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'''Scriptural Reasoning''' ("SR") is one type of interdisciplinary, [[interfaith]] scriptural reading. It is an evolving practice of diverse methodologies in which [[Christians]], [[Jews]], [[Muslims]], [[Hindus]], [[Buddhists]], [[Sikhs]], [[Baháʼís]], and members of other faiths, meet in groups to study their sacred scriptures and oral traditions together, and to explore the ways in which such study can help them understand and respond to particular contemporary issues. Originally developed by theologians and religious philosophers as a means of fostering post-critical and [[narrative theology|postliberal]] corrections to patterns of [[modernity|modern]] reasoning, it has now spread beyond academic circles.
Theologians of different faiths have strongly challenged the claims made by some of Scriptural Reasoning's founder practitioners that they have requisite knowledge of ancient traditions of Islamic, Jewish and Christian exegesis and, on that basis, "not only the capacity, but also the authority to correct" or "repair" modernist binarist or fundamentalist interpretations of the [[Bible]] or [[Quran]]. Published articles by academics have also criticised some Scriptural Reasoning projects in the United Kingdom for alleged lack of parity between participating religions and instrumentalising of sacred texts for political agendas and money, while other scholars have alleged a history in Scriptural Reasoning from earlier SR conferences in the United States of exclusion and bullying of Christian theologian critics, and in later SR projects in the UK of victimisation of Muslim theologian whistleblowers.
== Method ==
Scriptural Reasoning involves participants from multiple religious traditions<ref>It has been described as involving Jews, Christians and Muslims in its formative period ({{Harvnb |Ford|2006}}; {{Harvnb |Mudge|2008| p=33}}; {{Harvnb |Campbell|2001}}; {{Harvnb |Gaylord|2006| p=327}}; {{Harvnb |Burrell|2006| p=708}}; {{Harvnb |Clooney|2008| p=28}}; and {{Harvnb |Hauerwas|2008| loc=p.19, n.43}}); for the inclusion of Hindus, see {{Harvnb |Heim|2004}}.</ref> meeting, very often in small groups, to read and discuss passages from their sacred texts and oral traditions (e.g., the [[Tanakh]], [[Talmud]], [[New Testament]], [[Vedas]], [[Qur'an]], [[Hadith]] or [[Guru Granth Sahib]]).<ref>{{Harvnb |Mudge|2008| pp=33, 123}}; {{Harvnb |Clooney|2008| p=28}}.</ref> The texts will often relate to a common topic - say, the figure of [[Abraham]], or consideration of legal and moral issues of property-holding.<ref>For the thematic nature of many SR discussions, see {{Harvnb |Mudge|2008| p=123}}. For collections of themed texts, see http://www.scripturalreasoning.org/text-packs.html and http://www.scripturalreasoning.org.uk/texts.html. For collections of themed essays emerging from such discussions, see issues of the ''[https://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/back-issues/ Journal of Scriptural Reasoning]''.</ref> Participants discuss the content of the texts, and will often explore the variety of ways in which their religious communities have worked with them and continue to work with them, and the ways in which those texts might shape their understanding of and engagement with a range of contemporary issues.<ref>For SR’s engagement with contemporary issues, see {{Harvnb |Mudge|2008| p=124}}.</ref>
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=== Features ===
Most forms of SR exhibit the following basic features:
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=== Metaphors ===
To leave space for the variety of ways in which Scriptural Reasoning may be practiced and developed, SR practitioners often find it more fruitful to characterize SR open-endedly in terms of metaphors, often drawn from the Abrahamic traditions themselves.
==== Tent of Meeting ====
Scriptural Reasoning has sometimes been described as a "tent of meeting" - a Biblical ''mishkan'' ([[Hebrew]]:ׁ משׁכן [[Arabic]]: مسكن) - a reference to the story of Genesis 18. Steven Kepnes, a Jewish philosopher, writes:
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==== Hearth ====
Scriptural Reasoning has been compared to gathering around the warmth of a hearth, where - Ochs explains - the hearth represents "those dimensions of life that members of a religion turn to in times of crisis, tension, or uncertainty in the hope of drawing nearer to the source of their deepest values and identities."{{sfn|Ochs|2019|p=18}} This metaphor builds on the rabbinic notion of Torah as a "fire," drawn from texts like Jeremiah 23:29--"Is not my word like fire, says the LORD?" and Deuteronomy 33:2, as interpreted midrashically by the rabbis. In ''Sifre Devarim'' 343, the editor concludes that "the words of Torah are compared to fire" before developing this comparison in various respects. Most relevant to SR is that, "Just as a person that is too close to a fire is burned and if he is too far coldness [results], so too with the words of the Torah. As long as a person is involved in them, they are life-giving, but when one removes himself from them, they kill him..."
