented apologetic, emphasizing the theological differences between Christianity and Witchcraft, underscoring epistemological, logical, ethical and doctrinal weaknesses. While the great strength of this work lies in its philosophical and biblical critique, the book’s arguments do not easily translate into personal dialogue and witness. The apologia is framed around identifying drawbacks and weaknesses in Witchcraft, but insufficient space is given to exploring areas where Christians and Pagans share common concerns from which constructive dialogue about Jesus could proceed. Also absent is any extensive articulated theology of God’s immanence in the creation. Hawkins has also contributed to the Zondervan series of booklets on “Cults and Religious Movements”, Goddess Worship, Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1998). This booklet does present some suggested ways of talking with adherents about Christianity.

Bill Honsberger, “How to Reach a Pagan Modern World,” International Journal of Frontier Missions, 15/3 July-September 1998, pp. 157-162, considers the challenge of Pagan religion and the response of the early church and then interrelates the discussion to the contemporary scene in the USA. Honsberger suggests Christians can learn useful missional and apologetic insights from the early Christians. There is a strong emphasis on using apologetics as a critical tool of engagement. Examples include using reductio ad absurdum techniques to demonstrate logical inconsistencies or defects in Pagan thinking, appealing to our common experience of sinful alienation from God and one another,

and the practical acts of Christian charity that attest to the core values of Christianity.

Steven Hayes, “Christian Responses to Witchcraft and Sorcery,” Missionalia, 23/3 November 1995, pp. 339-354, looks at defining Pagan and Witchcraft spiritualities as expressed in the West, but also considers South African versions of Witchcraft. Examines the sorts of responses Christians make, and considers some missiological issues pertinent to the topic.

Ross Clifford & Philip Johnson, Jesus and the Gods of the New Age (Oxford UK: Lion Publishing, 2001), pp. 40-55 recreates a dialogue held between the authors and a practitioner of Wicca. The chapter is intended to offer a model of how Christians can sensitively and sensibly talk with Wiccans. It also works through several issues (but not all issues) that Wiccans find problematic with Christianity. The appendix to the book, pp. 196-200, reproduces by way of a case study the story of a former Christian who dropped out of the Church and found meaning in Wicca.

There is also “Reaching Wiccan and Mother Goddess Devotees,” which is a chapter in Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach, edited by Irving Hexham, Stephen Rost & John W. Morehead (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004).

Although not explicitly dealing with Pagan and Wiccan spirituality John Warwick Montgomery’s Principalities and Powers (Minneapolis MN: Bethany, 1973), excels as an example of how Christians can appreciate the spiritual search of occultists. The book’s greatest strengths are in its analytical interpretations of the occult.

Montgomery presents a short survey of the occult through history, and then delves into topics like the Cabala, astrology, prophecy, myth, fairy tales, tarot, spirit possession etc.

Of related interest is Christopher Partridge’s analytical discussion about the rise of alternate spirituality in the West in “The Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment of the West: The ReligioCultural Context of Contemporary Western Christianity,” Evangelical Quarterly, 74/3 2002, pp. 235-256. Partridge considers the need for contextual missional-apologetic responses to alternate spiritualities.

Harriet Hill, “Witchcraft and the Gospel: Insights from Africa,” Missiology, 24/3 July 1996, pp 319-344, examines witchcraft in the African context and contemplates the missiological challenges that arise from it. Although it does not interact with Western Witchcraft, the essay offers food for thought.

Christian studies on folk religion and animism also offer some good food for thought for Western Christians reflecting on Western Pagan thought. See David Burnett, Unearthly Powers: A Christian perspective on primal and folk religion (Eastbourne: MARC, 1988).

Gailyn Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1991). Paul G. Hiebert, R. Daniel Shaw & Tite Tiénou, Understanding Folk Religion: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1999).

CHRISTIANITY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT One of the popular misnomers is that orthodox Christian belief necessarily equates with social and political conservatism. Robert Booth Fowler, A New Engagement: Evangelical Political Thought 1966-1976 (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1982) readily debunks the idea that US evangelicals are solely committed to right-wing political activism. (Although Fowler’s book is confined to the US, it is the case that evangelical Christians in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand likewise cross a spectrum of political views from right wing to left-wing positions).

Among the prominent scholars on human rights is John Warwick Montgomery. Montgomery’s Human Rights & Human Dignity (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1986) provides a handsome survey of existing international legal covenants and systems pertaining to human rights, as well as clearly and succinctly surveying political and religious theories. Montgomery argues that “rights” by definition are “entitlements”, and “entitlements” necessarily implies relationships. From this juncture Montgomery considers the thorny problem of the justification of human rights and locates the solution in a transcendental perspective. In the course of discussion Montgomery explores how a transcendental perspective informs political and civil rights, economic rights and environmental rights.

Of related interest is Montgomery’s volume arising from his experiences in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square. See Giant in Chains: China Today and Tomorrow (Milton Keynes UK: Word Publishing, 1994).

Other publications that articulate Christian perspectives on human rights include RES Testimony on Human Rights (Grand Rapids MI: Reformed Ecumenical Synod, 1983). Marc Lienhard, “Protestantism and Human Rights,” Human Rights Teaching [UNESCO], 2/1 1981.

Keith Suter is a British-born Australian citizen who is a member of the Uniting Church in Australia. He holds two doctorates, one on the

international law of guerilla warfare, and the other on the economics of the arms race. He has been involved with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, the Trinity Peace Research Institute (Perth, Western Australia), the Minority Rights Group (London) and Wesley Central Mission (Sydney). His twin books Global Change: Armageddon and the New World Order (Sutherland NSW: Albatross Books, 1992) and Global Agenda: Economics, The Environment and the Nation-State (Sutherland NSW: Albatross Books, 1995) examine the issues of global governance, global warfare and global agendas, as well as spiraling economic growth versus the problem of diminishing natural resources and the environment.

