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BALDICK, Julian, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. London, I.B. Tauris, 1997, viii, 197 pp., £39.50 (cloth), ISBN 1 86064 123 7

BALDICK, Julian, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions.... REVIEWS BALDICK, Julian, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. London, I.B. Tauris, 1997, viii, 197 pp., £39.50 (cloth), ISBN 1 86064 123 7 This book sets out to replicate Dumezil's approach to Indo-European mythology in a study of Afroasiatic religious images and beliefs. How- ever, there are differences between Baldick and the master. Where Dumezil detected in Indo-European mythology a basic triad of social functions corresponding to priests, warriors and cultivators, Baldick has identified an Afroasiatic logic which is dualistic and based in the oppo- sition of male and female and around which various other oppositions are elaborated; black-white, active-passive, rain-sun etc. While Dumezil deliberately located the triadic structure in a particular original social organisation, for Baldick, the Afroasiatic duality is both a 'logic ... ingrained in the [Afroasiatic] languages' (p. 5) and a matter of reli- gious symbolism. To a certain extent this is a weakening of Dumezil's comparative method and represents a return to an older, Frazerian, style of comparison of content rather than structure. Indeed Baldick dismisses structural analysis as an 'outmoded fashion'. The argument proceeds by, first of all, outlining a synthetic myth which describes a male storm http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Religion in Africa Brill

BALDICK, Julian, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. London, I.B. Tauris, 1997, viii, 197 pp., £39.50 (cloth), ISBN 1 86064 123 7

Jedrej, Charles
Journal of Religion in Africa , Volume 29 (1): 121 – Jan 1, 1999
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0022-4200
eISSN
1570-0666
DOI
10.1163/157006699X00287
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

REVIEWS BALDICK, Julian, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. London, I.B. Tauris, 1997, viii, 197 pp., £39.50 (cloth), ISBN 1 86064 123 7 This book sets out to replicate Dumezil's approach to Indo-European mythology in a study of Afroasiatic religious images and beliefs. How- ever, there are differences between Baldick and the master. Where Dumezil detected in Indo-European mythology a basic triad of social functions corresponding to priests, warriors and cultivators, Baldick has identified an Afroasiatic logic which is dualistic and based in the oppo- sition of male and female and around which various other oppositions are elaborated; black-white, active-passive, rain-sun etc. While Dumezil deliberately located the triadic structure in a particular original social organisation, for Baldick, the Afroasiatic duality is both a 'logic ... ingrained in the [Afroasiatic] languages' (p. 5) and a matter of reli- gious symbolism. To a certain extent this is a weakening of Dumezil's comparative method and represents a return to an older, Frazerian, style of comparison of content rather than structure. Indeed Baldick dismisses structural analysis as an 'outmoded fashion'. The argument proceeds by, first of all, outlining a synthetic myth which describes a male storm

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Journal of Religion in Africa – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1999

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