How long does it take to read Understanding World Religions?
Irving Hexham
Understanding World Religions by Irving Hexham takes about 9 hours 23 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 9 hours 23 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2011. 512 pages, about 140,800 words.
19 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 15 hours 39 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 9 hours 23 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 52 minutes |
The page count is the median across 3 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Irving Hexham's introductory world religions text explores various religions under the broad categories of African Religions, the Yogic Traditions (including Buddhism), and the Abrahamic traditions. He presents an appreciative yet realistic approach, noting both the strengths and inherent problems of various world religions. Globalization and high-speed communication put twenty-first century people in contact with adherents to a wide variety of world religions, but usually, valuable knowledge of these other traditions is limited at best. On the one hand, religious stereotypes abound, hampering a serious exploration of unfamiliar philosophies and practices. On the other hand, the popular idea that all religions lead to the same God or the same moral life fails to account for the distinctive origins and radically different teachings found across the world's many religions. Understanding World Religions presents religion as a complex and intriguing matrix of history, philosophy, culture, beliefs, and practices. Hexham believes that a certain degree of objectivity and critique is inherent in the study of religion, and he guides readers in responsible ways of carrying this out. Of particular importance is Hexham's decision to explore African religions, which have frequently been absent from major religion texts. He surveys these in addition to varieties of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. - Publisher.
Subjects: Religions
