Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sacred Text

I am fascinated with how humans relate to sacred text.

I love sacred text as I think they reveal a lot about the people who follow it. I call a wide variety of things sacred text... the definition would include the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and things like the Principia Mathematica (to name but just a few).

I suppose this is a relatively new interest I have in some ways. I have tended to think of sacred writings as products of humans, inspired by something, though the extent of what that may be was not for me to know. But, that there was something vitally important in the words to the culture the text meant to serve.

I like thinking about the texts I am familiar with and digging in to the message the ancestors that wrote those words were trying to convey (remember, I do not presume to understand or know the divinity of the texts... just that I accept that there were humans that wrote AND interpreted them per their cultural norms).

So, I had never even considered the notion of forged text until read this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301.html

I am slightly in awe of this article. Perhaps, it is because of the implications of the "divinity" ascribed to the Bible by the common culture who follows it... and the arguments it must cause in the variations of interpretation of message.

I do not have the heart (or soul for that matter) to dig into the validity of the divinity of works, though in that very assumption of mine I know I am making some sweeping statements that may cause many of my friends (on both sides of the belief aisle) to cringe. I will proclaim that I am deeply intrigued by the humanity behind the works... and I am looking forward to how I perceive sacred texts with this new piece of information closer to the front of my mind.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

>I am deeply intrigued by the humanity behind the works

Amen. By which I mean: me, too.

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