A Review of Harold Coward's Scripture in the World Religions: A Short Introduction

A Review of Harold Coward’s Scripture In the World Religions:A Short Introduction

(Tina)Theresa Hannah-Munns

F. Volker Griefenhagen

October 20^th, 2006

Coward, Harold. (2000). Scripture in the World Religions: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld.

Harold Coward takes a diversified look at sacred texts in the five recognized world religions as well as in Sikhism to provide an expanded understanding of scripture. While he is doing this, Coward also highlights the limits of our euroacademic knowledge if we only consider written texts as scripture when viewing other religions outside of Christianity, as well as limiting our Christian understanding of our own scripture in its full dynamic use. By adding oral textual traditions as the “parent” and primary authoritarian scripts in relationship to the written, the use of written scripts in oral performance, the dimensions of memorization as writing on the heart and consciousness and/or its function with the spontaneous vocal word, the exploration of social relations through the use of texts, texts as venerated objects, texts as garments and more, Coward infiltrates a Judeo-Christian constructed trope with the diversity of crosscultural information that allows the lens of our attention to refocus on all these traditions and more with fresh approaches and insight.

While his arguments are new and empowering, the use of scripture as category labels still brings to mind the Christocentric background of this scholarly mind. I found that many of his insights into the oral word and his understanding of vocal narration as relational very pertinent to my focus of what indigenous knowledge constructs, specifically anchored in a limited understanding of the nēhiyaw or Cree knowledge system, can show euroacademic scholars about the ways in which we conceive and classify religious or spiritual phenomena, and the intellectual dismemberment of knowledge through these conceptions and classifications. His final chapter is a treasure trove of insight into how to frame the indigenous use of storytelling and how the elders and other knowledge keepers understand the limited power of the written word and its drawbacks to the traditions.

Unfortunately, the use of such words as scripture and canon continually kept me within a socio-political critical analysis of the labels instead of allowing me to flow with and assess the ideas presented for themselves as pertinent to his discussion of scripture. Instead I was perpetually biased by being alert within my own existential and Canadian-colonial social context. This dilemma was not totally conscious until chapter seven when Harold Coward points out the reader-response attitudes as different to the hearer-response (182). If Coward were to be presenting these ideas in lecture or seminar format, I would have been wholeheartedly engaged in the classroom environment rather than popping in and out of my own reader biases. I had to wait until he fully explained himself in parts before I could let down my guard, which was already too late to fully enjoy the impact of his arguments direction thus having to re-read parts to more fully grasp the impact of his argument.

While he seems to skim over some aspects of the more mystical traditions found within each of the traditions, he does touch upon Sufism and Zen a few times. This may be because of an assumption that many mystical traditions do not emphasize the use of written scriptures as other lineages do, which would be incorrect since many Christian and other religious mystics utilized exegesis and devotional scriptural practices. Possibly his omission is simply that of clusivity; a book can contain only so much information with some analyses put in while other material must be left out. Either way, while other classmates minded this exclusivity, I did not find it overly pertinent to his thesis since he did address specific issues necessary to some of these traditions.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. While I can not fully assess his analysis of many of the scriptural traditions he did cover, his analysis of the oral aspects of narratives and sacred texts, along with his analysis of the Tripitaka did allow me some anchorage to measure the other sections against. His handling of such a diverse amount of crosscultural material, the ingenuity of his fresh views into new ways of looking at scripture and its use, his use of both product (the object) and process (how text is used) analyses is very helpful in my work and has opened up my attitude at the possibilities for First Nations’ sacred stories to enter into dialogue with the more established and recognized scripts and canons of the world religions.