Environmental issues are of concern to many Christians as can be measured by this small selection of publications. An important bibliographical index to this literature is Peter W. Bakken, Joan Gibb Engel & J. Ronald Engel, Ecology, Justice and Christian Faith: A Critical Guide to the Literature (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 36”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1995). This indexes some 500 publications over a 30-year period including creation-centred theologies, evangelical, process and feminist works. A general survey of evangelical literature is Jim Ball, “The Use of Ecology in the Evangelical Protestant Response to the Ecological Crisis,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith: Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 50/1 March 1998, pp.

32-40. Ball indicates there are four different approaches that evangelicals have taken.

A small sample of the evangelical material includes: Francis A. Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology (Wheaton IL: Tyndale House, 1970). John W. Klotz, Ecology Crisis: God’s Creation and Man’s Pollution (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1971). Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (Ed) Tending the Garden: Essays on the Gospel and the Earth (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1987). Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, Ecology and Life: Accepting Our Environmental Responsibility (Waco, Texas: Word, 1988). Stanley L. Donohoe, Earth Keeping: Making It A Family Habit (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1990).

William B. Badke, Project Earth: Preserving the World God Created (Portland OR: Multnomah Press, 1991). Calvin B. DeWitt (Ed) The Environment & the Christian: What Does the New Testament Say about the Environment? (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1991). Francis Bridger argues for an eschatologically informed approach to ecological issues in “Ecology and Eschatology: A Neglected Dimension,” Tyndale Bulletin, 41/2 November 1990, pp.

290-301.

Also see Ian Bradley, God is Green: Christianity and the Environment (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1990). Sean McDonagh, To care for the earth: a call to a new theology (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986) offers a model through process theology or panentheism rather than classical theism.

Andrew Linzey is a prominent Christian theologian and activist at Oxford University with a major concern for animal rights. A few of his writings include Animal Theology (London: SCM Press, 1994/Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). Idem, Animal Gospel: Christian Faith as Though Animals Mattered (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).

Idem, Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care (London: SCM Press, 1999). Also see Robert Wennberg, God, Humans and Animals: An Invitation to Enlarge Our Moral Universe (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans, 2002). John Chryssavgis (Ed) Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch Bartholomew 1 (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans, 2003).

CHRISTIANITY, WOMEN’S ISSUES & THEALOGY Among the thorniest of issues debated within Christian churches concerns the role of women. Much polarization of views revolves around pro and con arguments about women’s ordination to the clergy but often at the expense of the wider questions concerning women, gender roles, spirituality and empowerment for ministry (beyond the narrow confines of the pulpit). The word “thealogy” reflects a feminine view of speaking about the Divine.

A helpful bibliographical index is Mary-Paula Walsh, Feminism and Christian Tradition: An Annotated Bibliography and Critical Introduction to the Literature (“Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies 51”. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1999). This covers literature in the period from 1968-1993. The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion provides an academic forum where women’s issues in religion (not just within Christianity) are explored from historical, theological and phenomenological perspectives. Ria Kloppenborg & Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Eds) Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions, (Leiden: Brill, 1995), offers a broad survey covering the world’s religious traditions.

Karen Jo Torjesen, When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church & the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993) is a provocative study of the role of women in both Roman society and the early church. Ross Saunders, Outrageous Women Outrageous God: Women in the First Two Generations of

Christianity (Sydney: E. J. Dwyer Australia P/L, 1996) explores the prominent place of women in ministry in the New Testament church.

Alongside both these books one should also refer to James M. Arlandson, Women, Class, and Society in Early Christianity: Models from Luke-Acts (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997).

Arlandson explores the social world of the New Testament era and reminds readers that women in the classical world belonged throughout the entire spectrum of society from slaves through to landowners. His argument is that women’s lives within the early church must be understood in the light of their socio-economic class structures, and that the fundamental error is to assume that all women lived a uniform life. Arlandson provides evidence to show that there was certainly an under-class of women, just as there were wealthy and influential women. To assert that all women were oppressed by men in ancient society and in the ancient church is untenable and that the positive impact of the message of Christianity on women was quite profound.

A broad historical survey from the New Testament era to modern times is Ruth A. Tucker & Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament times to the present (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1987).

A critical internal debate representing a spectrum of mostly British views over women’s roles in the church is Shirley Lees (Ed) The Role of Women (“When Christians Disagree Series”. Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1984). A parallel volume reflecting American views is Bonnidell Clouse & Robert G. Clouse (Eds) Women in Ministry: Four Views (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989).

A colloquium of American evangelical essays is Alvera Mickelsen (Ed) Women, Authority & The Bible (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986).

Some British views are expressed in Ann Brown, Apology to Women: Christian Images of the female sex (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1991), and Ruth B. Edwards, The Case for Women’s Ministry (London: SPCK, 1989). Jann Aldredge Clanton, In Whose Image?

God and Gender (London: SCM Press, 1990) offers discussion about God and gender issues from the perspective of a woman who is a Southern Baptist pastor. A spectrum of Australian views are expressed in Maryanne Confoy, Dorothy A. Lee & Joan Nowotny (Eds) Freedom & Entrapment: Women Thinking Theology (Melbourne: Dove, 1995).

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992) argues for a depatriarchalized set of symbols and vocabulary to tackle the cultural crises of human relationships and the environment. Eleanor Rae, Women, the Earth, the Divine (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1994) operates from an Ecofeminist, Jungian perspective and approaches ecological issues through the prism of process theology.

