James George Frazer (1854–1941)

The Golden Bough is a book most often encountered in bibliographies. If you have ever read a book of comparative religion it was probably lurking quietly, or not so quietly in the works cited.

If one decides to actually read the book itself it they might have trouble nailing down a specific text. Always a chunky tome the book has been abridged at least twice and expanded as well. The largest version of the piece spanning 12 volumes. Not surprizingly, few people mean that version when they say show more they read The Golden Bough. I chose to read the most modern abridgement, which, at nearly 850 pages, is still a fair commitment.

But what is The Golden Bough? Frazier came from an era of eurocentric exploration and armchair academics. Frazier built an extensive network of contacts with early anthropologists and ethnographers. Using the mountain of information they provided him on culture, belief and behavior from cultures all over the world he assembled The Golden Bough. In my experience, it is the sheer volume of data on diverse and obscure people and their religions that make this a mainstay of comparative religion texts. But Frazier was never a simple aggregator.

Amazingly, despite the sprawling mass of text, Frazier's intent was surprizingly specific. He wanted to understand the basis of a certain arcane religious tradition, the King of the Wood at Nemi. The king of the wood stood guard at the sacred grove until he was defeated in single combat by a slave or fugitive who then took his place as the King of the Wood. Frazier's approach is wholistic, and based on the belief that the development of belief, myth and religion has a common logic and course of development across diverse human cultures. He analyzes belief and practice from many cultures attempting to reconstruct the logic and processes that shaped myth and tradition in the most distant days of human history and it's development and legacy as culture evolved and matured.

The work is more literary than scientific, but it is well thought out and intriguing. It is a worthy text for it's sheer volume of anthropological data (though some of it is surely dated) and well as a sincere and very early attempt to understand religious belief academically. And the the abridgement I read restores the wry humor and observations that earned it a respectable level of controversy and outrage from the god-fearing crowd.

But really, who can resist a Victorian that's got some shit to say?

"...Christians and pagans like were struck by the remarkable coincidence between the death and resurrection of their respective deities, and that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter controversy between the adherents of the rival religions, the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ was a spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians asserting with equal warmth that the resurrection of Attis was a diabolical counterfeit of the resurrection of Christ. In these unseemly bickerings the heathens took what to a superficial observer might seem strong ground by arguing that their god was the older and therefore presumably the original, not the counterfeit, since as a general rule an original is older than its copy. This feeble argument the Christians easily rebutted. They admitted, indeed, that in the point of time Christ was the junior deity, but they triumphantly demonstrated his real senority by falling back on the subtlety of Satan, who on so important an occassion had surpassed himself by inverting the usual order of nature." show less

A massive tome that, although abridged, still packs a punch. This has all the things to like about the unabridged version. The chapters dive into the mythologies and symbology that ancient societies, all over the world, used to create the spiritual worlds which flowed about them. While some of the material might not be the most historically accurate, this is still an outstanding achievement and one that deserves to be recognized (even to this day.) There are glimpses of great writing in here show more and the formulation of the book, and the comprehensive study that is attempted, is unlike any other. It is quite a work and for all those interested in mythology, spirituality, historical inquiry, and famous documents- this is not one to be missed.

4.5 stars. show less

This is a great and fascinating work, steeped in detail and careful scholarship, and very well-written.

The pity is that the underlying assumption of the work, that the customs it details are evidence of a primitive, pan-European, primitive culture was not in fact well founded. There is evidence enough that many of Frazier's pagan survivals were in fact developments of the high middle ages, perhaps immemorial but not antique.

It's still a wonderful and compelling book, as long as one keeps in show more mind that the patterns it documents are more widely spread in time, and less primitive, than Frazier thought. show less

A comprehensive look at flood myths from around the world. Frazier groups them by continent, and gives all the details that were known about the myths, including late modifications (often added after Christian missionaries had come to the area). He also looks at crucial features that might be driving the myths, such as the geography or geology of the area, including such things as marine fossils on the tops of mountains, or interrelationships with other cultures that already had a flood show more myth. He looks for flood myths older than the Genesis story of Noah, and finds a few, indicating that the story was not original to the Hebrew Bible. While not quite at the same level as his sublime "The Golden Bough", the book is still very thoroughly researched and well written. Highly recommended for anyone looking at comparative religions. While the book is many decades old, I have seen little since that has been so comprehensive, though of course there are some things that are wrong because biblical criticism has continued to progress. This information is easily obtainable for other books to update what the author was unable to include in his work. show less