ways to study religion

WAYS TO STUDY RELIGION

• Religion, not discipline or methodology

• Vehicle, field of study, or text.

• Includes many disciplines, scholarly methodologies; each must answer basic questions.

• Several tools must be used in the study of religions

Theology and Religious Studies

• Identify theology with religion, not accurate.

• Academic study, look at Scripture and scriptural texts in academic critical study.

Theos Logos• Greek words theos, god/gods; logos, speech, inquiry, science, or

knowledge. • Not all religions are theistic. • Theology, academic discipline, academic pursuit; involves critical

analysis, does not seek to indoctrinate proselytize or convert. • As science cannot stay at level of transmitting teachings; must offer

explanatory questions at different levels. • No solution based on privileged beliefs; religious beliefs called into

question, rational discourse given priority. • Must question everything critically; scientific beliefs treated as

hypotheses, must be internally coherent and clearly criticizable.

Fides quaerens intellectum

• Rational discourse vis-à-vis beliefs.

• Theology, what it does: “Faith seeking reason/understanding.”

• Theologians engaged in critical analysis of own religious tradition; committed and objective, willing to use different tools to critique, analyze religion, even questioning own religious beliefs.

Tools used in the analysis of

religion • Historical-Critical

Method, approach to study of Scriptures,

• Utilizes historical research, literary analysis of texts, findings of archeology and other sciences, i.e.: anthropology.

What does the Historical-Critical method seek to discover?

• Shed light on:Political reality of timeSocial settingEconomic situation Cultural setting

What tools does the Historical-Critical Method use?

• Literary Criticism

• Textual Criticism

• Source Criticism

• Form Criticism

• Redaction Criticism

• Reader Response Criticism

• History

Literary Criticism

• Sacred writings, records of events and authoritative teachings.

• Understand, interpret sacred texts.

• Understand original meaning, purpose of writing.

Literary Criticism must look for clues that will answer:

• Is translation based on original, oldest or most authentic, reliable text?

• What was intention of author(s) of text?

• When was text written? • Where was it written? • To whom was it

addressed? • How was work received? • How was it edited,

transmitted, interpreted?

Textual Criticism

• Must ask following question: authentic, original version of text?

• Use number of methods, procedures to answer such basic question.

Source Criticism

• Looks at authorship of particular document.

• Is document whole composition?

• Most books, compilations from different sources; may include different genres, oral traditions, etc.

Source Criticism seeks to answer:

• Does text have more than one author?

• Does text have more than one editor?

Form Criticism

• Many sacred texts, oral sources. – Was this text an oral text? – Are these pre-literary forms discernable in written

texts? – What do hymns, laments, laws, wisdom and

blessings say about context or culture that produced them?

Redaction Criticism

• Not interested in components of text,

• Looks at entire text.

• Addresses following issues: – What sources were used or rejected? – How were texts arranged? – How have they changed? – Have they been revised?

Reader Response Criticism

• Interested in interaction between text/ reader.

• Who were original authors of texts, original readers or audience?

• Was there unintended reader?

• What are different levels of meaning in text?

Importance of Reader Response Criticism

• Each readers brings with him/her to text:– own

experiences– own

preconceptions

Historiography • History of religion recent

academic development: IXX Century.

• Historians select accounts, evidence available through different sources

• Based on principles of selectivity, choice of relevant data depend on kind of questions historians put to past.

Questions historians ask:

• Who wrote what, when, why and to whom?

• What did writer borrow, and what were distinctive contributions to text?

• Must look at non-written texts, i.e., archeology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc.

What must a historian discover in history?

Historians must distinguish historical occurrences from other genres:

• Myth• Legend• Saga• Religious Traditions• Role religion, religious experiences in

individual/community?• Influence on development of culture

society and nation?

Anthropology

• Study of human beings

• Studies social functions of religion.

• What functions particular institutions or beliefs serve in life of community?

Functionalism

• Most widely used method by anthropologists.

• Tries to determine what functions particular institutions or beliefs serve in life of community.

• How do beliefs elicit acceptance, sanction certain behaviors?

• How do they affect society?

Sociology • Focuses on group

social behavior. • Looks at how religion

interacts with other dimensions of social experience.

• Concerned with religious life of contemporary, developed, literate societies.

Psychology Psychology • Looks at how religion

affects behavior of individual.

• What benefits does individual receive from practice of particular religion?

Philosophy (The Love of Wisdom)• Examines religious

experience and belief.

• Seeks to establish logical status, meaning, truth of religious narratives and doctrines.

• Scrutinizes reason to demonstrate limits of rationality.

Philosophy: Handmaiden of Religion

• Complimentary, at service of religion.

• Modern critical philosophy scrutinizes reason

• Demonstrate limits of rationality.

• Attempts to reveal boundaries, contradictions found in religion.

Phenomenology • Not concerned with

exploring experience, but description itself.

• Suspension of judgment, bracketing from inquiry is necessary in all attempts to explain truth, value.

• Portrays religion in its own terms as unique expression.

• Seeks not to reduce it or explain it in other terms.

Interpreting and Explaining Religion

• Religious experience and meaning are expressed through symbol, sounds, gestures, rituals, dramas, artifacts, architecture, and texts.

• These vehicles for religious experience require interpreter to convey mysterious meaning that they hold.

Hermeneutics• Act of explanation,

elucidation.• Means to interpret. • Makes use of all

methods described above to accomplish task of interpretation.

Human as Interpreters

• Reading-off meaning of sacred texts, not easy.• Hermeneutics: presuppositions of interpretation

and understanding. • Seeks necessary preconditions to make

interpretation possible, valid. • Expressions of human spirit not subject to laws,

explanations of natural sciences. T• Require understanding, not explanation. • Human meaning in its own terms to be

understood from within.

Summary• Study of religions, secondary

activity, reconstruct, describe, explain primary expression of religious life i.e., rituals, sacred texts, institutions, beliefs, behavior.

• Use of disciplines, methods, i.e., history, linguistics, literary scholarship.

• Anthropological, sociological, psychological research, philosophical analysis, phenomenology, other sub disciplines.

• Universal and enduring character of religion/belief in human history.

• Religion embedded in behavior, history and culture of people.