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Religion in Gaming—Types of “Priest”
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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8656615" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>I am familiar with anthropological academic literature, especially for archeological discernment of ancient religious installations and artifacts.</p><p></p><p>I have never seen an anthropologist use the term "priest" universally in the way that your post claims.</p><p></p><p>In this thread [USER=7025997]@Blue Orange[/USER] links an interesting anthropological paper relating to a cross-culture method for religious functions. This paper uses the term "priest" in a specific sense, in contradistinction to other terms for different religious functionaries, including "shaman, healer, prophet, witch", etcetera. This use of priest to mean something specific to some ethnicities and not others, is the one that I am familiar with. At least the prominent anthropologists never use the term "priest" in a universally inclusive way to mean every kind of religious functionary.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>According to my training: </p><p></p><p>The English term "priest", in the narrowest sense, specifically means a sacred servant that performs temple offerings. A temple is a sacred structure that houses the presence of a deity. Typically, the only persons allowed in the temple are these designated servants.</p><p></p><p>Certain traditions reuse the terms "priest" and "temple" to apply to different meanings, but even these new meanings derive from and refer to the original specific meaning. For example, Reform Judaism uses the term "temple" to refer the building of a congregation where the community assembles, yet refers to the earlier Temple in Jerusalem. Similarly, Catholicism and other Christianities use the term "priest" to refer to a pastor of a congregation. But both reuses derive from a biblical concept where the human community is a kind of living temple that deity inhabits. The Christian "priest" is understood to ritualize wine and bread as a kind of temple offering. Meanwhile the architectures of the congregational buildings preserve features from the original Temple, such as a continual flame. The Jewish synagogue features the ark from the holies of holies of the temple. The Catholic church building features the altar inspired by the earlier temple. Despite the abstraction, the narrow meaning of priest and temple still apply.</p><p></p><p>In the most broadest sense, the term "priest" is used in the sense of a mediator between deity and the community. However, in even in this broadest context, anthropologists never refer to a Jewish rabbi or a Muslim imam as a "priest", because these sacred traditions never view themselves as "mediators". They are community leaders and educators. Each member of the sacred community interacts with deity directly.</p><p></p><p>In sacred traditions that lack the concept of "deity", the term "priest" also never applies in anthropological contexts.</p><p></p><p>In anthropological contexts, the term "priest" is a specific kind of religious institution. The term doesnt apply to other kinds of religious institutions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8656615, member: 58172"] I am familiar with anthropological academic literature, especially for archeological discernment of ancient religious installations and artifacts. I have never seen an anthropologist use the term "priest" universally in the way that your post claims. In this thread [USER=7025997]@Blue Orange[/USER] links an interesting anthropological paper relating to a cross-culture method for religious functions. This paper uses the term "priest" in a specific sense, in contradistinction to other terms for different religious functionaries, including "shaman, healer, prophet, witch", etcetera. This use of priest to mean something specific to some ethnicities and not others, is the one that I am familiar with. At least the prominent anthropologists never use the term "priest" in a universally inclusive way to mean every kind of religious functionary. According to my training: The English term "priest", in the narrowest sense, specifically means a sacred servant that performs temple offerings. A temple is a sacred structure that houses the presence of a deity. Typically, the only persons allowed in the temple are these designated servants. Certain traditions reuse the terms "priest" and "temple" to apply to different meanings, but even these new meanings derive from and refer to the original specific meaning. For example, Reform Judaism uses the term "temple" to refer the building of a congregation where the community assembles, yet refers to the earlier Temple in Jerusalem. Similarly, Catholicism and other Christianities use the term "priest" to refer to a pastor of a congregation. But both reuses derive from a biblical concept where the human community is a kind of living temple that deity inhabits. The Christian "priest" is understood to ritualize wine and bread as a kind of temple offering. Meanwhile the architectures of the congregational buildings preserve features from the original Temple, such as a continual flame. The Jewish synagogue features the ark from the holies of holies of the temple. The Catholic church building features the altar inspired by the earlier temple. Despite the abstraction, the narrow meaning of priest and temple still apply. In the most broadest sense, the term "priest" is used in the sense of a mediator between deity and the community. However, in even in this broadest context, anthropologists never refer to a Jewish rabbi or a Muslim imam as a "priest", because these sacred traditions never view themselves as "mediators". They are community leaders and educators. Each member of the sacred community interacts with deity directly. In sacred traditions that lack the concept of "deity", the term "priest" also never applies in anthropological contexts. In anthropological contexts, the term "priest" is a specific kind of religious institution. The term doesnt apply to other kinds of religious institutions. [/QUOTE]
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