Fictionality and religious experience in Gershom Scholem’s theoretical proposal

Abstract

 The present essay, in the first place, presents the tendency to reject the autonomy of Religion in studies that have been developed since the 19th century. XVIII. Then, it indicates that the preservation of the autonomy of the treatment of religion in an academic perspective can be carried out through two criteria of a theoretical approach to be developed in academic research, these are criteria of fictionality and experience. Finally, it is pointed out how the theoretical elaborations of the scholar of Judaism, Gershom Scholem, in this case, applied to the Judeo- Christian messianism of the first centuries of the common era, can be understood as contributions to the studies of Religion that, by following the mentioned criteria , preserve the autonomy of the religious object and do not reduce it to a by-product of the Social Sciences. The readings of “Grandes Correntes da Mística Judaica and Sabai Tzvi: O Messias Místico”, by Scholem, in correlation with readings of texts by scholars such as Otto, Eliade, Terrin and Nogueira allow the understanding of a theory of the autonomy of the religious phenomenon.