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The Koran is ambiguous, as is the Bible, and the US Constitution. Indeed any meaningful statute passed by a legislature has some measure of ambiguity. Reconcili
by ern 11y ago
The Koran is ambiguous, as is the Bible, and the US Constitution. Indeed any meaningful statute passed by a legislature has some measure of ambiguity. Reconciling these ambiguities by means of textual interpretation is a large part of the reason why there are theologians, rabbis, muftis and Supreme Court justices.
Based on what I've read, in the case of Islam there has been a huge amount of exegeses and there are complex rules of interpretation that govern the meaning of texts. Trying to CTRL-F a translation of the Koran for "slay" as someone suggested elsewhere is a bizarre way to try to figure out the meaning of a text which has been pored over by great minds for centuries. I think it is a result of the fact that those of us with technical backgrounds tend to be dismissive of the humanities, uncomfortable with ambiguity and prone to literalism.[1]
The interesting thing is that discarding exegesis is exactly the approach taken by the Salafist/Wahabist tradition of the Saudis, and of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. 1400 years of scholarship is replaced with a literal textualist reading of the Koran and Hadiths, and thus justification is found for the most henious of crimes. There is a Latin phrase that describes this approach of discarding precedent entirety in favor of novel readings of a text, but it escapes me for now.
The Koran, or the Bible are not "violent" books not are they "peaceful", they are merely collections of words that need to be interpreted by their readers. It is unfortunate that the intellectually bankrupt literalist interpretation of the Koran is on the ascendant in the Middle East because of Saudi oil money, and that it presently lends itself to the justification of terrorism (even if the Saudi regime itself opposes terrorism).
[1] This could be a reason why terrorist jihadism, buttressed by literalist readings attracts a disproportionate number of engineering types.
- azernik 11y agoAnd especially when referring to the Jewish and Christian Bibles, neither is a "book" in hr unified sense; both are collections of writings, originally created by different people with different agendas and beliefs hundreds of years apart from each other. Asking "what the Bible says" is a literally meaningless question
- acqq 11y ago> The Koran, or the Bible are not "violent" books not are they "peaceful" The Koran is directly violent and intolerant. It contains direct instructions that are such. The Sunnah describes the violent actions of the violent person claiming to be prophet of the god (which was invented earlier) and his followers. The Old Testament describes the actions of the violent god (an invented being by his believers) and his believers trying to win and control the Canaan territories. The New Testament describes the violent action of authorities who try to keep the order by crucifying the person claiming to be the prophet that brings the end of the world, then contains a lot of briefs of his followers and then one apocalyptic vision. And not a single one of these texts holds any scientific truth. All are based on myths and superstition. At the time of the "last revelations" already 800 years passed since Greeks measured the circumference of Earth, the size and distance of Moon and the size and distance of Sun. But the supposed god of the supposed prophet instead spends the energy to leave the message that the uncle of the supposed prophet will burn in hell. He cares about the priorities, you see. In the Old Testament the god actually comes through the house door to his favorite believer and shares a meal with him. Or strolls through the garden. You know, gods have to eat too. Oh, and god also has rest for one day after making the whole world in six. Read them all and compare.