Absorbing old religion
January 28, 2015 at 2:48 pm
(This post was last modified: January 28, 2015 at 2:50 pm by watchamadoodle.)
Imagine you conquer some pagans and force them to become Christians. How do you accomplish that when people are very attached to their old religion? Apparently a popular method was to absorb the old religion into Christianity. If the people worship a fertility goddess, then convince them that St. Mary is the same goddess. Some of the mythological stories about the fertility goddess become stories about St. Mary.
This process of absorbing the old religion probably happened on a smaller scale too. When a new political group became dominant in a religion, they would not be able to force their new orthodoxy on the masses. Instead they would try to absorb the old traditions into the new traditions.
Probably the oddities in religious texts and traditions would provide clues to earlier traditions.
Sorry if this is boring.
This process of absorbing the old religion probably happened on a smaller scale too. When a new political group became dominant in a religion, they would not be able to force their new orthodoxy on the masses. Instead they would try to absorb the old traditions into the new traditions.
Probably the oddities in religious texts and traditions would provide clues to earlier traditions.
Sorry if this is boring.
