How to portray non-Christian religions in historical fiction?

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Umbellifera

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Well, this is a very, very specialised niche-type question to be asking. But I would be interested in hearing some opinions.
I like to write stories (nothing published, it’s a hobby) and I’m also interested in history. Recently I ‘discovered’ the Etruscans, who were a main power in Italy before the Romans, and I have nebulous ideas for stories about them condensing in my brain. There’s quite a lot of information about the Etruscans about- researching is much simpler than other historical periods and places I’ve been interested… (such as tribes in the Elburz and Zagros mountains during the Sumerian era about whom I could find no information at all.)
Obviously this pre-Christian, and there wasn’t much Judaism about in Italy at the time either. The Etruscans were polytheists (is that the right spelling?) and believed in predestination: they studied omens such as the weather and livers (they thought the latter was a microcosm of the universe) so that they would know what they should do in accord with the will of their gods.
Now, I’m just wondering how I would portray them. So far these are the options I can think of:
  1. Be like the medieval Icelanders, and have characters who are Christian in everything but name.
  2. Leave the religion completely out of the story, and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
  3. Show that the religion is entirely wrong, misguided, and leads to misery (but I’d be uncomfortable with this. And often when I read a book in which even non-christian religions get bashed up a lot, I feel rather hurt, for it seems as if the author thinks that ALL religion is wrong).
  4. Show that the religions is right, wonderful, leading to joy.
  5. Show that it is part good and part bad. Question is, where does one draw the line?
Thank you for your help! I hope that this doesn’t seem too weird.

Umbellifera
 
As someone who also likes to write, I’d try to portray it from a neutral perspective. It is a religion, they believe certain things and this seems good to them. The religious beliefs of foreigners are strange. You don’t really have to look at it as “good” or “bad”.

Only if you’re writting from the perspective of someone else would you really do that.
 
Have you read any of the works of S.M. Stirling? If not, I would suggest reading the Nantucket series (Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, and On the Oceans of Eternity) and the Emberverse series (Dies the Fire, The Protector’s War, A Meeting at Corvallis, The Sunrise Lands, The Scourge of God, and The Sword of the Lady) There’s another Emberverse book coming out, too (The High King of Montival)

Religion in the Nantucket series does get a little strange (how can you have Christianity when you’ve been transported to 1250BC?) but still, I think, quite well handled. With the Emberverse series, some people have criticized it as being too much of a Wiccan apologetic but it’s more that I think he expected that religion to be less familiar to his readers so there’s more detail (while he can evoke plenty by referring to his Catholic characters’ confessors or a scene of a priest giving Communion to a Catholic character seen from the distance by the POV character while they’re on a journey).

In all honesty, I don’t see any way that religion can be left out entirely … it’s too much a part of life. But if you want to write well, you can’t go wrong by reading lots, and Stirling is just one author whose books I’ve enjoyed.
 
Umbellifera, I think you have an interesting hobby! 🙂

If you can find enough information about the religion, why not include it when useful in fleshing out the characters?

My take is that you are not writing about the religion as a set of ideas and practices, but about human beings. As human beings, our sense of the transcendent is fairly important. Granted, more so in some individuals than others.

I think the truth or falsity of a religion doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how an given human experiences it. Even accepting the truth of the Christian faith, some Catholics occasionally feel sorrow, or disappointment, even a sense of betrayal. Individuals may also experience joy or sense of purpose… wonderment, belonging.

Fear, seeking guidance, giving thanks… think of the many things we pray about. People in all ages and cultures have the same concerns. How we clothe our feelings may vary, but underneath all of us are the same.
 
