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 time
Social setting
Economic 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
• 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.
