Day 3 of the Digital Curation of Puffenberger’s Religious Artifacts

Today’s post is going to be centered around my understanding of the World Religions paradigm, since most of my day was spent researching this model. To begin, the definition of the World Religions Paradigm has been summed up as the model of which religions have been classified, categorized, described and taught throughout the years in higher education systems. However, there are many critiques on the paradigm, beginning with the idea that this model favors “traditions” over actual “religious” aspects. This presents a problem, says Professor James L. Cox of Edinburgh University. The problem with the paradigm categorizing religions that have quantized characteristics correlated with their region specific traditions is that then many of definitive “religions” have overlapping characteristics with more than one ethnicity. The paradigm emphasizes ‘religions’ as a grouping of beliefs that can be seen through quantified aspects that differentiate itself from other ‘religions’. The criticism then becomes clear when looking at a variety of religions that are centered in the same geographical regions. Many of the characteristics that the World Religions paradigm likes to use in order to categorize religions come from traditions that surround a particular geographical region. So how can one prescribe a specific “religious” characteristic to a religion when a multitude of ethnicities exhibit the same, or similar, characteristics? This is just one critique that many scholars point out when discussing the World Religions paradigm. Moving on to another criticism (mostly because I am not entirely sure if this blog post has a world limit), many scholars view the religions in the World Religions Paradigm as having similar characteristics to that of Christianity. Meaning, that many classified religions have distinct quantized matter that can help distinguish itself as a religion such as sacred books, a place of worship, known founders, etc., which as Fox described, is coincidentally just like Christianity. This is problematic many scholars say because how about those religions that do not have sacred texts, specific places of worship, etc. The World Religions paradigm would then unintentionally lean toward the teaching of mostly western religions (Judaeo-Christian) in education, or only touch on the “Big Five” (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism). As Phillip L.Tite explains, his biggest obstacle in teaching religious studies courses is avoiding the standardized categories the World Religions paradigms instilled and attempt to teach beyond the paradigm.

I use these critiques as I begin to think about my research. Of course, my research is based around the use of sacred texts and its relationship to religious artifacts. However, in categorizing the different religions on the website, I have to be careful to accurately relate the artifact to its specified religion even if there is limited textual references. In addition, I want to mention why exactly sacred texts are so important to religions in general and why sacred texts are characterized as significant and distinctive material that differentiate a religion from others. As Kenneth Kramer says in his book World Scriptures: An Introduction to Comparative Religions, he mentions significance of religious text to the actual religion itself by saying that scriptures serve as a paradigm for understanding sacred traditions. In addition, he mentions the how sacred texts are displayed as symbolically and imagistically pieces of literature which can then transcend into teaching and practices, origins of traditions, and/or including individual stories that help reflect these teachings in a more personable way. The book then goes on to categorize its different chapters by religions that emphasize the importance of its religious text (such as Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, etc), but it makes sure to mention the significance of the text and how the it is used in relation to the actual religion itself. Kramer even mentions “text” that is not even “text” at all. Kramer explains the importance of oral reiteration of many sacred stories across a variety of religion and how even though these oral recitations are not contextualized, they are just as, or possible even more significant to written text.

Moving on to another source that discusses sacred texts, The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective by Frederick M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor, is very similar content wise to Kramer’s book. However, Denny and Taylor have a heavy emphasis on explaining the significance of “Abrahamic” traditions and categorize their book that could be seen as the World Religion Paradigm definition of religion. I am sure that the authors of the book were unaware of that their categorization had correlation to the World Religions Paradigm, but because of the plethora of text and quantifiable religious characteristics that can be easily analyzed as a scholarly outside, it’s understandable why they categorized the religions they discussed in this way.

The textbooks authored by Theodore M. Ludwig, The Sacred Paths of the East and The Sacred Paths of the West are very different in their categorizations compared to the previous texts that I have mentioned. Ludwig mentions that there are two general approaches in studying religious experiences. One can either look from the outside and use their observations to construct their idea of why they think those particular people practicing the religion are doing what they are doing, or one can actually immerse themselves into the religion and looking from the inside. Ludwig prefers the latter. As far as categorizing his religions, Ludwig focuses much of his classifying on depending on particular regions that he can group religions in but acknowledges the variety in religious practices even for groups that are close in proximity but also mentions the similarities. Ludwig then delves into discussing particular religions by mentioning much more than text, but includes practices, influences, symbols, historical context, etc. Consequently, because of the amount of detail Ludwig uses, it is much easier for him to mention “smaller” religions, such as indigenous religions that do not rely heavily on text, symbols and other westernized religious characteristics.

Lastly, I want to discuss World Religions: The great faiths explored and explained by John Bowker. Like Kramer’s and Denny’s book, Bowker classified most of the religions in his book that use quantifiable symbols such as sacred text, founder, etc, probably because his book specifically is very visual and it is much easier to exemplify religions visually when they have distinct tactile features. One thing that I would like to note however is that Bowker does incorporate region based factor. For example, Bowker distinguishes Japanese Buddhism from Chinese Buddhism, which it s a notable fact since as discussed about, geographical regions affect the traditions of a religion. Overall, pretty much all of the books used the World Religion Paradigm to some extent, but I am now mindful of this model and will take the pros and cons in using this model forward as I continue my research. Tomorrow I plan on continuing my research on the World Religions paradigm and hopefully start on some research with the actual artifacts themselves.

-Amal Ismail