From within an orthodox Christian theological standpoint there is much to be gleaned from Aida Besançon Spencer, Donna F. G. Hailson, Catherine Clark Kroeger & William David Spencer, The Goddess Revival (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 1995). Two personal stories include Alison Lentini, “Circle of Sisters: A Journey Through Elemental Feminism,” SCP Newsletter, 11/3 Fall 1985, pp. 12-17 (refer to the Spiritual Counterfeits Project at www.scp-inc.org/), and Olive M. Fleming Drane, Clowns, Storytellers, Disciples: Spirituality & Creativity for Today’s Church (Oxford UK: Bible Reading Fellowship, 2002).

The subject of thealogy has been taken up by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment (Sheffield UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) and in Introducing Thealogy (New York: Pilgrim Press, 2001).

HARRY POTTER, WITCHCRAFT AND CHRISTIAN POLEMICS One of the contested issues in popular Christian culture concerns the children’s stories about Harry Potter. Within Christian networks a spectrum of attitudes may be found concerning the Harry Potter novels and movies. A strong polemic against the Harry Potter stories is made in Richard Abanes, Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magick (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Horizon Books, 2001). Although Abanes does not claim that the Harry Potter stories genuinely represent Wiccan spirituality, his primary arguments focus on divinatory practices and their incompatibility with the Bible, and questioning the ethical behaviour of the characters.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the twin books by Connie Neal, What’s A Christian To Do With Harry Potter? (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Waterbrook Press, 2001); and, The Gospel According to Harry Potter: Spirituality in the Stories of the World’s Most Famous Seeker (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). Neal argues that the Harry Potter stories contain analogies to the gospel that allows for positive discussion about the figure of Jesus.

A mediating position between Abanes and Neal is found in Peter Furst and Craig Heilmann, Hogwarts or Hogwash? The Harry Potter

Phenomenon and Your Child (Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand: Lyme Grove House, 2001).

A brief academic reflection on the controversy can be found in Kim Snelling, “Imagining Alternatives: Fantasy, The New Age and The ‘Cultic Milieu’” in Seeking the Centre: 2001 Australian International Religion Literature and the Arts Conference Proceedings, Colette Rayment and Mark Levon Byrne editors (Sydney: Society for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, Department of Religion, The University of Sydney, 2002), pp. 180-190. For a biographical study on the author of the Harry Potter novels see Connie Ann Kirk, J. K. Rowling: A Biography (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2003).

On the role of myth and allegory in Christian apologetics see John Warwick Montgomery (ed) Myth, Allegory and Gospel: An Interpretation of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton and Charles Williams (Minneapolis MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1974). Also see Philip Johnson, “Apologetics and Myths: Signs of Salvation in Postmodernity,” Lutheran Theological Journal, 32/2 July 1999, pp.

62-72.

PART TWO: RELIGIONS

ANCIENT

&

MEDIEVAL

PAGAN

Although contemporary Pagan spirituality in the West is culturally and metaphysically a modern religion, many Pagans look for inspiration to the ancient world. One scholar, whose theories have been important for contemporary Pagan and Wiccan thought, is the late archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994). She has argued that a matrifocal culture existed in Upper Paleolithic settlements in Europe. Her conclusions that a dominant mother goddess religion flourished in pre-literate European culture is based in part on her interpretation of feminine figurines found in a variety of excavations.

Perhaps Gimbutas’ best-known and most accessible book is The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images (2nd Ed. Berkeley, Los Angeles & New York: University of California Press, 1992). Gimbutas’ theory has provoked much debate with supporters and detractors. Some of her supporters have contributed letters and articles that can be perused on-line at www.belili.org/.

A spectrum of critical and sympathetic feminist scholarly views about Gimbutas’ theory can be found in a series of essays published in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 12/2 Fall 1996. Brief critical observations will be found in Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, mentioned earlier. Also relevant is Kathryn Rountree,

“The Past is a Foreigners' Country: Goddess Feminists, Archaeologists, and the Appropriation of Prehistory,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 16/1 January 2001, pp. 5-27.

PAGAN RELIGIONS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST The Pagan religions of the ancient near east, particularly those that intersect with Biblical epochs, are dealt with in different texts. An introductory study of ancient Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine is Marie-Louise Thomsen & Frederick H. Cryer, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Volume 1. Biblical and Pagan Societies (London: Athlone Press, 2001). This volume however needs to be supplemented with reference to the following three texts: the standard German study

by Helmer Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East (translated

by John Sturdy. London: SPCK, 1973); and Jack Finegan, Myth and Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 1997), and Daniel I. Block, The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology (2nd Ed. Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2000).

A succinct introductory monograph on Ugaritic culture and religion and its connections with Biblical times is Peter C. Craigie, Ugarit and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1983). A general historical treatment of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt is William W. Hallo & William Kelly Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History (New York, Chicago, San Francisco & Atlanta: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). On later Egyptian history see the standard textbook Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 BC) (2nd Ed. Warminster UK: Aris & Phillips, 1986). On the religion of ancient Egypt start with Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (translated by Ann E. Keep. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1992).

Contact between Greece and the Near East is explored in Edwin M. Yamauchi, Greece and Babylon: Early Contacts between the Aegean and the Near East (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1967).

Also see Yamauchi’s essay, “Daniel and Contacts Between the Aegean and the Near East Before Alexander,” Evangelical Quarterly, 53/1 January-March 1981, pp. 37-47. On Persian religions and their connections to Biblical times start with Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1990).

