The Glory Jest and Riddle: Jonathan Z. Smith and an Aesthetic of Impossibles

The late Jonathan Z. Smith was a central influence in the development of a study of religion on a par with the social and even natural sciences. This article reexamines Smith’s legacy for the inspiration to build a proper academic study of religion. It looks to Smith’s common use of jokes and riddles, grounded in his early studies of Frazer’s The Golden Bough, in order to tease out not simply stylistic or methodological concerns, but fundamental philosophical shapings of religion theory. I develop a presentation of this position in what is termed an aesthetic of impossibles, the distinctively human capacity of considering things as equal or identical knowing full well that they are not and doing so without any necessity for reconciliation. This aesthetic is examined and illustrated in a consideration of Smith’s views of comparison and mapping. In an extended discussion, it is also considered in terms of human self-moving as the marker of vitality, established in both philosophy and biology.