Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Violence is more common in the Biblethan the Quran text analysis reveals

dear olayinka

i'm not 100% sure of the point of our list focusing so much on religious questions. if it is a question of the reality of religious figures, we need real historians of the topic, and i don't know if we have such scholars. if it is a question of the theology, there are some who are conversant in the religions, or one religion, and who can point to text, which we can all look at. and the minute we start a debate about the religious meaning, which we all impose individually, i suppose we can have a friendly discussion, without trying to imagine we are serious scholars.

i am maybe too much of a servant to the notion of specialists who devote their lives to topics, and can speak with authority. i love it when specialists confess their humility, and don't say, this is who jesus or mohammad or moses were, but this is the evidence we have of such and such, and let us be persuaded by the evidence.

and i think discussions between friends has to entail disagreements that are respectful, or else they are too painful to have.

it is a question of being safe, in a sense. i can voice an opinion without fearing that i'll be attacked for it. attack my views an uninformed, and explain why, and maybe i'll learn something; and vice versa.

but we don't want to be argument about the religions of others in ways that make them feel attacked.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2021 8:44 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Violence is more common in the Biblethan the Quran text analysis reveals

 

Ken.

After what we have said over the years in this forum, there are still those who prefer to pluck Christianity and Islam out of the legitimate contexts of their origins and the interlapping origins of their scriptural texts and subtexts and want thereby to be regarded as ( political?) scholars waxing serious in their views.

We have noted both principal figures themselves Jesus and Prophet Muhamned were considered illiterate yet stood at the cusp of the people of the Book.

We have drawn attention to the dovetailed events of the book by order of antecedent copying of one another and gratuitous interpretations.

We have noted the importance of geographical contiguity and the borrowing of stock themes which should be of interest to genuine literary scholars to alert them to the unlikelihood of the pristine nature of each religions.

We have drawn attention to the sojourn of the eponym  of Christianity in Egypt and the influence of the the Egyptian polytheistic concept of the Trinity on the cardinal eschatology of Christianity when the Bible was eventually written as a homogenous text circa 4 CE.

Yet people want us to believe entirely different concepts of religions have been presented in the leading monotheisms.

OAA

Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <harrow@msu.edu>

Date: 22/08/2021 18:36 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Violence is more common in the Biblethan the Quran text analysis reveals

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toyin,

there is a literal reading of the scriptures which is often the way it is presented to children.

if we are able to perform acts of interpretation--which is what all commentary does--then we can make useful readings of the texts. otherwise, i suggest they remain nice coffee table books, chosen for their decor, and not the contents.

i can't think of anything less useful, intellectually, than to take the biblical or qur'anic accounts literally. i mean, ...

ok, one trivial example. it is not unreasonable to take the sacrifice of isaac as the central account for all three religions.

in judaism it is called the akedah, the binding of isaac, and it will be read and commented on in synagogues around the world in a couple of weeks.

to remind you all, it is the story of abraham's sacrifice of isaac., i recommend everyone go and google the rembrandt painting, or etching, of it. really striking.

how could anyone take seriously this notion of a father killing his son, the son he loves, the son whose progeny were supposed to carry on the generations as numerous as the stars etc etc.

anyway, kierkegaard wrote a whole book on faith and its contradictions, so it must be more complicated that a simple story of a father deciding to kill his son as a sacrifice to his god.

i would wish to argue that if we wanted to found judaism on that act, literally, the religion should be left aside as an interesting artifact of history, not as anything to be taken seriously.

a few years after this, we have another father deciding to sacrifice his son. same story: the son will be left to suffer and die, and then go to heaven, and take with him the sins of ordinary people. that's it. he cried out, my father, why have you abandoned me, and afterwards will have made it possible for sinful people to be saved by believing in him.

do you really want to take that story literally? isn't it possible to give a transcendental reading that gets us beyond the immediate physicality of crucifixion, death, resurrection? is this the best we can do to found christian values, or can we not get to love and care by a more compelling way of reading that story?

children want angels to fly; we are adults in the room, and need to read more deeply.

wait a couple more days. now the father is back, ready to sacrifice his son, who this time has changed his name to that of the older boy, ishmael. again the knife, again the terror, again the sheep in substitution of the boy. seem familiar? seem again to invite readings of all these elements, the person of the father, the person of the son, the person of the ram, the role of the angel, the repetition of the acts every year, bringing the ram under the knife, the memory of the ritual and salvation it enables? can't we actually read this as more than simply some abhorrent act of violence?

on the level of reading that we must, all, insist upon, it is not violence as in the commonly used meaning of the word. It entails a transcendence of the physical realm in every case, the intervention of a magical moment that takes the act outside the realm of the normal or ordinary.  for kierkegaard we cannot understand it, so it becomes foundational for faith.

for those who insist upon taking it literally--the fundamentalists of all these religions--the violence has no meaning beyond the bodies, and they would take a sword or hammer or gun, and say, take this religion my way or the highway. but for every act of commentary--which forms the true core of the religion--it is necessary to read the accounts hermeneutically, for meaning, not for reportage.

that is all the world of difference between a study that counts acts like these as violence and one that claims we are not talking about violence in any ordinary sense of the word at all, but something that transcends it. you don't have to believe it, but you do have to think.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 4:30 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Violence is more common in the Bible than the Quran text analysis reveals

 

Thanks.

Which of the two religions is associated with violence and terrorism today?

What is the reason for the answer to that question, an answer we all know?

A question vital for Muslims, Christians and everyone.

Thanks

Toyin 

Thanks

Toyin

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 04:10 Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/violence-more-common-bible-quran-text-analysis-reveals-a6863381.html%3famp

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