Also relevant for general background and reference Wiseman (ed) Peoples of Old Testament Times Clarendon Press, 1973), and Alfred J. Hoerth, Gerald Edwin M. Yamauchi, Peoples of the Old Testament Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1998).

are Donald J. (Oxford UK: L. Mattingly & World (Grand

BIBLICAL RELIGION OF THE ISRAELITES The religion of the Israelites proclaimed monotheism and differed greatly from the polytheism of the ancient near eastern world. Any effort to understand ancient Pagan religions needs to be counterbalanced by a careful investigation into the religion of Israel.

For a general introduction to the Old Testament see William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard & Frederic William Bush, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form and Background of the Old Testament (2nd Ed. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1996).

For the history of ancient Israel start with Walter C. Kaiser, A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age Through the Jewish Wars (Nashville TN: Broadman & Holman, 1998). Kaiser’s work can be contrasted somewhat with John Bright, A History of Israel (3rd edition. London: SCM Press, 1981). On the exilic and post-exilic periods also see Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC (London: SCM Press, 1968).

On the historicity of the Old Testament text and manuscripts see Walter Kaiser, The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant? (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003).

With the religion of the Patriarchs start with this essay by G. J. Wenham, “The religion of the patriarchs,” in Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives, edited by A. R. Millard & D. J. Wiseman (Leicester UK: InterVarsity Press, 1980), pp. 157-188. On the theology of the Israelites start with Walter Kaiser, Toward an Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1991). Also see R. E. Clements, Old Testament Theology: A Fresh Approach (Basingstoke: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1978).

Both creation theology and the immanence of God’s Spirit are interwoven throughout much of the Old Testament. These are two theological subjects where Christians can fruitfully interact with Pagans. On creation theology start with Walter Brueggeman, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). Bernhard W. Anderson (Ed) Creation in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press/London: SPCK, 1984). Of related interest see William J. Dumbrell, Covenant

and Creation: A Theology of Old Testament Covenants (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984).

On the theology of God’s Spirit and immanence in the Old Testament start with Wilf Hildebrandt, An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995). B. B. Warfield, “The Spirit of God in the Old Testament,” in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1968), pp. 127-156.

A lively argument about the subjugated place of women under ancient near eastern goddess religions as contrasted with the egalitarian faith of the Israelites is presented by the feminist-Jewish scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In The Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: The Free Press, 1992).

GRECO-ROMAN PAGAN RELIGIONS & CHRISTIANITY A very helpful introduction is Antonía Tripolitis, Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002), which covers the period from Alexander the Great through to the fourth century AD. Also important is A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (2 Vols. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1972). For ancient Pagan religion in Britain see Ronald Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy (Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1991).

Margaret Murray developed a thesis in the early twentieth century concerning a mother goddess cult in the ancient world. Her thesis was best expressed in The Witch Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921). Scholars in various disciplines have rejected Murray’s thesis as untenable. Start with Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons (Falmer: Sussex University Press, 1975), pp. 102-125. Also see Jacqueline Simpson, “Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why?” Folklore, 105 1994, pp. 8996.

A seminal essay about method and the study of the mystery religions is Bruce M. Metzger, “Considerations of Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity,” Harvard Theological Review, 48/1 January 1955, pp. 1-20. On the religious background to the New Testament start with this brief essay, John W. Drane, “The Religious Background,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Method, edited by I.

Howard Marshall (Revised edition. Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1985), pp. 117-125.

On the historical background to the New Testament era start with the general textbook by F. F. Bruce, New Testament History (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971). For brief selections from primary source documents of Greco-Roman writers, rabbinic literature, mystery religions, the Hermetica etc see C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (London: SPCK, 1956). Martin Hengel, Jews, Greeks and Barbarians: Aspects of the Hellenization of Judaism in the Pre-Christian Period (Translated by John Bowden. London: SCM Press, 1980) is a more specialized study that explores the impact of Greek culture on Palestine from the period of Alexander the Great until Antiochus III in 187 BC. Also refer to the works of Edwin Yamauchi (noted above on Greece and Babylon).

Two basic introductory works on the history of the New Testament period are Bruce M. Metzger, The New Testament: its background, growth, and content (Nashville TN: Abingdon Press, 1965), and Paul W. Barnett, Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity: A history of New Testament Times (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999).

This book is more substantial than Barnett’s earlier work Bethlehem to Patmos: The New Testament Story (Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989).

For a basic introduction to the New Testament start with D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo & Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Leicester: Apollos, 1992).

On the manuscripts of the New Testament or the science of textual criticism see J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1964). Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (2nd edition. Oxford UK: Clarendon Press, 1968). Jack Finegan, Encountering New Testament Manuscripts: A Working introduction to Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1974).

The question of the composition, authorship and date of the various books of the New Testament is important. These questions are tackled in Carson, Moo & Morris (above), but more specialized studies are noted here. An elementary exploration of these issues is found in F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (6th edition. Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1981). For a detailed discussion start with John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1976). On the Synoptic

Gospels see John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (London & Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991).

APOCRYPHAL AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHAL WRITINGS The canon of texts included in the New Testament comprises 27 books. A lot of other literature exists that the early church deemed to be unscriptural. It is popular to assume that the excluded books were therefore censored or deliberately destroyed for reasons of power, privilege and political expediency.

On the question of how books came to be canonical start with the general survey text Norman L. Geisler & William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1968). A significant reference work is P. R. Ackroyd & C. F. Evans (Eds) The Cambridge History of the Bible (3 Vols. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford UK: Clarendon Press, 1987).

A useful introductory guide to the non-canonical literature (replete with bibliographical leads on scholarly studies) is Craig A. Evans, Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992). Bruce M. Metzger, “Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 91 1972, pp. 3-24, remains an important essay on the topic.

