With this workshop, second in the KHK’s series on ‘Texture’, we intend to scrutinize the concept of scripture with regard to its material and metaphorical topicality in religious studies. The project in general intends to overcome the shortcomings of current approaches trying to illuminate the phenomenon of ‘text’. Script or scripture as a religious phenomenon has to be regarded in a twofold manner. On the one hand scripture consists of materialized signs, on the other hand it objectifies the act of writing. In both capacities scripture plays an important part in religious praxis.
The concept of scripture is underestimated if it is considered to be a mere medium of storing information. Holy scriptures do not only transport information but claim a religious dignity in themselves and display a religious activity of their own in determining a texture of human behavior. So the concept of scripture with regard to religion also contains processes of description (cosmologies), of prescription (command-ments), of transcription (transformation/conversion processes) and of inscription (for example to carve something into something – not at last in the human body thus providing a good example of scriptural embodiment). As such, scripture denotes a fundamental human praxis which combines the cognitive and the material sphere.
