Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed

https://lithub.com/sacred-scripture-lives-and-evolves-is-never-fixed/

by collapse • 7 years ago

54 17 7 years ago

haakts• 7 years ago

If you like this kind of thing, check out The Development of Doctrine (Newman). Snippet: "It is indeed sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full."

bovermyer• 7 years ago

One of the most interesting parts of this excerpt to me is that it presents the idea that "scripture" - sacred, inviolable, and written down - is only one of many possible forms.

That the Aryans considered the sound of the scripture to be more important than its content, and that writing it down was corrupt and even sacrilegious, is fascinating.

xamuel• 7 years ago

The Aryans seem unlikely producers of a holy scripture, since their lives were not what we would call devout.

I wonder where this idea comes from that only devout people can be inspired. People are shocked when they pick up the Old Testament and read about (e.g.) Abraham pretending his wife is his sister so a rival king will take her into his harem. Jesus said: who would love you more, a man whom you forgave a $5 debt, or a man whom you forgave a $500 debt? Obviously the latter!

Sound had always been sacred to the Aryans—it was far more important to them than the meaning of these hymns—so when they intoned and memorized them, the priests felt possessed by a sacred presence

If you went to a physical therapist and he told you to move your tongue/lips/lungs in certain specific motions, which happened to produce noises, you wouldn't judge the exercise by the semantic content of those noises. Maybe scripture should be thought of like that. Exercises to train certain parts in the brain. Some (like the Vedas) train neurons associated with low-level tongue movements. Others (like the Christian gospels) train neurons associated with higher-level abstract concepts.

dawg-2• 7 years ago

If you went to a physical therapist and he told you to move your tongue/lips/lungs in certain specific motions, which happened to produce noises, you wouldn't judge the exercise by the semantic content of those noises.

So the brain actually does have a special motor planning area for speech movements that is intermeshed with all the other parts of our language system, including semantics. As an example, when people have Apraxia (loss of coordination) they can have two different kinds, depending on where the lesion is: oral apraxia (loss of ability to move the jaw/tongue/cheeks/lips in NON speech tasks) or verbal apraxia (loss of coordination specifically for articulation movements). You are on to something interesting with your comment about "low-level tongue movements" vs. movements associated with communication.

I wonder what an fMRI would look like on someone reciting these Vedic hymns (in a language they do not fully possess) vs. someone reciting hymns in their native language? And what if you had an English-speaking Christian recite hymns in another language they don't know, like German or Latin or Greek?

trianglem• 7 years ago

Hasn’t the Koran been static since it’s inception?

solresol• 7 years ago

Kinda. There were several variants in the early days, until one version was declared the true and only correct version; every Koran since then has been a copy of that one.

shantly• 7 years ago

Depending on what you mean by inception, maybe yes, maybe no. It was not initially written down exactly as we have it today, no. It was eventually canonized into its current form, yes, if that's what you mean, though exactly when and by whom is unclear.

[EDIT] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran

asadlionpk• 7 years ago

Yes. Its preservation is promised by Allah. In practice, I think one reason for that has been that it's encouraged to memorize it (from its inception), the original blockchain :)

KorematsuFred2• 7 years ago

Depends on how you define inception. Muhammad himself was illiterate so the job of writing down came to his followers. Many of them wrote on parchments which were kept in random order. Over years people added more parchments to the pile. Soon there were several hundred versions of koran. I think Muhammad's third generate Khalif managed to create one "authentic" koran and burned all other versions.

ncmncm• 7 years ago

"Never fixed" here, means changing in meaning, not failing to be repaired -- but which also happens.

Mistakes in written scriptures are common, often seeding weird cults. For example, the biblical proscription on "suffering a witch to live" is said to have referred, in the original, to poisoners, but inspired an Inquisition devoted, in large degree, to confiscating widows' inherited property.

"Life of Brian" noted the phenomenon.

Ar-Curunir• 7 years ago

This article is just wrong. First, there were no Aryans in the Steppes; only Proto-Indo-Europeans.

A branch of PIEs migrated south and southwest, and ended up in Iran and India. This branch is called the Proto-Indo-Iranians, or the Aryan branch of PIEs. This happened some time before 1500 BCE, because we have evidence of Vedic gods in things like the Mitanni treaties.

Regarding the point about Aryans not caring about the content of scripture, this is again wrong. First, the Iranian branch came up with Zoroastrianism, where this deep focus on sounds never happened, and in fact Zoroastrianism is thought to have been the progenitor of the monotheistic view of later Abrahamic religions.

Second, the “sounds” of the Vedas are accompanied with actual intricate ritual sacrifices. These ceremonies ran for multiple days, and involved a number of precise steps and timed incantations. Yes, there is a big focus on correct pronunciation of hymns, but these are only granted power by the actual execution of the ritual.

The rest of the article talks a lot about a Indo-Aryans constantly viewing life as a struggle between themselves and others. Yes, the scriptures contain a large amount of text on struggles between Arya and non-Arya, but it’s not clear how much of this actually reflects the common person’s reality vs the attempts of priestly composers trying to maintain their hierarchy at the top of the caste system. (The idea is that, priests, being the arbiters of religion, decided what was Aryan and what wasn’t. It was thus in their interest to declare their own knowledge as Aryan, while declaring indigenous religion, or even religion of other PIEs in India, as non-Aryan)

KorematsuFred2• 7 years ago

There is no caste system in vedic system ! Caste is relatively very modern. It is a well established fact.

carapace3• 7 years ago

The earliest of these hymns had been disclosed to seven great rishis (“seers”) in the remote past and transmitted with impeccable accuracy by their descendants. In seven priestly families, each generation had memorized the hymns of their inspired ancestor and passed them on orally to their children. Even today, when their ancient Sanskrit is well-nigh incomprehensible, these hymns are still recited with the precise tonal accents and inflections of the original, together with ritually prescribed gestures of the arms and fingers.

Purely from an information-transmission POV this feat is fascinating. Does anyone know where more information can be found about this?

svat• 7 years ago

I don't know much, and sorry for a terse repl (If I try to write out proper sentences and look up references this may take me more time):

- You can search for comments by modern scholars about it; e.g. search for [witzel "tape recorder"] on the web / in Google Books to find some quotations of a memorable analogy.

- You should find some material online in connection with "The Tradition of Vedic Chanting" being part of UNESCO's "intangible cultural heritage" lists / "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity". I believe there were some documentaries produced. haven't looked closely but these sites look related: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tradition-of-vedic-chanting-000... / http://vedicheritage.gov.in/vedic-chanting-unesco/

- There's some good information on the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vedic_chant&oldid... e.g. for every string of the form "abcd..." one learns not just "abcd..." but also "ab bc cd..." and "abbaab bccbbc cddccd..." and some learn even more dizzying schemes.

- There are some documentaries on these schools, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FxYydNlrFk (there are a few more longer ones).

carapace3• 7 years ago

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.

dawg-2• 7 years ago

They are generally more well-known so you might have heard of them already, but you might be interested in reading up on the tradition of the Griots in west Africa. Similarly to this example, it's oral tradition as a "family business" that is passed down through generations

carapace3• 7 years ago

Cheers! I hadn't heard of them.

Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed

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