Books by Robert A. Segal

Compiling and critiquing modern theories and theorists of myth, this book offers an overview of theories around the origin and function of various mythologies and mythological figures, allowing wider theoretical claims to be made about the relationship between societies and their myths.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Scottish Semiticist and Arabist William Robertson Smith was a celebrated biblical critic, theorist of religion, and theorist of myth

This text argues that Hebrew religion must be analyzed as semitic religion, which must in turn be analyzed as a case of "primitive" religion. Semitic religion was originally collectivist, ritualistic and materialist, and only gradually evolved into the individualist nature of Christianity.