Is religion a uniquely, or even particularly, problematical subject for historians, as is argued by the editors of this collection of papers? Questions of objectivity and the role of the personal opinions and commitments have occupied the discipline of history for decades, as has the challenge of the rhetorical and narratological turns. Indeed, this volume would seem to indicate, if only through its title, that religious historians are finally catching up with the rest of the profession.
Notwithstanding that such problems and issues are the same for every scholar who studies the past, historians of religion may well experience them in a more acute form. Because followers of most of themajor world religions are prone to insist that the history of their particular faith is intrinsic to that faith, they often feel threatened by the critical work of historians. Adherents to, say, a particular tradition of political thought usually do...