Books in Religious Studies: From Relentless Textualism to Embodied Practices

This chapter addresses the book as a material object and the materiality of text and text-related practices. The central argument is that all text-related practices—reading, performing, and ritually venerating—are embodied practices, which engage the sensorium of the human body and its cognitive capacities while encountering text as a material object. The chapter first traces the move from “relentless textualism” characteristic of the early study of religion and throughout the 20th century to a focus on religious texts in lived religion and the materiality of texts and text-related practices in the last three decades. Then, it discusses the central concepts of “book” and “scripture” as well as the related terms “texts” and “words”—and their material dimension. Special attention is given to the material dimension of scriptures as a specific category of books that plays a central role in the study of religion. Finally, a threefold reconceptualization of scripture, religious texts, and their manifold uses is proposed to account for their materiality.