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Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. Their content is most frequently analyzed by clerics who do not question the underlying political or social implications of the text, but use the writing to convey messages to their congregations about how to live a holy existence. In Western society, moreover, what counts as scripture is generally confined to the Judeo-Christian Bible, leaving the voices of minorities, as well as the holy texts of faiths from Africa and Asia, for example, unheard. In this innovative collection of essays that aims to turn the traditional bible-study definition of scriptures on its head, Vincent L. Wimbush leads an in-depth look at the social, cultural, and racial meanings invested in these texts. Contributors hail from a wide array of academic fields and geographic locations and include such noted academics as Susan Harding, Elisabeth Shüssler Fiorenza, and William L. Andrews. Purposefully transgressing disciplinary boundaries, this ambitious book opens the door to different interpretations and critical orientations, and in doing so, allows an ultimately humanist definition of scriptures to emerge.
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THEORIZING SCRIPTURES
Signifying (on) Scriptures Vincent L. Wimbush, series editor Advisory Board: Catherine Bell Charles Hallisey Tazim Kassam Wesley Kort Laurie L. Patton R. S. Sugirtharajah This publication series aims to foster multi-field, multidisciplinary, comparative and sociopolitically engaged thinking, research, and writing about “scriptures”— what they are, why and how they were invented, what we make them do for us, how they are represented, and what effects they have (had) in society and culture. Proposals are invited from scholars of any field, discipline, or area of inquiry. The books published in this series all revolve around issues of interpretation—not of the content-meaning of texts (narrowly defined), but having to do with how peoples make “texts” “signify”/“signify on” “scriptures” as vectors for understanding, establishing, communicating, sometimes undermining, sometimes securing their identities, positions, agency, and power in the world.
THEORIZING SCRIPTURES New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon E D I T E D BY
VINCENT L. WIMBUSH
Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Theorizing Scriptures : new critical orientations to a cultural phenomenon / edited by Vincent L. Wimbush. p. cm. — (Signifying (on) Scriptures) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8135-4203-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-4204-1 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Sacred books—History and criticism. I. Wimbush, Vincent L. BL71.T49 2008 208’.2—dc22 2007008421 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2008 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2008 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents Foreword Charles H. Long — ix Preface — xi Introduction: TEXTureS, Gestures, Power: Orientation to Radical Excavation Vincent L. Wimbush — 1
Part I
The Phenomenon—and Its Origins
1
Scriptures—Text and Then Some Catherine Bell — 23
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