Religious faith in literature
Religious faith has been a prominent theme in literature throughout human history, deeply influencing the narratives and characters of various cultures. From ancient texts like the Sumerian *Kesh Temple Hymn* and the Egyptian *Pyramid Texts*, which honor deities and explore themes of the afterlife, to foundational works such as the Hebrew Bible and the *Quran*, religious beliefs have shaped storytelling across time. Notably, the *Epic of Gilgamesh* illustrates the unpredictable nature of the gods and the human quest for immortality.
In medieval literature, allegory became a vital tool for conveying religious themes, as seen in works like *Everyman*, which teaches moral lessons through a dying man's journey. As society evolved through the Renaissance and Enlightenment, literature continued to reflect the role of faith, portraying complex relationships with religion, as exemplified in Charlotte Brontë's *Jane Eyre* and C.S. Lewis's *The Chronicles of Narnia*.
In the twenty-first century, religious literature has found new expressions, particularly in genres catering to fundamentalist Christian audiences, with popular series like *Left Behind* exploring themes of eschatology and divine intervention. This ongoing engagement with faith in literature illustrates its enduring relevance and impact across different eras and cultures.
Religious faith in literature
Religious faith has been a commonly used theme in literature since the dawn of human civilization. Ancient societies believed that their entire world was created by the primordial gods and their daily existence was deeply affected by their whims. As a result, their gods and goddesses appeared in most of their literature, where they were often active characters who drove the plot of the story. Religious faith is also a key presence in the sacred writings of the world’s largest religions, including the Hebrew and Christian bibles, the Islamic Quran, and the holy texts of Buddhism and Hinduism. References to faith can be direct, such as the stories of Abraham and Job in the Bible’s Old Testament or can take the form of allegory, a symbolic representation of religious themes that was common in medieval literature. In the modern era, religious faith is explored in popular works aimed at specific religious groups, most notably fundamentalist Christians, who have supported a cottage industry of faith-based novels in the twenty-first century.
Background
The oldest known work of written literature is a religious song from the Sumerian city of Kesh honoring the goddess Ninhursag. Known as the Kesh Temple Hymn, the work dates back at least to 2600 BCE. The song begins with an account of how Kesh was founded by the god Enlil and concludes with praise for Ninhursag, a fertility goddess and patron deity of the city.
In ancient Egypt, several religious-themed collections of funeral rites were compiled between 2400 BCE and 1500 BCE. The oldest of these works, known as the Pyramid Texts, contain various rituals to ensure the pharaoh is able to pass safely through the afterlife and reach heaven. The Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, which were written later, also address the proper procedures to ensure passage through the afterlife, but these were intended for all Egyptians, not just the pharaohs.
The Rigveda is a large collection of more than one thousand religious songs and poems that are a fundamental pillar of Hinduism. Although they were first written in the second millennium BCE, they are likely much older and were originally passed down through oral tradition. The writings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, the anglicized name of sixth-century BCE philosopher K’ung Fu-tzu, were collected by his followers and written as the Analects sometime in the fifth to the third centuries BCE. Although not technically religious in nature, the Analects were a collection of proverbs and sayings instructing the reader on how to live a moral life.
Overview
The oldest-known work of literary fiction, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is a Sumerian text dating back to about 2100 BCE, although this was likely also compiled from earlier oral tales. In the story, Gilgamesh is a Sumerian hero/king who befriends a wild man named Enkidu. The gods and goddesses play an important role in the narrative but are portrayed as unpredictable beings who choose to aid or hinder Gilgamesh and Enkidu at their own whims. After Gilgamesh angers the goddess Ishtar, she sends the Bull of Heaven to ravage Earth. Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat the beast, but Enkidu dies after the battle. Gilgamesh embarks on a quest for immortality, a symbol of the power of the gods and a gift exclusively reserved for them.
The Bible
The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, which was later adapted by Christians as the Old Testament, is a foundational work for two of the world’s major religions, Judaism and Christianity. Faith plays a major role in many of the first books of the Bible, as God enters into a covenant with the Israelites and requires them to maintain faith in him as the one and only divine being. In the book of Genesis, God tests the faith of the patriarch Abraham and orders him to kill his son, Isaac, as a religious sacrifice. At the time, some local polytheistic religions incorporated child sacrifice in their religious practices. Abraham proved his faith by setting out to follow God’s command, until God stopped him. As a reward, God promised that Abraham would become the father of the Jewish people.
