
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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Cultural Transmission in Religion and Ritual Cultural Transmission in Religion and Ritual
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Ritual Transmission and the Modes Theory Ritual Transmission and the Modes Theory
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Ritual and Memory Reconsidered Ritual and Memory Reconsidered
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Transmission beyond Declarative Memory: Actions, Artefacts, Situated Cognition, and Epigenetics Transmission beyond Declarative Memory: Actions, Artefacts, Situated Cognition, and Epigenetics
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Ritual and Inheritance Systems: Towards a New Model of Cultural Transmission in Rituals Ritual and Inheritance Systems: Towards a New Model of Cultural Transmission in Rituals
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Works Cited Works Cited
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Suggested Reading Suggested Reading
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7 Ritual and Transmission
Get accessIstván Czachesz is Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Tromsø in Norway. His research concentrates on the New Testament, Early Christian literature, and the Cognitive Science of Religion. He is co-chair of the Mind, Society and Religion: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature, co-editor of the Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha Series, and book review editor for pg xxvithe Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion. His books include Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach to Early Christian Research (2017), The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse (2012), and Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (edited with Risto Uro, 2013).
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Published:11 December 2018
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Abstract
This chapter asks the question of how rituals contribute to cultural transmission. Scholars of rituals have taken for granted that rituals somehow preserve traditions; however, how they achieve that has remained an understudied problem. The first section outlines the problem of transmission against the background of religious studies and more traditional approaches to rituals. The second section concentrates on what ritual theories tell us about memory and its involvement in rituals, with special attention to Whitehouse’s theory of the modes of religiosity and insights from the cognitive science of religion. The third section reviews important developments in memory studies that allow for a more nuanced understanding of the role of memory in rituals. The fourth section considers the role of actions, artefacts, and epigenetics in ritual transmission. Finally, the chapter concludes by outlining a model of inheritance systems to study transmission in rituals.
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