ABSTRACT
Between 2002 and the time of writing in 2012 eight books were published with the word ‘invention’ and the name of a religion in the title.2 This academic fashion is not confined to the study of religion. Since the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s pioneering book The Invention of Tradition in 1983, the Cambridge University Library has catalogued no less than 223 books with titles beginning with ‘The invention of’.3 Carried along on this tide, scholars have revealed that purportedly timeless religions are in fact creations and re-creations of self-interested entrepreneurs. By introducing us to the agents who standardised doctrines, choreographed rituals, and conjured up deities, the ‘invention’ school has distanced the study of religion from metaphysics, and opened up an important new field of inquiry for secular historians.