The issue of faith is explored more fully in the Old Testament book of Job. Job is a successful and fundamentally good man who has always honored God. Satan appears before God and claims that Job is only faithful to God because he leads a good life; if Job were to lose everything, Satan argues, he would curse God for his misfortune. Satan is allowed to unleash a series of catastrophes on Job—his children, cattle, and servants all die, and Job is covered in horrible skin sores. Even when his faith begins to waver, Job refuses to doubt God, even when his wife and friends tell him he is foolish for believing in someone who is causing him so much pain. In the end, God rewards Job for his faith, restoring his health and giving him twice as much as he had before his trials.
Middle Ages
During the medieval period, which is usually defined as occurring between 500 and 1500 CE, religion was the dominant force in all aspects of life. Education and literacy were mostly confined to monasteries and reserved for those following a religious calling. As a result, many medieval works of literature dealt with religious themes and were intended to teach matters of faith. Plays were a common form of entertainment that taught audiences proper moral behavior or focused on aspects from the life of Jesus Christ. The most popular of these was the fifteenth-century play Everyman, in which a dying man finds that no one will accompany him into heaven except for his good deeds.
Everyman is an example of allegory, a literary device that uses symbolism to stand in for deeper religious themes. Allegory was widely used in medieval religious-themed stories, including two of the most famous: The Pearl and Piers Plowman. In The Pearl, a father mourning the death of his young daughter, Pearl, has a dream in which he sees the girl living a happy life in the heavenly city of New Jerusalem. Although the father grieves for losing his precious Pearl, a “jewel beyond price,” he sees she is happy as the new bride of Jesus Christ.
In Piers Plowman, a young man named Will falls asleep and experiences a series of visions in which he encounters characters meant to represent the conflicting aspects of the medieval world. Along his journeys, he also meets the titular plowman, Piers, who represents a humble Christ and teaches him the proper way to live a better life.
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
The artistic Renaissance of the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries and the scientific and cultural Enlightenment of the eighteenth century lessened the grip of religion on European and American societies as a whole. However, religion and faith continued to be an important part of local communities and people’s everyday lives. This importance is reflected in several literary works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
In English author Charolotte Bronte’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre, the title character survives a life of hardship, abuse, and poverty, only later finding happiness and love. During the course of her life, she meets three figures who represent different aspects of religion and faith. The greedy schoolmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst, represents the hypocrisy of staunch evangelicalism. Jane’s classmate Helen Burns accepts fate in an overly passive manner, becoming a martyr rather than an active participant in her own life. Finally, her cousin, St. John Rivers, is a Christian missionary with a cold, unemotional demeanor, representing the distant, self-important aspects of Christianity practiced by some clergy members of the time.
British author C. S. Lewis was a devout Christian who leaned heavily on religious allegory in his best-known works, The Chronicles of Narnia, a seven-novel series published in the 1950s. In perhaps his most famous book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, four British children are magically transported to Narnia, a fantasy world under control of the evil White Witch. When one of the children’s lives is in danger, the hero, a lion named Aslan, steps forward to die in the boy’s place. Aslan is killed, but because he willingly sacrificed himself to save another, he was resurrected by a deep, secret magic and defeated the Witch and her army. The White Witch is meant to represent the evil power of Satan, while Aslan is an allegory for Jesus Christ, who died to save humanity from sin and Satan’s power.
Twenty-First Century
Although books on religion and religious faith remain popular in the twenty-first century and explore many aspects of the world’s major religions, perhaps no genre has become as popular as literature geared toward a fundamentalist Christian audience. Most Christian-themed books are nonfiction and may involve self-improvement, devotional study, or Bible study, but a large proportion of Christian literature is faith-based fiction that deals with elements such as romance or even fantasy.
One of the most famous genres of faith-based Christian fiction is the Left Behind Series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins from 1995 to 2007. The novels are based on the idea of the Rapture, a concept accepted by some evangelical Christians in which God will physically take good Christians into heaven to spare them from the tribulations that will occur before Judgment Day. The novels follow those who were “left behind” to face the last days of turmoil and suffering before Christ returns.
Bibliography
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Knight, Mark, and Emma Mason. Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Rani, Nitasha. “Relation Between Literature and Religion.” Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, vol. 9, no. 6, 2021, pp. 59–62, www.questjournals.org/jrhss/papers/vol9-issue6/Ser-5/J09065962.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2024.
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