Review: Henry Duméry,Imagination et religion. Eléments de judaïsme,éléments de christianisme,Paris: Les Belles Lettres,2006,468pp

Abstract

This is a review of H. Duméry’s volume Imagination et religion. Éléments de judaïsme, éléments de christianisme. The author studies biblical religion and the origins of the Christian religion, classifying and recording the imaginative element that feeds the narratives of piety: hence the rehabilitation of the myths that frame the functioning of religious representations. The author suggests that the imagination, in its deepest resources, forges the human social, has the power to invent all social roles, and causes the emergence of attitudes of devotion or renunciation which are a human prerogative.