In modern times claims about newly discovered documents that purport to fill in the hidden years of Jesus have often been made.

Invariably these documents have proven to be forgeries. See Edgar J. Goodspeed, Modern Apocrypha (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), and Per Beskow, Strange Tales About Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (2nd edition. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).

DEAD SEA SCROLLS & CHRISTIANITY Ever since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have fired the imaginations of popular writers who have conjectured about Christian origins or made conspiratorial allegations about suppressed documents. A typical example of this is the popular book Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception (London: Corgi Books, 1992). These sorts of massmarket books that allege deliberate cover-ups and prompt conspiratorial theories are unscholarly and unhelpful in learning about the sectarian group that composed these scrolls. Although the Dead Sea Scrolls are not “Pagan”, contemporary Pagan adepts may

be susceptible to uncritical acceptance of popular books about the Scrolls and without being aware that the claims made in that literature cannot be substantiated by scholarship.

The Scrolls are undeniably important for illuminating the world of Jewish apocalyptic beliefs prior to the establishment of the Christian Church. A clear general introduction to the story of the Scrolls’ discovery and their importance for Biblical studies is Edward M. Cook, Solving the Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Light on the Bible (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1994). A very accessible translation of the major scrolls is Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (3rd edition. London: Penguin, 1987).

Significant scholarly studies on the relationship between the Scrolls and the New Testament include Matthew Black, The Scrolls and Christian Origins: Studies in the Jewish Background of the New Testament (Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1983). William Sanford LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1972). J. H. Charlesworth (Ed) Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1992). J. Murphy-O’Connor & J. H. Charlesworth (Eds) Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1990).

Two scholars who have produced controversial theories about the Scrolls and their relationship to Christian origins are John M. Allegro and Barbara Thiering.

John Allegro was involved in the translation work on the “Copper Scroll”. Allegro subsequently developed a viewpoint that Christian beliefs were myths based partially on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He argued, inter alia, that a hallucinogenic mushroom drug was used by the early Christians in The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), and he advanced his views in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (London: Abacus, 1981).

Allegro’s views have been responded to by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “A Sample of Scrollduggery,” in Christianity for the Tough Minded (Minneapolis MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1973), pp. 272-279. Fitzmyer is a scholar of both the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

W. H. C. Frend, “Worshipping the Red Mushroom,” New York Review of Books, Vol. 15, December 1970, pp. 12-14. Frend is a historian of the early church. John C. King, A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970), is a popular styled rebuttal.

Barbara Thiering, who is emeritus lecturer in Old Testament Studies from the School of Divinity at the University of Sydney, has argued

that Jesus and the early Christians were a reformist group that emerged out of the Qumran community. Thiering explicated her view in three scholarly texts: Redating the Teacher of Righteousness (Sydney: Theological Explorations, 1979), The Gospels and Qumran: A New Hypothesis (Sydney: Theological Explorations, 1981), and The Qumran Origins of the Christian Church (Sydney: Theological Explorations, 1983). She then popularized her views in Jesus the Man: A New Interpretation from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Sydney: Doubleday, 1992) and released in the USA as Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). She subsequently produced two other popular books Jesus of the Apocalypse: the Life of Jesus After the Crucifixion (Sydney: Doubleday, 1995) and The Book That Jesus Wrote: John’s Gospel (Sydney: Doubleday, 1998).

Scholars of differing worldview persuasions have assessed Barbara Thiering’s views. Critical book reviews have been published as follows: Philip R. Davies, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 18 1980, pp. 123-127. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Revue Biblique, 87 1980, pp. 425-430. Arvid S. Kapelrud, Journal of Semitic Studies, 26 1981, pp. 127-128. Robert North, Biblica, 63 1982, pp. 117-118. Ben Zion Wacholder, Journal of Biblical Literature, 101/1 1982, pp. 147-148. A. R. C. Leaney, Journal of Theological Studies, 34 1983, pp. 235-237. B. A. Mastin, Revue de Qumran, 12 1985, pp. 125-128. Richard White, Journal of Jewish Studies, 36 1985, pp. 237-238.

Two New Testament scholars have also responded to Thiering’s views see N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? (London: SPCK, 1992), pp.

19-36. Paul W. Barnett, The Truth About Jesus: The Challenge of Evidence (Sydney: Aquila Press, 1994), pp. 2-6.

GNOSTICISM Studies on Gnostic religion have received some considerable impetus since the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi Coptic texts in Egypt. The Nag Hammadi documents are available in a onevolume English translation see James M. Robinson (Ed) The Nag Hammadi Library (3rd edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1990). A bibliographical survey of scholarly works related to the Nag Hammadi texts is David Scholer, Nag Hammadi Bibliography 1948-1969 (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1971). David M. Scholer, Nag Hammadi Bibliography, 1970-1994 (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1997). Scholer continues to update his bibliographical studies in the scholarly journal Novum Testamentum.

Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity (2nd edition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963) offers a useful introduction into ancient Gnostic belief and argues that Gnosticism was a religious phenomenon of the Hellenistic world, fusing together Greek and Oriental beliefs.

A broad survey of gnostic ideas across the centuries is found in Roelof van den Broek & Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Eds) Gnosis and Hermeticism: From Antiquity to Modern Times (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1998). Colloquia of scholarly papers on various facets of Gnosticism have been collected in Martin Krause (Ed) Gnosis and Gnosticism (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1977). R. McL. Wilson (Ed) Nag Hammadi and Gnosis (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1978). Bentley Layton (Ed) The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: I. The School of Valentinus (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1980). Idem, The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: II. Sethian Gnosticism (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1981).

