CHAPTER 7 Girard and Burkert: Hunting, Homo Necans, Guilt Wolfgang Palaver René Girard and the German Classics Professor Walter Burkert developed the most important theories on the relationship between violence and religion in the twentieth century. 1 In 1972, each published, completely independent from the other, their seminal works on the role of violence in archaic religions. Girard’s book La violence et le sacré came out in Paris, and Burkert’s book Homo necans was published in Berlin. 2 It was Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, a Protestant theologian and close follower of Girard’s mimetic theory, who convened a weeklong workshop in fall of 1983 enabling a scholarly dialogue between the two thinkers where they could recognize parallels as well as differences regarding their approaches. 3 Where parallels are concerned, it is striking that Burkert wrote in 1996 in a new afterword that the title of Girard’s book would also have been an appropriate title for his own. 4 In the following, I will highlight similarities and differences between these two thinkers in three sections. In the first, I will focus on Girard and Burkert’s interpretation of the relationship between violence and religion—and how their understandings can offer an evolutionary explanation of religion. The second section will examine Girard’s thoughts on the mimetic roots of violence, which will serve as a frame of comparison between the two thinkers. A final section will contrast Burkert and Girard with regard to the biblical religions and their understanding of guilt. VIOLENCE AND RELIGION The significance of Girard and Burkert’s ideas grows in the context of con- temporary critiques of religion, especially those coming from Darwinian circles like the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who often reduce religion to a W. Palaver (&) University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria © The Author(s) 2017 J. Alison and W. Palaver (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53825-3_7 45