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== Purposes ==
It is impossible to give a definitive or authoritative account of the purpose of SR. Scriptural Reasoning is first and foremost a practice, and individuals and communities may engage in a practice for many and various reasons, while furthermore the purposes or agendas in SR of some practitioners have been contested or rejected by others. Moreover, the actual effects of a practice may outstrip the intentions of its practitioners. Thus Scriptural Reasoners frequently emphasize that doing and experimenting with SR as a practice logically precedes theoretical accounts of its grounds or function. According to Nicholas Adams, 'Scriptural reasoning is a practice which can be theorised, not a theory which can be put into practice. More accurately, it is a variety of practices whose interrelations can be theorised to an extent, but not in any strong sense of fully explanatory theory.'<ref>{{Harvnb|Adams|2006|p=387}}</ref> Peter Ochs makes the same point with reference to a [[midrash]] on Exodus 24:7 in b. Shab. 88a:<blockquote>In the book of Exodus, when Moses tried to deliver the Ten Commandments for the second time, the Israelites respond with the declaration ''naaseh v'nishmah!'' Literally, their declaration means "We shall do it and understand it," but, it was more likely an idiomatic expression for "We are on the job!" or "Consider it done!" The later rabbinic sages offered a homiletic rereading: "We shall first act and then understand"...We have nurtured SR in the same fashion, seeking to experiment with many forms of practice before discovering the one that best fits our goals and working over many years to refine it. We proceeded through experimentation first and only later through theoretical reflection.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2019|p=2}}</ref></blockquote>
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=== 1. ''L'shma:'' For its own sake or for God's sake ===
According to David Ford, one should practice SR because studying scripture is intrinsically valuable. On this view, one practices SR for the same reasons and in the same spirit that most traditional Abrahamic readers have studied their scriptures. David Ford makes this point using the Hebrew term "''l'shma''":<blockquote>''This practice of shared reading could be done for its own sake—or, better, for God’s sake.'' Each of the three traditions has its own ways of valuing the study of its scriptures as something worth doing quite apart from any ulterior motive. Scriptural Reasoning might of course have all sorts of practical implications, but to do it above all for God’s sake—as Jews say, ''l’shma'' — encourages purity of intention and discourages the mere instrumentalising of inter-faith engagement.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ford|2011}}</ref></blockquote>The term ''l'shma,'' which literally means "for the name," is ambiguous, capable of signifying Torah study "for its own sake" or "for God's sake."<ref>As Mike Higton points out, Ford tends to slip from one sense to the other, "confident that each supports or feeds into the other, or even that they are two ways of saying nearly the same thing."{{Harvnb|Higton|2013|p = 291}}</ref>
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=== 2. To repair academic methods and logics ===
As originally conceived, SR was an academic practice involving theologians, religious philosophers, and text scholars, and was said to be aimed at 'repairing' or 'correcting' patterns of modern philosophical and theological reasoning.<ref>{{Harvnb |Mudge|2008}}; {{Harvnb |Lamberth|2008| pp=460–461}}; {{Harvnb |Campbell|2001}}.</ref> These patterns of reasoning persist both in the Western academy and in religious traditions influenced by modernity. Thus according to Peter Ochs, SR was originally intended to repair academic methods of study and the habits of mind that they presuppose.<blockquote>For the founders of Scriptural Reasoning, the original purpose was to repair what they judged to be inadequate academic methods for teaching scripture and scripturally-based religions, such as the Abrahamic religions...Over time, both Scriptural Reasoning and Textual Reasoning acquired new purposes as participants discovered additional consequences of these practices.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=629-30}}</ref></blockquote>Nicholas Adams characterizes SR as a practice of "reparative reasoning" capable of advancing "the pragmatic repair of secular universalism."<ref>{{Harvnb|Adams|2008}}. For a thorough account of Ochs and Adams as reparative reasoners engaged in "immanent critique", see {{Harvnb|Rashkover|2020|p=130-151}}.