A minority of writers, have from time to time, claimed that the concept of Jesus Christ as a dying redeemer was based on Gnostic sources. The evidence for Gnosticism pre-existing Christianity has been thoroughly reviewed by Edwin M. Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A Survey of the Proposed Evidences (2nd edition. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1983). Yamauchi concludes that on the basis of the extant evidence it is difficult to argue a positive case for pre-existent Gnosticism. The notion of the redeemer is really grounded in the Jewish scriptures as is argued by C. H. Talbert, “The Myth of the Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity,” New Testament Studies, 22 1976, pp.

418-440.

Related to this is the quest for establishing the existence of Jewish Gnosticism. On this topic see Edwin Yamauchi, “The Descent of Ishtar, the Fall of Sophia, and the Jewish Roots of Gnosticism,” Tyndale Bulletin, 29 1978, pp. 140-171. Idem, Jewish Gnosticism?

The Prologue of John, Mandaean Parallels, and the Trimorphic Protennoia,” in Roelof van den Broek & M. J. Vermaseren (Eds) Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1981), pp. 467-497.

On New Testament studies and Gnosticism start with R. McL. Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968). Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in Gnostic Literature,” Biblica, 62 1981, pp. 406-412. C. W. Hedrick & R. Hodgson (Eds) Nag

Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Hendrickson Publishers, 1986).

Christianity

(Peabody

MA:

A very useful discussion about the Nag Hammadi discoveries and the popular, conspiratorial interpretation of these codices (and other rediscovered documents) is found in Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

FREKE-GANDY THESIS In recent times two non-Christian intellectuals have argued that early Christianity borrowed heavily from the Hellenistic and ancient near eastern Pagan religions, and that Jesus was not an historical personage. This is presented in Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God? (London: Thorsons, 1999), and supplemented in Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, Jesus and the Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians (London: Thorsons, 2001). There are manifold problems and weaknesses with their argument, and some of the following literature should be read by way of critical contrast. The texts listed do not interact with Freke and Gandy’s thesis, but the data presented does vitiate the cogency of their cumulative case.

Historicity of Jesus As Freke and Gandy deny that Jesus was a historical personage one needs to examine what primary source evidence exists. On the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth start with John Warwick Montgomery, History, Law and Christianity (Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology & Public Policy, 2002). Gary R. Habermas, Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus: Historical Records of His Death and Resurrection (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984). Sir Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Leicester UK/Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985). Michael J. Wilkins & J. P. Moreland (Eds) Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1995). On the biblical gospel documents as historical sources also see Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Leicester UK/Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1987). Paul W. Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History (Leicester UK: Apollos, 1997).

The extra-biblical evidence for Jesus’ existence is assessed in these texts: F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1974), and David Wenham (Ed) Gospel Perspectives Volume 5: The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels (Sheffield UK: JSOT Press, 1984).

Resurrection Narratives & History On the resurrection narratives and history see Terry L. Miethe (Ed) Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). Miethe’s volume includes the transcript of a formal debate between British atheist philosopher Antony Flew and evangelical apologist Gary Habermas, and includes responses to the debate from various scholars. William Lane Craig, Assessing The New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston NY/Queenston, Ontario/Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989) provides a highly technical analysis of the matter. The same problem is analyzed on legal evidential criteria in Ross Clifford, Leading Lawyers’ Case For The Resurrection (Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology & Public Policy, 1996).

Rise of Christianity In contrast to the position taken by Freke and Gandy, readers ought to be acquainted with the history of the early church. One can start with Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, 1990), and W. H. C. Frend, The Early Church: From the beginnings to 461 (3rd Ed. London: SCM Press, 1991). Frend has produced a much lengthier treatment in The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity (7 Vols. Reprint edition. Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1970), offers a broad global survey of Church history and mission from the first century AD until the mid-twentieth century.

Development of Doctrine As a backdrop to the Freke and Gandy thesis, one should also consider how Christian doctrine developed from the New Testament era up to the early Church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries.

J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Revised edition. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978) constitutes an excellent starting point. Alongside Kelly is Bengt Hägglund, History of Theology (translated by Gene J. Lund. St. Louis MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1968). Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. I. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1971). On the thorny subject of heresy see the superlative

study by Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1984).

Morton Smith’s Theories Freke and Gandy rely in part on the writings of Morton Smith who claimed he found a fragment of what he called the Secret Gospel of Mark, and then later elaborated his view to say Jesus was a practitioner of magic. Smith’s books include Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), The Secret Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), and Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978). A postscript by Smith was his survey of most (but not all) critical responses to his work in “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,” Harvard Theological Review, 75/4 1982, pp. 449-461.

Morton Smith’s findings about the Secret Gospel have been assessed by Edwin M. Yamauchi, “A Secret Gospel of Jesus as ‘Magnus’? A Review of the recent works of Morton Smith,” Christian Scholar’s Review, 4/3 1975, pp. 238-251. Smith either was unaware of or simply overlooked Yamauchi’s paper when composing his survey of responses for the Harvard Theological Review.

F. F. Bruce, The ‘Secret’ Gospel of Mark (London: Athlone Press, 1974). Raymond E. Brown, “The Relation of ‘the Secret Gospel of Mark’ to the Fourth Gospel,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 36 1974, pp. 466-485. Both Bruce and Brown accept as a working hypothesis that the fragmentary document is genuine, but are critical of Smith’s interpretations and conclusions.

Q. Quesnell, “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 37 1975, pp. 48-67. Quesnell suggested the document was a forgery and possibly Smith was the perpetrator! Smith’s reply to Quesnell and Quesnell’s rejoinder appear in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 38 1976 pp 196-199 & 200203 respectively.