Just writer it how it feels natural. Don’t try to force it into a corner of saying, Ok, there’s this one rligion here, but it’s not my religion, so of course it’s evil and wrong. Don’t try to shove a religious moral down your potential reader’s throats. it’s perfectly doable to portray something without CONDONING it. Just like an author could write about a murder, a homosexual man, or a prostitute without condoning or promoting what they’re doing, the same can be said about writing about a religion
 
Thank you for your replies. They’re very encouraging. I just sort of panicked and wondered if I would be endorsing things it would be better not to endorse, or disapproving of things I shouldn’t disapprove of…
 
I know how you feel. There’s one or two threads here a week in regards to sin in fiction and media. May I suggest you check out the About page of Decentfilns.com? It has some amazing insight on how an artist can handle things like this

Just remember. There’s a difference between ENDORSING and GLORIFYING a non catholic or sinful choice, and merely showing that this choice has been made
 
Hi, I also shared a similar hobby as yours. I like to write, and very often indulged in writing stories, for self-amusements and for people around me. For me I’m drawn to oriental history, and wrote stories in such setting. As for religion wise, I supposed I try to keep it neutral, though I reckon humans are same throughout the ages - there would be a tendency on leaning towards a need for ‘higher beings’, polytheism is rampant in the orient, with shrines, temples dedicated to various gods and goddesses. Many people who did great work in their lifes were elevated to god-hood after they have passed away, and people continued to worship them.

There might not be a need to illustrate the religion as a core integral of your story (unless that is what you’re setting to write) but if you read up enough of the religion, it woulc be incorporated into the daily lives of these characters in your story.
 
Umbellifera said:
Well, this is a very, very specialised niche-type question to be asking. But I would be interested in hearing some opinions.
I like to write stories (nothing published, it’s a hobby) and I’m also interested in history. Recently I ‘discovered’ the Etruscans, who were a main power in Italy before the Romans, and I have nebulous ideas for stories about them condensing in my brain. There’s quite a lot of information about the Etruscans about- researching is much simpler than other historical periods and places I’ve been interested… (such as tribes in the Elburz and Zagros mountains during the Sumerian era about whom I could find no information at all.)
Obviously this pre-Christian, and there wasn’t much Judaism about in Italy at the time either. The Etruscans were polytheists (is that the right spelling?) and believed in predestination: they studied omens such as the weather and livers (they thought the latter was a microcosm of the universe) so that they would know what they should do in accord with the will of their gods.
Now, I’m just wondering how I would portray them. So far these are the options I can think of:
  1. Be like the medieval Icelanders, and have characters who are Christian in everything but name.
  2. Leave the religion completely out of the story, and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
  3. Show that the religion is entirely wrong, misguided, and leads to misery (but I’d be uncomfortable with this. And often when I read a book in which even non-christian religions get bashed up a lot, I feel rather hurt, for it seems as if the author thinks that ALL religion is wrong).
  4. Show that the religions is right, wonderful, leading to joy.
  5. Show that it is part good and part bad. Question is, where does one draw the line?
Thank you for your help! I hope that this doesn’t seem too weird.

Umbellifera
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Do you start from the assumption that a work of fiction is supposed to “show” whether something is good or bad? Sure, it may do this. But why not simply come up with characters who seem believable to you based on what you know about this culture? Put yourself into their heads to the very limited degree possible.

You do seem to like obscure topics. It’s hard enough to put yourself inside the heads of the Romans or Greeks.

I have wanted to write historical novels about the ancient world for a while too, but am rather lazy and disorganized and am furthermore intimidated by precisely this challenge.

Are you familiar with Colleen McCullough’s work? I’ve only read First Man in Rome, myself, but I thought it did a pretty good job of portraying some rather repellent features of Roman society in a realistic way. There was plenty of anachronism and a strong tendency to make the characters she wanted you to sympathize with seem more modern than their antagonists. But I think that’s inevitable. You will always have Greeks or Romans or Etruscans or whoever as imagined by a 21st-century person. But you can do as good a job as possible. Tackling the Etruscans is more challenging in one way than what McCullough does, but easier in another, because there’s less information that could prove you wrong! The farther back you go in time, and the less we know about the culture in question, the more historical fiction looks like fantasy. But all historical fiction is fantasy to some degree. (And all history is historical fiction to some degree, which logically means that all history is fantasy to some degree!)

Edwin
 
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