J. Z. Smith's Jonestown Essay

It was called an event “so bizarre that historians would have to reach back in Biblical times to find a calamity big enough for comparison” (109) and “quite possibly the most important single event in the history of religions” (104). Religious historian and author J. Z. Smith’s essay is a shocking and eye opening expose into the life of James Jones and the congregants of the Peoples Temple, all of whom committed mass suicide on November 18,1978 in Jonestown, Guyana. Smith uses this essay as an educational and informational piece explaining what he thinks happened and why, while also chastising his fellow religious scholars for focusing on long passed religious matters instead of participating in public conversations about the current state of Jonestown. Smith is correct in asserting that, “if the events of Jonestown are a behavioral skandalon to the Enlightenment faith, then the refusal of the academy to interpret Jonestown is, at least, an equivalent skandalon to the same faith” (111). Smith’s frustration is almost palpable in this essay, while he is desperately trying to explain what our responsibilities as scholars are. He stresses we have an absolute unwavering responsibility to take ourselves out of our own ethnocentricity 's and try to understand the plight of …show more content…
Both are easily similar to the events in Jonestown and many comparisons are able to be drawn. In Bacchae we see free spirits in their own space living happily in their utopian existence, messengers sent to spy and invade their peaceful existence, and then the Bacchics transformed into wild beasts who violently destroyed everything in sight. Jonestown residents felt the same way but instead of outwardly lashing out, the violence was against themselves. So, we have seen these things before, they are not sui