The Three Dimensions of Scriptures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v2i2.135Keywords:
scriptures, Wilfrid Cantwell Smith, iconic role, Ten CommandmentsAbstract
This article proposes a new model for understanding the ways that scriptures function. Several big media stories of recent years, such as those surrounding controversies over Ten Commandments monuments in U.S. courthouses and Qur’ans desecrated at Guantánamo Bay, involve the iconic function of scriptures. Yet contemporary scholarship on Jewish, Christian, or Muslim scriptures is ill-prepared to interpret these events because it has focused almost all its efforts on textual interpretation. Even the increased attention to the performative function of scripture by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and his students does not provide resources for understanding the iconic roles of scriptures. This article addresses the gap by theorizing the nature of scriptures as a function of their ritualization in three dimensions—semantic, performative, and iconic. The model provides a means for conceptualizing how traditions ritualize scriptures and how they claim and negotiate social power through this process.
References
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-----. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press.
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———. 2002. “On Buddhist ‘Bibliolaters’: Representing and Worshiping the Book in Medieval Indian Buddhism.” The Eastern Buddhist 34(2):94-116.
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Smith, Jonathan Z. 1987a. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1987b. “The Domestication of Sacrifice.” In Violent Origins, ed. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, 191-235. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 1998. “Canons, Catalogues and Classics.” In Canonization and Decanonization, ed. A. van der Kooij and K. van der Toorn, 295-311. Leiden: Brill.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1971. “The Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 39: 131-40; reprinted in Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, ed. Miriam Levering, 18-28. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989.
———. 1989. “Scripture as Form and Concept: Their Emergence for the Western World.” In Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, ed. Miriam Levering, 29-57. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Toorn, Karel van der. 1997. “The Iconic Book: Analogies between the Babylonian Cult of Images and the Veneration of the Torah.” In The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Karel van der Toorn, 229-48. Leuven: Peeters.
Watts, James W. 2004. “Ten Commandments Monuments and the Rivalry of Iconic Texts.” Journal of Religion & Society 6. http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2004/2004-13.html.
Wimbush, Vincent L. 2003. “Introduction: Reading Darkness, Reading Scriptures.” In Wimbush 2003, 7-22.
———ed. 2003. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. New York: Continuum.
-----. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bidderman, Shlomo. 1995. Scripture and Knowledge: An Essay on Religious Epistemology. Leiden: Brill.
Brown, Michelle. 2003. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London: British Library.
Gomez, Michael A. 2003. “The Preacher-Kings: W. E. B. Du Bois Revisited.” In Wimbush 2003, 501-13.
Goody, Jack. 1971. “The Impact of Islamic Writing on the Oral Cultures of West Africa.” Cahiers d’études africaines 11:455-66.
Graham, William A. 1987. Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Griffiths, Paul J. 1999. Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holdredge, Barbara A. 2003. “Beyond the Guild: Liberating Biblical Studies.” In Wimbush 2003, 138-59.
Kessler, Edward. 2004. Bound By the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kinnard, Jacob N. 1999. Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism. Surrey: Curzon.
———. 2002. “On Buddhist ‘Bibliolaters’: Representing and Worshiping the Book in Medieval Indian Buddhism.” The Eastern Buddhist 34(2):94-116.
Kort, Wesley. 1996. Take, Read: Scripture, Textuality and Cultural Practice. College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Long, Burke. 2003. Imagining the Holy Land: Maps, Models and Fantasy Travels. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Love, Velma. 2003. “The Bible and Contemporary African American Culture I.” In Wimbush 2003, 49-65.
Madigan, Daniel A. 2001. The Qur’an’s Self Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Marty, Martin. 1982. “America’s Iconic Book.” In Humanizing America's Iconic Book, ed. Gene M. Tucker and Douglas A. Knight, 1-23. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.
Melanchthon, Monica Jyotsna. 2005. “Dalits, Bible, and Method.” SBLForum, December 2005. http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=459. Accessed August 15, 2006.
Pickstock, Catherine. 1998. After Writing: The Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1999. Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress.
Shopshire, James M., Ida Rousseau Mukenge, Victoria Erickson, and Hans A. Baer. 2003. “The Bible and Contemporary African American Culture II: Report on a Preliminary Ethnographic Project.” In Wimbush 2003, 66-80.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1987a. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1987b. “The Domestication of Sacrifice.” In Violent Origins, ed. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, 191-235. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 1998. “Canons, Catalogues and Classics.” In Canonization and Decanonization, ed. A. van der Kooij and K. van der Toorn, 295-311. Leiden: Brill.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1971. “The Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 39: 131-40; reprinted in Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, ed. Miriam Levering, 18-28. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989.
———. 1989. “Scripture as Form and Concept: Their Emergence for the Western World.” In Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, ed. Miriam Levering, 29-57. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Toorn, Karel van der. 1997. “The Iconic Book: Analogies between the Babylonian Cult of Images and the Veneration of the Torah.” In The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Karel van der Toorn, 229-48. Leuven: Peeters.
Watts, James W. 2004. “Ten Commandments Monuments and the Rivalry of Iconic Texts.” Journal of Religion & Society 6. http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2004/2004-13.html.
Wimbush, Vincent L. 2003. “Introduction: Reading Darkness, Reading Scriptures.” In Wimbush 2003, 7-22.
———ed. 2003. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. New York: Continuum.
Published
2008-03-14
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Watts, J. W. (2008). The Three Dimensions of Scriptures. Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, 2(2-3), 135-159. https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v2i2.135
