Sejarah agama itu apa sih?

Sejarah agama merujuk kepada catatan tertulis dari pengalaman dan gagasan agama manusia. Periode sejarah agama dimulai dengan penemuan penulisan pada sekitar 5.200 tahun lampau (3200 SM). Agama dari zaman prasejarah melibatkan kajian keyakinan agama yang ada sebelum kemajuan catatan tertulis. Seseorang dapat juga mengkaji kronologi agama-agama komparatif melalui linimasa agama. Penulisan memainkan peran besar dalam teks-teks agama yang terstandardisasi tanpa memandang waktu atau tempat, dan memudahkan pengingatan doa dan perintah ilahi. Kasus Alkitab melibatkan pengumpulan berbagai penjelasan lisan yang diturunkan selama berabad-abad.

Carus, Paul. The history of the devil and the idea of evil: from the earliest times to the present day (1899) full text

Eliade, Mircea, and Joan P. Culianu. The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religion: The A-to-Z Encyclopedia of All the Major Religious Traditions (1999) covers 33 principal religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Shinto, Shamanism, Taoism, South American religions, Baltic and Slavic religions, Confucianism, and the religions of Africa and Oceania.

Eliade, Mircea ed. Encyclopedia of Religion (16 vol. 1986; 2nd ed 15 vol. 2005; online at Gale Virtual Reference Library). 3300 articles in 15,000 pages by 2000 experts.

Ellwood, Robert S. and Gregory D. Alles. The Encyclopedia of World Religions (2007) 528pp; for middle schools

Gilley, Sheridan; Shiels, W. J. History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present (1994) 590pp

Marshall, Peter. "(Re)defining the English Reformation," Journal of British Studies, July 2009, Vol. 48#3 pp 564–586

Schultz, Kevin M.; Harvey, Paul. "Everywhere and Nowhere: Recent Trends in American Religious History and Historiography," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 2010, Vol. 78#1 pp 129–162

Wilson, John F. Religion and the American Nation: Historiography and History (2003) 119pp