Also refer to Pierson Parker, “On Professor Morton Smith’s Find at Mar-Saba,” Anglican Theological Review, 56/1 1974, pp. 51-57; and, Robert M. Grant, “Morton Smith’s Two Books,” Anglican Theological Review, 56/1 1974, pp. 58-64. Paul J. Achtemeier reviewed Smith’s first two books in Journal of Biblical Literature, 93 1974, pp. 625-628. R. P. C. Hanson reviewed Smith’s Clement of Alexandria book in Journal of Theological Studies, 25 1974, pp. 513521.

Smith’s claims about Jesus and magic have been discussed by Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in Gospel Perspectives: Volume 6: The Miracles of Jesus, edited by David Wenham & Craig Blomberg (Sheffield UK: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 89-183. Yamauchi, inter alia, finds fault with Smith’s anachronistic use of third and fourth century evidence applied to the first century milieu.

O. C. Edwards reviewed Jesus the Magician in Anglican Theological Review, 61 1979, pp. 515-517, and wryly observed, “The publishing program of Morton Smith seems to be to discredit Christianity … I would be very interested to learn how this parish priest of the 1940s came to so oppose the religion in which he was ordained, because the words that ran through my mind constantly while reading Jesus the Magician were those of Schweitzer about Reimarus: ‘Seldom has there been a hate so eloquent, so lofty a scorn.’”

A recent but brief assessment of Smith’s position is found in James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (“Pillar New Testament Commentary Series”. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 2001), pp. 509-512.

Gnostic Evidences Another element in the Freke and Gandy hypothesis concerns the existence of Gnostic Christianity. Readers need to exercise care here as the dating of Gnosticism is in dispute. One methodological issue to be alert to is the anachronistic and flawed use of 3rd and 4th century AD documents used as evidence for 1st century Gnosticism.

On this point start with Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Pre-Christian Gnosticism in the Nag Hammadi Texts?” Church History, 48 1979, pp. 129-141, and also see Yamauchi’s monograph Pre-Christian Gnosticism (2nd Ed. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1983).

Also refer to the literature above on Gnosticism.

Mandaean Gnostics The Mandaeans are a small Gnostic community that developed later on and still survives in Iran to this day. Mandaean evidences are sometimes used to argue for Christian dependence on the Gnostics.

On the Mandaeans see Edmondo Lupieri, The Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics (translated by Charles Hindley. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002). Also see Edwin M. Yamauchi, Mandaean Incantation Texts (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1967) and Yamauchi’s Gnostic Ethics and Mandaean Origins (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).

Christian Rites Borrowed?

Freke and Gandy claim that parallels between early Christian beliefs and practices (e.g. sacramental bread & wine; death and resurrection of Jesus) are evidence of borrowings from Pagan religions. The question of parallels, influences and alleged borrowings generally are assessed in Ronald Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1984). The claim that Christians borrowed from Mithraism and the Taurobolium cult are dealt with in Edwin M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1990), pp. 493-521. Another alleged borrowing concerns the myth of Tammuz and this is analyzed in Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Tammuz and the Bible,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 84 1965, pp. 283-290.

On the claim that the resurrection of Jesus is borrowed from other religions or that other messiahs have risen from the dead see Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Religious Studies, 25 1989, pp. 167-177. An argument is presented

by Leon McKenzie, Pagan Resurrection Myths and the Resurrection of Jesus: A Christian Perspective (Charlottesville VA: Bookwrights Press, 1997) that the Pagan myths of a dying and rising god are actually archetypal longings that anticipate what is concretely fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Also see C. H. Talbert, “The Myth of the Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity,” New Testament Studies, 22 1976, pp. 418-440.

It should also be noted that too many untenable claims about Christian belief being derivative from Pagan religions are often drawn from James George Frazer’s nineteenth century work The Golden Bough. Frazer’s work on the age of magic preceding the age of religion and also on dying/rising gods need to sifted very carefully. Eric Sharpe in Comparative Religion: A History (London: Duckworth, 1975) remarked on the former issue: “Unfortunately, this thesis has since been shown to be quite wrong.” (p. 92). On Frazer’s life see Robert Ackerman, J. G. Frazer: His Life and Work (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Assessments of Frazer include R. Angus Downie, Frazer and “The Golden Bough” (London: Victor Gollancz, 1970). J. Z. Smith, “When the Bough Breaks,” History of Religions, 12/4 1973, pp. 342-371. Also see Ronald Hutton’s remarks on Frazer in The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 114-124. A critical but sympathetic appraisal is offered by J. N. Bremmer, “James George Frazer en The Golden Bough,” Hermeneus, 68/4 1996, pp. 212-221.

CONVERSION OF PAGAN EUROPE, MEDIEVAL AND POSTRENAISSANCE WITCHCRAFT Conversion of Pagan Europe The conversion of Pagans to Christianity in Europe from the first century AD through to the Middle Ages is sometimes popularly misconstrued as being one of continual violence, intolerance, and repression toward Pagans. A very thorough study of both the good and the bad is Richard Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity 371 – 1386 AD (London: Harper Collins, 1997). A briefer treatment is F. F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame: The Rise of Christianity from John the Baptist to the Conversion of the English (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1958). To this one should not overlook the Christian historical sources of Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (translated by Leo Sherley-Price.

Revised edition. London: Penguin, 1990).

How the Pagans viewed the early Christians is a topic explored in R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1984). Also see M. Sordi, The Christians and the Roman Empire (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986). Also very pertinent is John Granger Cook, The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), which considers how Pagans read and reacted to the New Testament. Essays related to PaganChristian interactions include Ramsay Macmullen, “Two Types of Conversion to Early Christianity,” Vigiliae Christianae, 37 1983, pp.

