"Law" and "religion" denote vast, imperial realms that are, for the most part, each understood to be clearly bounded and independent. On closer inspection, these terms prove to be curiously amorphous and resistant to precise definition. Each is also, in present common usage, peculiarly the product of modernity. Linking the two terms, as in "law and religion," compounds these ambiguities. The ancient roots of these two terms, the definitional difficulties associated with employing them cross-culturally, and, above all, the problematic understanding of "modernity" they encode are only some of the challenges that complicate an analysis of their interconnection. The purpose of the present article is to begin this work of definition in a manner that introduces and synthesizes some of the key themes in the articles on law presented both in this section and elsewhere in the Encyclopedia, and to specify a range of historical and...