Understanding the Power and Significance of Sacred Stories in Various Religions, Study notes of Christianity

Download Understanding the Power and Significance of Sacred Stories in Various Religions and more Study notes Christianity in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Unit: Sacred Stories Contents The purpose of stories and story-telling 2 Sacred stories 2 The sacred texts of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism 3 Christianity 3 Judaism 4 Islam 5 Hinduism 6 Buddhism 6 Are stories still sacred if not heard in their original language? 7 Do you have to be able to read sacred stories to make meaning or engage with sacred stories? 8 Why do human beings need a story to live by? 9 Acknowledgement Brisbane Catholic Education wishes to thank Rev. Anthony Mellor, Archdiocesan Theological Advisor and Dr Peta Goldburg, Professor of Religious Education ACU, for their contributions to the development of this unit. 2 The purpose of stories and story telling The purpose of story and story- telling is to help shape who we are, where we have come from and who we might become We all have a personal story but it needs to talk to other people’s stories and the bigger story of life. Human beings need to hear and tell stories because we operate within communities and other people’s stories shape our stories so in hearing the story we begin to work out how we belong to the group in which we are in. We also need to hear stories outside of the group because that extends our imagination and validates the experience of “the other”. Story, in a way can act as a window and a mirror. It can open our eyes to see other things that we mightn’t have imagined or thought of but it can also reflect back on us about the way we operate in the world ourselves and can tell us something about ourselves as well as about others. “Once upon a time” is no time and every time. It is the standard phrase that introduces us to other worlds and to our own world, that connects humanity to a common story and to story teller. That is why story telling and story listening are so congenial, for, in one way or another, we are hearing about ourselves. William J. Bausch. Sacred stories All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. Religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need. Harvey Cox. 5 In the Nev’im, we have the stories of the major prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah and we also have the stories of the minor prophets such as Micah There are also the stories of Joshua, Judges, the books of Samuel 1 and 2 and the books of Kings 1 and 2. In the Ketuvim or the writings there is a large variety of text types which are probably more along the line of story than the other two sections. The Writings include: Psalms, Proverbs, the Book of Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations. For Orthodox Jews, the words of the TaNaK are revealed truth dictated by G-d to Moses at Sinai. Liberal forms of Judaism interpret the scriptures as being written by human beings but divinely inspired. The Talmud, a 5th century collection of “oral law” is also considered sacred by some Jewish traditions. Islam For Islam, the sacred text is the Qur’an and the Qur’an is more a collection of sermons and sayings rather than a series of stories or structured arguments. The Qur’an is not written by the Prophet Muhammad. The Qur’an is written by God or Allah and revealed to Muhammad who then provided that text to others. The Qur’an is quite repetitive which enables easy memorisation. It would be common for some children as young as ten or twelve to have memorised the whole of the Qur’an. Learning the Qur’an by rote and being able to recite it is important in some traditions within Islam. There is less emphasis on personal interpretation of the Qur’an for Muslims than there would be on interpretation of sacred texts in other faith traditions. There are formal commentaries on 6 the Qur’an but it is only within the last 10-15 years where a greater emphasis in the more liberal versions of Islam, has been placed on contemporary interpretation of the Qur’an. The emphasis on the whole within Islam is on a traditional interpretation of the Qur’an. Hinduism In Hinduism there is a set of Holy books called the Vedas and these are the most ancient books in Hinduism. Within the Vedas there are verses, sung chants, sacrificial prayers and special texts used only for priests. Also within Hinduism, depending on what caste you are born into, you have access to some of these religious texts and not others. A well-known Sanskrit Hindu text is the Ramayana which is the story of Rama. This is a story that all Hindus would be familiar with because it isn’t only a sacred text that they would read but it has been made into a cartoon format for Indian television. So this text has become a common part of the Indian culture as well as the religious tradition itself. The Mahabharata is the other great epic Sanskrit work, and has also been popularised by Indian television. Buddhism Sacred text is treated somewhat differently in Buddhism and studying them is one of the most important religious activities a Buddhist can perform. The Buddha did not record anything formal himself. After the Buddha died, his cousin told the story of the Buddha’s life to a council and eventually that story was recorded over a period of about a hundred years. Three forms of sacred texts developed within Buddhism and they’re known as the Three Baskets (the Tipitaka.) 7 There is the Basket of Discipline, the Basket of Threads and the Basket of Higher Teaching. The Basket of Discipline talks about the rules for monastic life. The Basket of Threads contains teachings for all Buddhists to follow. Within the Basket of Teachings there are short teachings and long teachings. There are also what they call themed teachings and some minor teachings. The final grouping includes sayings or words of the prophet which have been remembered by his followers and put into the last grouping. As well as the Tipitaka, there are extra texts in Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism, the books or texts are considered sacred because they contain the Dharma (Truth or Law). They are kept in places of honour in shrines. The oldest copies have the greatest place of honour. Are the stories still sacred if they are not heard in their original language? For some religious traditions, the original language is important. For example in Islam, sacred scripture always has to be written and heard in Arabic, so a translation of the Qur’an in English, doesn’t have the same weight for the Muslim as it does in Arabic. So when Muslims read scripture, they are expected to read it in Arabic and when they pray using the words of the sacred text they must pray in Arabic which poses a problem if you are not an Arabic speaker. Indonesian Muslims for example, are praying in a language that they may not be using on an everyday basis without really being familiar with the language itself. Many Jews pray in Hebrew. Believers from Reform traditions pray and read their scriptures in their own language but the Hebrew text is significant if people are going to investigate the sacred story and the origin of that story.