Russell, Jeffrey Burton 1934–

PERSONAL:

Born August 1, 1934, in Fresno, CA; son of Lewis Henry (a publishers representative) and Ieda Russell; married Diana Mansfield (a teacher of English), June 30, 1956; children: Jennifer, Mark, William, Penelope. Education: University of California, Berkeley, A.B., 1955, A.M., 1957; University of Liege, Belgium, graduate study, 1959-60; Emory University, Ph.D., 1960. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Conservation and preservation of wilderness, numismatics, Baroque music, British mystery stories.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Santa Barbara, CA. Office—Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. Agent—Gerard McCauley Agency, Inc., P.O. Box 844, Katonah, NY 10536. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, assistant professor of history, 1960-61; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, junior fellow, Society of Fellows, 1961-62; University of California, Riverside, assistant professor, 1962-65, associate professor, 1965-69, professor of medieval and religious history, 1969-75; University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and director of Medieval Institute, 1975-79; University of California, Santa Barbara, professor of medieval and church history, beginning 1979, became professor emeritus.

MEMBER:

Mediaeval Academy of America, American Society of Church History, Catholic Historical Association, Medieval Association of the Pacific, Sierra Club, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright fellow, 1959; Guggenheim fellow, 1968; National Endowment for the Humanities senior fellow, 1972; grants in aid from American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council.

WRITINGS:

Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1965, AMS Press (New York, NY), 1982.

Medieval Civilization, Wiley (New York, NY), 1968.

A History of Medieval Christianity: Prophecy and Order, Crowell (New York, NY), 1968, H. Davidson (Arlington Heights, IL), 1986, with Douglas W. Lumsden, P. Lang (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor) Religious Dissent in the Middle Ages, Wiley (New York, NY), 1971.

Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1972.

The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1977.

A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans, Thames & Hudson (New York, NY), 1980, with Brooks Alexander, 2007.

(With Carl T. Berkhout) Medieval Heresies: A Bibliography 1960-1979, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, Canada), 1981.

Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1981.

Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1984.

Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1986.

The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1988.

(Translator into Latin) Madeleine L'Engle, Ruga in aevis (title means "A Wrinkle in Time"), Quidst Press, 1990.

Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, Praeger (New York, NY), 1991.

Dissent and Order in the Middle Ages: The Search for Legitimate Authority, Twayne (Boston, MA), 1992.

A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1997.

Alberto Ferreiro, editor, The Devil, Heresy, and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey B. Russell, Brill (Boston, MA), 1998.

(Translator and author of introduction, with Tim Vivian and Kim Vivian) The Life of the Jura Fathers: The Life and Rule of the Holy Fathers Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus, Abbots of the Monasteries in the Jura Mountains, Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI), 1999.

Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Also contributor to The Transformation of the Roman World, edited by Lynn White, University of California Press, 1966. Contributor to periodicals, including Revue d'Histoire ecclesiastique, Medieval Studies, Church History, Speculum, American Historical Review, and Catholic Historical Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeffrey Burton Russell once told CA that "using the history of evil as an example," he has explored "the ways in which concepts may be most fully understood and accurately defined in terms of their history and sociology." One of the results of Russell's efforts "to develop an historical method uniting philosophy and content analysis with traditional historical approaches," as he describes it, is his tetralogy, which traces the history of the idea of the devil in philosophy, literature, and theology from ancient to modern times. The series includes The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, and Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World.

In a review of Mephistopheles, New York Times Book Review contributor Robert Coles called the tetralogy "impressive." He wrote that "the author is not only a conscientious historian, … [he] is also an introspective essayist who acknowledges his own continuing struggle to understand the nature and source of evil." Russell, commented D.J. Enright in the Times Literary Supplement, avoids the problem of choosing "between what might be deplored as insufficient documentation and the risk, or certainty, of boring, or maddening, the modern reader" by branching "out into a number of interesting and entertaining cognate topics." While holding his readers' interest, Russell explains how the idea of what the devil is (and, by association, what God is) has evolved over time. Collectively, these books explain to "us a lot about the attention and passion we have given to that idea," concluded Coles. Russell's "books tell us much about what we were and what we are today—people who all along have been trying to make sense of the world and to stay around in it as a species, our devilish capacity for hate and slaughter not withstanding."

