Bruce Lincoln’s “How to Read a Religious Text”: An Experiment of Application.
Issue: Vol 42 No. 2 (2013)
Journal: Bulletin for the Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
Abstract:
In Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions, Lincoln’s “How to Read a Religious Text” is anchored in decades of work with mythological texts or canonical texts, the six points deployed have their origins in his prior work, Theorizing Myth (Lincoln 2012, 5-15; Lincoln 1999, 150-155). 1 The sections from the Chandogya Upaniʂds that Lincoln uses to illustrate his points thus, fall in line with a number of his selected examples over the course of his career, add to this the analysis of relatively discrete events. The essay will apply Lincoln’s six lines of inquiry to Sara J. Duncan’s Progressive Missions in the South and Addresses: With Illustrations and Sketches of Missionary Workers and Ministers and Bishop’s Wives (1906) to walk through of the utility, limits and necessary adaptations that surface when Lincoln’s categories are applied to other types of religious texts beyond myth and canon.
Author: Ipsita Chatterjea
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