The Authority of the Text: Meaning and Sacredness in Western Scripture

3.00 credits · Undergraduate

This course examines the nature of scripture and what (or who) gives it authority. Through study of the related phenomena of interpretation, sacredness, and canonicity in biblical traditions, this course addresses questions of the origins of sacred texts and how such texts establish and sustain the religious, cultural, and social lives of communities. It explores how and with what results culturally and historically diverse interpretive communities have made fresh appropriations of scriptural traditions through various strategies of interpretation. It also asks what is at stake in these deliberations, who benefits, and how power operates or shifts via the various ideological mechanisms that serve to authorize scripture. [Note 1: Permission of the Department is required.] (Format: Seminar 3 Hours) (Exclusion: Any version of RELG 4821 previously offered with a different title)