Encyclopedia Of Religion Second Edition

Why I Still Reach for the Encyclopedia of Religion When I Don't Need To

I was working on a paper about the transmission of Sufi practices into West African Islamic communities when I hit a wall. The standard reference works either reduced the topic to a paragraph or, worse, duplicated the same Wikipedia summary across three different sources. Someone mentioned the Encyclopedia Of Religion Second Edition in a footnote. I went back to my library's reference section, pulled the relevant volumes, and spent about forty minutes finding exactly what I needed — a detailed article by Peter Skinner on West African Islam, with cross-references to other topics I hadn't considered. Here is how you actually use it without wasting your time.

Getting Access to the Encyclopedia Of Religion Second Edition

The most common way researchers encounter this now is through online platforms. The second edition was published by Macmillan Reference in 2005, edited by Lindsay Jones, and released as sixteen volumes. Gale acquired the rights and makes it available through databases like Gale Virtual Reference Library and Gale OneFile. If you are affiliated with a university, check your library's e-resource catalog first. Public libraries sometimes carry it too, but access is less reliable. I've seen graduate students drive across town to use the physical copies because their institution's subscription lapsed without notice. The print set runs about four hundred pages per volume. The entire set is approximately 6,500 pages across all sixteen volumes, containing around 3,400 signed articles by contributors from many countries. It replaced the original 1987 eleven-volume first edition, so you will occasionally encounter scholars who cite the wrong edition. Always verify which one you are using.

How the Structure Actually Works

The entries are arranged alphabetically, which sounds simple but is where most people make mistakes. The second edition added several major new thematic sections that did not exist in the first edition. Topics like environmental religion, religion and science, and globalization received dedicated entries with substantial bibliographies. If you are looking at something dealing with contemporary religious movements or postcolonial theology, these sections are genuinely useful. The older volumes tend to underrepresent non-Christian traditions outside of South Asia. Each article includes a bibliography at the end. This is the single most valuable feature for research. I have pulled citations from these bibliographies that turned out to be primary sources — field notes, manuscript references, archival materials — that I could not find elsewhere. The bibliographies are not comprehensive, but they are curated by specialists in the field. The cross-referencing system is adequate but not excellent. I ran into a problem once trying to trace the concept of "sacred space" across multiple traditions. The entry pointed me to related terms, but the cross-references were inconsistent. Some entries had ten or more hyperlinks to other topics. Others had none. The workaround was to search the index, which is included in the back of each volume as well as in the digital version. The index is far more thorough than the in-article cross-references. Use it first when you are uncertain about terminology.

Common Pitfalls Nobody Warns You About

The biggest issue with the second edition is its coverage gap. It treats religions as if they can be neatly organized into "Hinduism," "Buddhism," "Islam," and so on. This works reasonably well for state religions with established texts and institutions. It breaks down immediately when you are researching folk practices, syncretic movements, or indigenous spiritual traditions that do not fit these categories. I spent an afternoon searching for entries on Vodou, Santería, and Candomblé because a colleague had told me they were well covered. They are not. The entries that exist are brief, and they tend to conflate Caribbean and African diasporic practices rather than treating them as distinct traditions with different histories. Another problem is date sensitivity. The second edition was published in 2005. Anything that happened after that — the Arab Spring's impact on religious expression, the rise of new religious movements in East Asia, recent developments in Catholic Church governance — is simply not represented. If you are writing about a contemporary topic, you will need supplementary sources. The Gale database includes some updated essays, but the updates are sporadic and not systematically integrated into the main articles. A practical workaround for both issues: combine the encyclopedia with JSTOR or Project MUSE for journal articles that address the gaps. I usually run a parallel search. The encyclopedia gives me the overview and the bibliography. The journal databases fill in what the encyclopedia missed. This approach typically cuts research time from a full day down to about three hours, depending on how narrow your topic is.

What Makes This Different From Other Reference Works

Most religious studies encyclopedias take either a devotional approach or a purely academic one. The Encyclopedia Of Religion Second Edition occupies a middle ground that is sometimes awkward but often productive. The entries are written by scholars, not practitioners, which means the tone is analytical rather than promotional. But unlike strictly academic handbooks, these entries assume the reader may not have extensive background knowledge. Definitions are included. Historical context is provided. The writing style is accessible without being dumbed down. This creates a tension that shows up in specific entries. The article on "Revelation" in the Christian tradition is stronger than the article on "Revelation" in Islamic or Jewish contexts, simply because the contributors were unevenly distributed across traditions. I noticed this pattern consistently. Christian and Buddhist entries tend to be longer and more detailed. Indigenous and shamanic traditions receive the shortest coverage. There is no way around this bias within the work itself. You have to be aware of it before you start using it.

When It Fails Completely

Do not use this encyclopedia if you need primary source translations. It does not provide them. Do not use it if you need demographic data on religious populations — the statistics are outdated as of 2005. Do not use it as your only source for any paper. It is an entry point, not an endpoint. I have seen students submit work that relies entirely on encyclopedia entries, which is academically unacceptable at any level beyond introductory. The bibliographies within the articles are your bridge to the actual scholarship. If you need a single-volume overview, the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion or the Cambridge Companion to Religion might serve you better for specific topics. The Encyclopedia Of Religion Second Edition is designed for depth across a broad range, not for convenience. It is a reference work for people who already know what they are looking for and need to verify details, find bibliography entries, or locate a specialist's perspective quickly. The Gale Virtual Reference Library offers remote access, which saves a trip to the library. The search function allows you to filter by discipline, time period, and geographic region. Use those filters. Without them, you will search the wrong entries and waste time. The physical set is heavy and awkward to handle if you need multiple volumes simultaneously. The digital version does not preserve the pagination exactly, so if your professor requires page numbers for citations, you will need to note both the print and digital references.

I still keep a bookmark to the Gale version in my browser. I pull it when I need a reliable starting point for unfamiliar territory. It is not the final word on anything, but it is usually the first word that matters.