Blasphemy in the Christian World: A HistoryOUP Oxford, 2007 M07 12 - 269 pages David Nash's new study focuses on the development of blasphemy in the Christian world. Tracing the subject from the Middle Ages to the present, he outlines the history of blasphemy as a concept, from a species of heresy to modern understandings of it as a crime against the sacred and individual religious identity. Investigating its appearance in speech, literature, popular publishing and the cinema, he disinters the likely motives and agendas of blasphemers themselves, as well as offering a glimpse of blasphemy's victims. In particular, he seeks to understand why this seemingly medieval offence has reappeared to become a distinctly modern presence in the West. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Blasphemy in the Contemporary World | 12 |
Part I 15001800 | 42 |
Part II 18002000 | 72 |
4 Who Were the Blasphemers? | 106 |
5 Controlling the Profane | 147 |
Victims and Communities | 184 |
Blasphemy and Film | 208 |
Conclusion | 233 |
| 249 | |
| 261 | |
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