Written in response to a person on exChristian.net asking for unbiased source on history of religion and how they developed.



Oh boy! I don't know of a single volume that covers world religions per se though I'm sure they do exist. I'll list a few sources I found helpful in my own studies, both personal interest and formal courses.

1. CD To See, To Be, To Do: How World Religions Define God, The Universe, and Reality available here. Copyright 2004. If you don't want to order the CD, you may be interested in browsing the website Encounter World Religions Centre as a starting point. I attended the presentation in my school a few years ago and was duly impressed.
Quote:
Quote from CD: We're going to be emphasizing how religions perceive God and the universe and reality in different ways--not to point out their differences and to say "See how unalike we are--we have nothing in common--we can't discuss anything--we'll never understand one another." Rather, it's to say "See how we can appreciate one another by understanding another's fruitfulness. We're able to have a dialogue of understandings."
My transcription.

2. World Religions: Eastern Traditions and World Religions: Western Traditions, 2nd ed, edited by Willard G. Oxtoby, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 2002. (These two books go together as a set. There is a chapter for each of about ten major world religions, most of which are written by practicing members of the religion the chapter is about.)

3. Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion, by William E. Paden, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994.

4. The Meaning and End of Religion, by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1991.

5. Ancient Mystery Cults, by Walter Burkert, Harvard University Press, 1987 (What I like about study of the Mystery Cults, and Ancient Greek and Roman Religions and Cultures, is that they directly preceded our own Western culture (I speak as a European descendent) and directly impacted the formation of Christianity. However, they are long past and dead, which means no one has any allegiance to them today, but we can see how they compare to present-day beliefs and practices of various religions.)

6. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts, by Marvin W. Meyer, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

That touches: World Religions, Comparative Religion, and Mystery Religions. Religion can also be studied from the perspective of sociology, anthropology, and psychology, e.g. Sociology of Religion, by Max Weber.

As for History of Christianity, I really like The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, edited by John McManners, Oxford University Press, 2001. Different scholars write the various chapters of the different historical periods. Each scholar writes about the period and type of Christianity in which he/she specializes. While individual authors may be biased, I think the book as a whole seems to be balanced. For example, one author may write in favour of the Crusades and explain how stuffy the Byzantine Church Patriarchs were. However, another author writing from the Greek Orthodox position will explain how the uncivilized Europeans barged in there from the north and pillaged the place. They don't use crude language like this. It's all very polite and scholarly but easy to understand.

Another perspective from which to study religion is via the history of thought as in philosophy. Maybe an introductory philosophy text would be helpful--I really don't know too much what's available in philosophy of religion.

I didn't look these books up but I would guess most are available from or through Amazon.

Another approach I have found useful is to watch formal debates between a Christian such as William Lane Craig and an atheist/agnostic such as Bart D. Ehrman or very liberal Christian such as John Shelby Spong. Ehrman and Spong are NT scholars. If you really want scholarly factual debates, I wouldn't bother listening to debates where Hitchens participates. For debates on theism vs. atheism, go to Common Sense Atheism.

More links can be found in the Religious Studies Index on these forums in the following threads:

• Sacred Text Archive
• Zoroastrianism, Forerunner of Abrahamic Religions
• Ancient World Cultures