Critics thought this treatment invited an agnostic reading of the Lamb of God as a relic of a pagan religion. The book scandalized the British public when first published, as it included the Christian story of Jesus and the Resurrection in its comparative study. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. Its thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. The Golden Bough attempts to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat and many other symbols and practices whose influence has extended into twentieth-century culture. It was first published in two volumes in 1890 in three volumes in 1900 the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes.The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941).
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