IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/3tjb7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Emergence of Big Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean

Author

Listed:
  • Kaše, Vojtěch

Abstract

Macro-historical data from several independent cultural environments reveal that the emergence of morally oriented religious systems, including representations of powerful and morally concerned deities, represents relatively recent development in human evolutionary history. The cultural evolutionary scholarship disagrees regarding what was the main factor responsible for the emergence and spread of these innovations over the past few millennia. Proponents of the Big Gods Hypothesis suggest that this development should be primarily associated with changes in social complexity, since representations of powerful and morally concerned deities represent a factor promoting cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies and thus a cultural selection advantage for groups adopting these innovations. Advocates of the Affluence Hypothesis suggest that the emergence and spread of morally oriented religious systems has to be primarily coupled with economic development, namely with an increase in affluence, which occurred during the so-called “Axial Age” period. According to this proposal, an increase in affluence enabled adoption of "slow" life-history strategies by certain proportion of the population, what led to emergence of new form of religion, emphasizing morality, long-terms goals and practices of self-control. This paper contributes to this debate by focusing on historical setting often referred to in both of these proposals: the ancient Mediterranean. Using quantitative text analysis methods in analyzing a corpus of ancient Greek texts from the period from 800 BC to 400 CE, this study offers a more nuanced view of the process under scrutiny than the one which has been proposed in previous ethnographic and comparative studies. Finding statistically significant differences in the context of usage of the Greek term theos (god) in the texts from the pre-axial and axial period, the obtained results can be more easily interpreted in terms of the Affluence Hypothesis than in terms of the competing account.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaše, Vojtěch, 2018. "The Emergence of Big Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean," SocArXiv 3tjb7, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:3tjb7
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/3tjb7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5c298791a7c0a700183e83e3/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/3tjb7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Grant Purzycki & Coren Apicella & Quentin D. Atkinson & Emma Cohen & Rita Anne McNamara & Aiyana K. Willard & Dimitris Xygalatas & Ara Norenzayan & Joseph Henrich, 2016. "Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human sociality," Nature, Nature, vol. 530(7590), pages 327-330, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valencia Caicedo, Felipe & Dohmen, Thomas & Pondorfer, Andreas, 2023. "Religion and cooperation across the globe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 479-489.
    2. Lina Mao & Chongluan Lu & Guangfan Sun & Chunyan Zhang & Changwei Guo, 2024. "Regional culture and corporate finance: a literature review," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Burton-Chellew, Maxwell, 2022. "The restart effect in social dilemmas shows humans are self-interested not altruistic," SocArXiv hgznu, Center for Open Science.
    4. Jori Breslawski & Colin Tucker, 2022. "Ideological motives and taxation by armed groups," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(3), pages 333-350, May.
    5. von der Leyen Victoria, 2019. "Religion als Anreiz für Kooperation," Journal for Markets and Ethics, Sciendo, vol. 7(1), pages 35-49, June.
    6. Loren Pauwels & Carolyn H. Declerck & Christophe Boone, 2017. "Watching Eyes and Living up to Expectations: Unkind, Not Kind, Eyes Increase First Mover Cooperation in a Sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-13, April.
    7. Oded Galor & Marc Klemp & Daniel C. Wainstock, 2023. "The Impact of the Prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity," CESifo Working Paper Series 10379, CESifo.
    8. Mitkidis, Panagiotis & Ayal, Shahar & Shalvi, Shaul & Heimann, Katrin & Levy, Gabriel & Kyselo, Miriam & Wallot, Sebastian & Ariely, Dan & Roepstorff, Andreas, 2017. "The effects of extreme rituals on moral behavior: The performers-observers gap hypothesis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-7.
    9. Will M. Gervais & Michiel van Elk & Dimitris Xygalatas & Ryan T. McKay & Mark Aveyard & Emma E. Buchtel & Ilan Dar-Nimrod & Eva Kundtová Klocová & Jonathan E. Ramsay & Tapani Riekki & Annika M. Sved, 2018. "Analytic atheism: A cross-culturally weak and fickle phenomenon?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(3), pages 268-274, May.
    10. Pierre O. Jacquet & Farid Pazhoohi & Charles Findling & Hugo Mell & Coralie Chevallier & Nicolas Baumard, 2021. "Predictive modeling of religiosity, prosociality, and moralizing in 295,000 individuals from European and non-European populations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-12, December.
    11. Hajikhameneh, Aidin & Iannaccone, Laurence R., 2023. "God games: An experimental study of uncertainty, superstition, and cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 88-116.
    12. Thi Minh Tam Ta & Aron Zieger & Georg Schomerus & Tien Duc Cao & Michael Dettling & Xuan Tinh Do & Aditya Mungee & Albert Diefenbacher & Matthias C Angermeyer & Eric Hahn, 2016. "Influence of urbanity on perception of mental illness stigma: a population based study in urban and rural Hanoi, Vietnam," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(8), pages 685-695, December.
    13. Grace, David & Jeuland, Marc, 2018. "Preferences for Attributes of Sacred Groves and Temples along an Urbanization Gradient in the National Capital Region of India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 322-335.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:3:p:268-274 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Frank van Tubergen1,2, & Yuliya Kosyakova & Agnieszka Kanas, 2022. "Conflict intensity in the region of birth increases religiosity among refugees," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2222, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    16. Harwick, Cameron, 2018. "Money and its institutional substitutes: the role of exchange institutions in human cooperation," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 689-714, August.
    17. Luke Barber & Michael Jetter & Tim Krieger, 2023. "Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and Pre-Enlightenment Warfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 10806, CESifo.
    18. Benjamin Enke, 2018. "Kinship Systems, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Culture," CESifo Working Paper Series 6867, CESifo.
    19. Jeanet Sinding Bentzen & Gunes Gokmen, 2023. "The power of religion," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 45-78, March.
    20. Oded Galor & Marc Kemp & Daniel C. Wainstock, 2023. "The Impact of the Prehistoric Out-of-Africa Migration on Cultural Diversity," Working Papers 2023-002, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    21. Henning, Karla & Vollan, Björn & Balafoutas, Loukas, 2022. "Religious worship and discrimination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 91-102.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:3tjb7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.