174-192. Gerald Bonner, “The Extinction of Paganism and the Church Historian,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 35/3 July 1984, pp. 339-357. Clifford Ando, “Pagan Apologetics and Christian Intolerance in the Ages of Themistius and Augustine,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 4/2 1996, pp. 171-207.

Christian apologetic interactions with Pagans can be examined by reading the Church Fathers. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, and The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers comprise a multi-volume series published by Wm. Eerdmans Publishing. Some useful collateral studies include J. K. S. Reid, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids MI: Wm. Eerdmans Publishing, 1970). Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (Reprint edition. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999). Mark Edwards, Martin Goodman & Simon Price (Eds) Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999). Henry Chadwick, “Justin Martyr’s Defence of Christianity,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 47 1965, pp.

275-297.

Celts For both contemporary Pagans and Christians the subject of the Celts provides a never-ending opportunity for romantic reinterpretations about their culture and beliefs. A useful commencement point is Marion Bowman, “Reinventing the Celts,” Religion, 23/1 1993, pp. 47-56. A broad scholarly study is Terence Brown (Ed) Celticism (Amsterdam: Studia Imagologica, 1996).

For the pre-Christian Celts start with Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Translated by Cyril Edwards.

Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester NY: Boydell Press, 1997), which contains about 1,000 entries on Celtic culture, beliefs etc. For the Greco-Roman sources about the Celts see H. D. Rankin, Celts and the Classical World (Portland OR: Areopagitica Press, 1987).

General historical studies include Nora Chadwick, The Celts (London: Penguin, 1997). Aedeen Cremin, The Celts in Europe (Sydney: Centre for Celtic Studies University of Sydney, 1992).

Ronald Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy (Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1991). Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain: studies in iconography and tradition (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1996). H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: early Scandinavian and Celtic religions (Manchester UK: Manchester University Press, 1988).

On the topic of Christianity and the Celts see Ian Bradley, Celtic Christianity: Making Myths and Chasing Dreams (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999) discusses the phenomenon of “Celtic Christianity”. Equally valuable is Donald E. Meek, The Quest for Celtic Christianity (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 2000). Shorter discussions can be found in Donald E. Meek, “Celtic Christianity: what is it, and when was it?” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 9/1 1991, pp. 6-31, and Idem, “Modern Celtic Christianity: the contemporary revival and its roots,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 10/1 1992, pp. 13-21.

A valuable study of the early Irish theological contributions is Thomas O’Loughlin, Celtic Theology: Humanity, World and God in Early Irish Writings (London & New York: Continuum, 2000).

Alongside this refer to the basic historical treatment by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 (London & New York: Longman, 1995), and on literature see Thomas Owen Clancy & Gilbert Márkus (Eds) Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995). Peter Brown, The Book of Kells (London: Thames & Hudson, 1980) provides a readable scholarly analysis of the background to the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells comprises an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels. Brown, who was the librarian of Trinity College in Dublin

where the Book of Kells is held, also discusses the artistry, text and writing.

A richly photographed and readable introduction to Ireland’s patron saint is Brian De Breffny, In The Steps of St. Patrick (London: Thames & Hudson, 1982). The value of this book is its concise portrait of Patrick’s life, the mapping out of the subsequent myth making about Patrick, and includes translations of Patrick’s Confession and Letter to Coroticus. Eleanor Shipley Duckett, The Gateway to the Middle Ages Monasticism (Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press, 1938) provides a basic introduction to the topic of Roman and Celtic monasticism. A general historical sketch of the Middle Ages from 700-1520 is R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1970).

Medieval Witchcraft & Witch Trials A considerable corpus of scholarly literature exists on the subject of medieval Witchcraft and also on the Witch Trials of Europe and North America. A phenomenological introductory discussion is Mircea Eliade, “Some Observations on European Witchcraft,” History of Religions, 14 1975, pp. 149-172. This essay is reprinted in Eliade’s Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions: Essays in Comparative Religions (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

An important study is Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca NY & London: Cornell University Press, 1972), while his A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans (London: Thames & Hudson, 1980) is a succinct and popular treatment.

On medieval magic, the Norse occult traditions and church attitudes toward superstition between the fifth and sixteenth centuries see Karen Jolly, Catharina Raudvere and Edward Peters, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages (“The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Volume 3”. London: Athlone Press, 2002). A companion volume to this one is Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark and William Monter, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials (“The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Volume 4. London: Athlone Press, 2002).

The primary source of the Catholic Inquisition’s pursuit of Witches is Montague Summers (Ed) The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Spencer (Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1971). For studies on the Witch Trials see, in addition to Russell’s books above, Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300-1500 (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976), and

Joseph Klaits, Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester & Gareth Roberts (Eds) Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Other important studies include Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (London: Harper Collins, 1996). James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550-1750 (London: Hamilton, 1996). Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1997).

More specialized discussions on aspects of European Witchcraft generally and other discussions about the Trials can be found in the following journal essays. H. C. Erik Midelfort, “Witchcraft and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Germany: The Formation and Consequences of an Orthodoxy,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 62 1971, pp. 266-278. Donald Nugent, “The Renaissance and/of Witchcraft,” Church History, 40 1971, pp. 69-78. Peter F. Jensen, “Calvin and Witchcraft,” Reformed Theological Review, 34 1975, pp.

76-86. Stuart Clark & P.T.J. Morgan, “Religion and Magic in Elizabethan Wales: Robert Holland’s Dialogue on Witchcraft,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 27 1976, pp 31-46.

The juridical and human rights issues arising from the Witch Trials have been discussed in John Warwick Montgomery, “Witch Trial Theory and Practice,” in The Law Above The Law (Minneapolis MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), pp. 58-83.