medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
It seems to me that a lot of the points being made in this thread
relate not so much to respective scholars' (or indeed students')
personal backgrounds or beliefs, as to their ability, and indeed
willingness, to make the requisite effort to understand, or at
least acquire technical knowledge about, others. Unless we are
to go beyond present degrees of specialism and have atheist
scholarship for atheists, agnostic scholarship for agnostics (and
people who identify as of those two ill-defined groups can go at
each other at least as much as any warring groups of believers),
Catholic scholarship for Catholics, Orthodox for Orthodox,
Protestant for Protestant, and so on (perhaps even further
subdivided among denominations, depending on the degree of their
mutual difference), the only viable course is for all scholars to
aspire to a significant breadth of knowledge and understanding,
to be aware of their possible lapses and gaps, and to seek to
supplement those. Of course such knowledge and understanding may
be easier for a believer in a particular tradition to accumulate;
but that same belief might also be argued to make such a believer
more prone to miss historical differences from her or his own
experience. In an extreme case, what of classisicts or other
scholars of ancient or early religious traditions? There are no
native believers in a continuous line, even those who do claim
native belief cannot claim identity of practice, and the vast
majority of scholars (historically) have held beliefs (if they
have held any positive religious beliefs) significantly different
from those of the people they study. Does this invalidate a
priori any claim to understanding of the field?
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
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