Is 'scripture' only a written text?

Not exclusively. Many traditions transmit and experience their sacred texts primarily through oral recitation and memorization, and some sacred corpora were oral long before being written. Comparative scholarship stresses that scripture's authority and use often depend as much on performance as on writing.

Sacred Texts and Interpretation

Definition

The study of sacred texts and interpretation concerns the formation, transmission, authority, and reading of scripture—the texts a tradition holds sacred—and the interpretive practices through which communities derive meaning from them.

Scope

This area examines scripture across traditions: how texts become canonical and authoritative, the methods and traditions of interpretation (hermeneutics, exegesis), the interplay of oral and written transmission, and comparative perspectives on what 'scripture' is. It treats the Bible, Qur'an, Vedas, Buddhist sutras, and other corpora as objects of comparative study, attending to their roles in worship, law, and community rather than adjudicating their truth.

Sub-topics

Core questions

What makes a text 'scripture', and how does it acquire authority?
How are sacred texts interpreted, and by what methods and authorities?
How do oral performance and written text interact in scriptural traditions?
What does comparison reveal about the nature and functions of scripture?

Key theories

Scripture as a relational concept: Wilfred Cantwell Smith argued that 'scripture' is not a property of texts in themselves but a relation between a community and the texts it treats as sacred and authoritative, so the same text can be scripture for one community and not another.
The oral dimension of scripture: William Graham showed that scripture is widely experienced through recitation, memorization, and liturgical performance, so the 'written word' is often secondary to its oral and aural life in religious communities.
Philosophical hermeneutics: Hans-Georg Gadamer argued that all interpretation is historically situated and involves a 'fusion of horizons' between text and interpreter, an account widely applied to the reading of sacred texts.

History

The comparative study of scripture moved beyond a text-centered, often Protestant-influenced model in the later twentieth century. William Graham's Beyond the Written Word (1987), the essays in Rethinking Scripture (1989), and Wilfred Cantwell Smith's What Is Scripture? (1993) reframed scripture as a relational and performative phenomenon, while philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur) reshaped theories of interpretation.

Debates

What counts as scripture: Scholars debate whether 'scripture' is a useful cross-cultural category and how to define it—by literary form, by canonical status, or, as Smith argues, by the relation a community has to the text—given the diversity of traditions.

Key figures

Wilfred Cantwell Smith
William A. Graham
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Miriam Levering

Seminal works

smith1993
graham1987
levering1989

Frequently asked questions

Is 'scripture' only a written text?: Not exclusively. Many traditions transmit and experience their sacred texts primarily through oral recitation and memorization, and some sacred corpora were oral long before being written. Comparative scholarship stresses that scripture's authority and use often depend as much on performance as on writing.