In A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence, Russell offers readers a brief survey that covers the history of the concept of heaven within religion, focusing on the Judeo-Christian tradition, though the balance of the book addresses the Christian concept of heaven as the Christian tradition places far more emphasis on the afterlife and what happens to a person when he or she dies. Russell begins his book with a single chapter devoted to a discussion of the afterlife in Jewish teachings, then moves on to the Christian tradition, tracing the concept of heaven as it has been depicted through the ages. He ultimately concludes with a discussion of Dante's The Divine Comedy. He looks at the various stories and details linked with the idea of heaven, from angels to the overall concept of paradise as a perfect place, along with the idea of immortality and how this is linked to the potential for resurrection. Russell also analyzes the various moral guidelines that are associated with heaven and the ways in which human beings believe that they might strive to achieve a place there, including a comparison of the ideas of predestination and free will. Finally, Russell considers the biblical predictions of the apocalypse and the resulting fate of all those who followed God's laws during life and are thereby considered worthy of a place at his side. Over the course of the book, he includes discussions and theories from various theologians, as well as how literature has depicted the idea of heaven over time. Steve Schroeder, writing for Booklist, commented that "apart from theological and historical illumination, … this is an eloquent celebration of Dante's literary genius." George E. Griener, reviewing for America, held a similar opinion, remarking that "Russell's heart clearly is attuned to Dante's, as seen particularly in the conclusion to his breathtaking survey, where he deftly analyzes the Paradiso." Christianity Today reviewer Elizabeth Fox-Genovese opined that "no brief review can begin to do justice to the rich complexity and subtlety of Russell's thought."

Russell's Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It, published in 2006, addresses the idea of heaven as a metaphor, one that stands for Christian belief as a whole. Over the course of his book, Russell looks at the ways in which Christians have slowly lost faith over the centuries as modern technology and science served to stand in opposition to traditional Christian doctrine and theories. He pinpoints the sixteenth century as the point in history when the work of scientists and mathematicians began to wear away at traditionally held beliefs and to cause faith in general to falter as people began to grow skeptical regarding the stories they had been told through the ages. As more and more scientific findings became tangible, with measurements and experiments that provided proof of the discoveries, the less-tangible areas of life—namely those things that had to be taken on faith alone due to lack of any physical evidence of their existence or meaning—began to lose ground, and people began to shift away from religious teachings and blind faith. The shift from religion to what Russell refers to as "physicalism" continued through the twentieth century. He addresses this change and how those who maintained their faith sought to fight the trend, including the ideas of creationism and the rise of intelligent design. In addition, he stands against nay-sayers, offering reasons why faith should be able to stand hand in hand with science. Writing for the National Catholic Reporter, Darrell Turner commented of Russell that "the self-described lapsed atheist encourages both Christians and secularists to examine their bases for determining whether something is worthy of belief." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly declared that "Russell's elegant survey of heaven offers a first-rate history of a much debated subject." Bryce Christensen, reviewing for Booklist, concluded that "Russell's debunking of the debunkers takes on particular seriousness when he defends the scripture, religious poetry, and hymns that secularists dismiss as wishful metaphor."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, June 20, 1998, George E. Griener, review of A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence, p. 28.

Booklist, April 15, 1997, Steve Schroeder, review of A History of Heaven, p. 1367; April 15, 2006, Bryce Christensen, review of Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It, p. 9.

Christianity Today, October 6, 1997, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, review of A History of Heaven, p. 58.

National Catholic Reporter, September 8, 2006, "Heaven, a Metaphor Pointing toward Reality," p. 14.

New York Times Book Review, March 8, 1987, Robert Coles, review of Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World.

Publishers Weekly, April 3, 2006, review of Paradise Mislaid, p. 64.

Times Literary Supplement, March 22, 1985, D.J. Enright, review of Mephistopheles.