Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial
Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project

k 2017

Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project

KAŠE, Vojtěch a Tomáš GLOMB

Základní údaje

Originální název

Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project

Autoři

KAŠE, Vojtěch a Tomáš GLOMB

Vydání

Cultural Evolution of Religion (project REECR workshop), Helsinki, 23-24 May, 2017

Další údaje

Jazyk

angličtina

Typ výsledku

Prezentace na konferencích

Obor

60300 6.3 Philosophy, Ethics and Religion

Stát vydavatele

Finsko

Utajení

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Odkazy

URL

Organizační jednotka

Filozofická fakulta

Klíčová slova anglicky

Cultural evolution; Generative historiography; Ancient Mediterranean; Early Christianity; Egyptian cults; Network analysis; Computational modeling

Příznaky

Mezinárodní význam, Recenzováno

Změněno: 1. 2. 2018 22:20, Mgr. Michaela Ondrašinová, Ph.D.

Anotace

V originále

The documented spatial distribution of Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century CE strikingly resembles to the spatial distribution of the material evidence associated with the cult of Isis a century or two earlier. Our paper aims to answer why the network of Christian congregations continued to flourish onward while the Isiac network crashed. A closer look at the data reveals one important difference navigating us further when answering this question: Since early Christians were prolific producers of texts, the reconstructed spatial distribution of their congregations is, too, primarily based upon information from texts. Nevertheless, Christians overcome any of their rivals in the number of texts they produced. It appears that instead of erecting archaeologically detectable monuments, Christians invested their energy into the production and exchange of texts. As an implication of this, we hypothesise that although Christians definitely were not unique in forming a Mediterranean-wide social network, relying heavily on textual exchange gave them better chance to function as a global entity, what lead to their final success. We use quantitative data when comparing the spatial distribution of Christianity and the cult of Isis to demonstrate that relying on texts could make the Christian network much easier to maintain than the Isiac network lacking advantages associated with this medium. We expect this difference would become of special historical significance in times of population decrease or economic crisis, i.e. under conditions arising in the Empire repeatedly from the end of the second century onward. Therefore, on the contrary to the scholarly accounts seeking the main reasons for the success of Christianity in its belief system or in the altruistic behavior of its adherents, we find support for the hypothesis which sees the main advantage of Christianity simply in the medium it adopted for maintaining its social and trans-congregational ties.

Návaznosti

MUNI/M/1867/2014, interní kód MU

Název: Generativní historiografie antického Středomoří: Modelování a simulace dynamiky šíření náboženských představ a forem chování (Akronym: GEHIR)

Investor: Masarykova univerzita, Generativní historiografie antického Středomoří: Modelování a simulace dynamiky šíření náboženských představ a forem chování, INTERDISCIPLINARY - Mezioborové výzkumné projekty

Citovat

KAŠE, Vojtěch a Tomáš GLOMB. Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project. In Cultural Evolution of Religion (project REECR workshop), Helsinki, 23-24 May. 2017.

@proceedings{1384185,
   author = {Kaše, Vojtěch and Glomb, Tomáš},
   booktitle = {Cultural Evolution of Religion (project REECR workshop), Helsinki, 23-24 May},
   keywords = {Cultural evolution; Generative historiography; Ancient Mediterranean; Early Christianity; Egyptian cults; Network analysis; Computational modeling},
   language = {eng},
   title = {Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project},
   url = {http://blogs.helsinki.fi/ritual-earlychristianity/},
   year = {2017}
}

TY  - CONF
ID  - 1384185
AU  - Kaše, Vojtěch - Glomb, Tomáš
PY  - 2017
TI  - Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project
KW  - Cultural evolution
KW  - Generative historiography
KW  - Ancient Mediterranean
KW  - Early Christianity
KW  - Egyptian cults
KW  - Network analysis
KW  - Computational modeling
UR  - http://blogs.helsinki.fi/ritual-earlychristianity/
L2  - http://blogs.helsinki.fi/ritual-earlychristianity/
N2  - The documented spatial distribution of Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century CE strikingly resembles to the spatial distribution of the material evidence associated with the cult of Isis a century or two earlier. Our paper aims to answer why the network of Christian congregations continued to flourish onward while the Isiac network crashed. A closer look at the data reveals one important difference navigating us further when answering this question: Since early Christians were prolific producers of texts, the reconstructed spatial distribution of their congregations is, too, primarily based upon information from texts. Nevertheless, Christians overcome any of their rivals in the number of texts they produced. It appears that instead of erecting archaeologically detectable monuments, Christians invested their energy into the production and exchange of texts. As an implication of this, we hypothesise that although Christians definitely were not unique in forming a Mediterranean-wide social network, relying heavily on textual exchange gave them better chance to function as a global entity, what lead to their final success. We use quantitative data when comparing the spatial distribution of Christianity and the cult of Isis to demonstrate that relying on texts could make the Christian network much easier to maintain than the Isiac network lacking advantages associated with this medium. We expect this difference would become of special historical significance in times of population decrease or economic crisis, i.e. under conditions arising in the Empire repeatedly from the end of the second century onward. Therefore, on the contrary to the scholarly accounts seeking the main reasons for the success of Christianity in its belief system or in the altruistic behavior of its adherents, we find support for the hypothesis which sees the main advantage of Christianity simply in the medium it adopted for maintaining its social and trans-congregational ties.
ER  -

KAŠE, Vojtěch a Tomáš GLOMB. Uncovering the Secret of Christian Success in Terms of Spatial Network Analysis: Introducing the GEHIR project. In \textit{Cultural Evolution of Religion (project REECR workshop), Helsinki, 23-24 May}. 2017.

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