Truth in Texts

A few days ago, in the Guardian, Karen Armstrong -- author of, among other things, "A History of God" and "The Battle for God" -- published this essay, "Unholy Strictures," in which she contends that "it is wrong -- and dangerous -- to believe that literal truth can be found in religious texts":

Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment.

In Armstrong's view, "[w] distort our scriptures if we read them in an exclusively literal sense. There has recently been much discussion about the way Muslim terrorists interpret the Qur'an. Does the Qur'an really instruct Muslims to slay unbelievers wherever they find them? Does it promise the suicide bomber instant paradise and 70 virgins? If so, Islam is clearly chronically prone to terrorism. These debates have often been confused by an inadequate understanding of the way scripture works."

"Part of the problem," she continues, "is that we are now reading our scriptures instead of listening to them. When, for example, Christian fundamentalists argue about the Bible, they hurl texts back and forth competitively, citing chapter and verse in a kind of spiritual tennis match. But this detailed familiarity with the Bible was impossible before the modern invention of printing made it feasible for everybody to own a copy and before widespread literacy - an essentially modern phenomenon - enabled them to read it for themselves. . . .  Hitherto the scriptures had always been transmitted orally, in a ritual context that, like a great theatrical production, put them in a special frame of mind. . . ."

And:

Historians have noted that the shift from oral to written scripture often results in strident, misplaced certainty. Reading gives people the impression that they have an immediate grasp of their scripture; they are not compelled by a teacher to appreciate its complexity. Without the aesthetic and ethical disciplines of ritual, they can approach a text in a purely cerebral fashion, missing the emotive and therapeutic aspects of its stories and instructions.

Solitary reading also enables people to read their scriptures too selectively, focusing on isolated texts that they read out of context, and ignoring others that do not chime with their own predilections. . . .

Armstrong's hostility to those she describes as "fundamentalists" is, for me, a bit off-putting.  Still, I think she makes some interesting and important points.  Certainly, there are Christians, and streams in Christianity, that are too confident in the ability of the well meaning, solitary reader to concordance-hop through the Scriptures and find the Truth.  (That said, it was not entirely clear from Armstrong's essay that she thinks "Truth" -- as opposed, perhaps, to "meaning"? -- is really what is ever found in religious texts).  In any event, perhaps, she and Sandy Levinson could have an interesting conversation about constitutional interpretation . . . (see this post on Levinson's "Constitutional Faith").

Rick