</ref> Building on this description, Ochs frequently emphasizes SR's reparative capacity to accustom practitioners to new ways of reasoning and habits of mind. He says that "the primary purpose of Scriptural reasoning is to correct "binarism in modern Western civilization and in religious groups that have, willy-nilly, adopted this binarism as if it were an engine of indigenous religious discourse and belief."<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=632}}. See {{Harvnb|James|2022}} for an account of the technical aspects of this logical repair.</ref> Binarism is this logical tendency to assume that difference entails opposition. As Ochs says, "All I mean by "binarism" is a strong tendency to overstate and over-generalize the usefulness of either/or distinctions."<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=632}}</ref> SR repairs this tendency, in part, by training practitioners in alternative habits of mind: <blockquote>[To affirm] that scripture tolerates, say, two meanings of a crucial verse, and not only one, is already to soften the rage that such participants may feel towards those whose readings different from theirs. In place of rage, such participants may adopt, for example, a superior and patronizing--but nonviolent--attitude towards these others as errant, but guilty only of a weaker reading of scripture rather than a reading that defies the very truth of things.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2015|p=494}}. Ochs's fullest account of this logical repair is {{Harvnb|Ochs|2019}}, on which see also {{Harvnb|James|2022}}.</ref></blockquote>
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=== 3. To further interfaith peace and understanding ===
Its purpose is sometimes described as 'humbling and creative' interfaith encounter<ref>{{Harvnb |Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON)|2008| p=6}}.</ref> or 'deeper mutual understanding'.<ref>{{Harvnb|Clooney|2008|p=28}}</ref>
== History ==
Scriptural Reasoning is just one type of inter-textual discussion of the sacred scriptures of different religions, something which have been practiced by many scholars over many centuries. In the case of SR, it began as an intra-faith practice of Textual Reasoning by Jewish academics in of Jewish texts, before becoming an inter-faith activity of Scriptural Reasoning when the conversation was joined by members of other faiths. Over time SR has been developed by different scholars in a variety of diverse and contrasting ways.
=== Origins: Textual Reasoning ===
Scriptural Reasoning has roots in a variety of classical practices of scriptural interpretation, particularly rabbinic ''midrash.'' Its proximate origins, however, lie in a related practice, "Textual Reasoning" ("TR"),<ref>See [http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/tr/ The Journal of Textual Reasoning]</ref> which involved Jewish philosophers reading Talmud in conversation with scholars of rabbinics.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2006|p=147, n.4}}, {{Harvnb|Ford|2006|p=3}}: 'Scriptural reasoning had its immediate origins in "textual reasoning" among a group of academic Jewish text scholars .... on the one hand, and philosophers and theologians, on the other hand....'. Lewis S. Mudge speaks of ‘a traditional Jewish practice being opened, as an act of hospitality, to others.’ {{Harv|Mudge|2008|p=123}}</ref> Peter Ochs was one of the leading participants in Textual Reasoning (TR).<ref>{{Harvnb|Ford|2006|pp=3–4}} describes the involvement of Ochs in Textual Reasoning. The fullest description of Textual Reasoning can be found in {{Harvnb|Ochs|2002a}} and {{Harvnb|Levene|2002}} (and in the rest of the book from which those essays come); for some of the ways in which TR relates to SR see {{Harvnb|Hardy|2002}}.</ref> As James and Rashkover say,<blockquote>Textual Reasoning (TR) emerged in the 1980s from conversations among Jewish philosophers disappointed by the failure of modern Western philosophy to provide principles of inquiry capable of addressing the pressing concerns of living Jewish communities. These philosophers developed a novel practice of Jewish text study rooted in the Jewish textual tradition itself which they aspired to activate as a source of communal repair. Textual Reasoning brought text scholars familiar with rabbinic reading practices together with Jewish philosophers skilled in illuminating logics of reading and reasoning.<ref> {{Harvnb | James | Rashkover | 2021 | p =21}}</ref></blockquote>In 1990, Ochs and his colleagues founded what they then called the "Postmodern Jewish Philosophy Network" which hosted lively online exchanges, biannual meetings, an online journal. In 1996 they adopted the term "textual reasoning" for this practice, evoking classical Jewish practices of interpretation, and renamed their group the Society for Textual Reasoning.<ref>{{Harvnb |Ochs|2002b}}</ref> In 2002, they founded a ''[https://jtr.shanti.virginia.edu/ Journal of Textual Reasoning].''
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=== Beginnings of SR ===
According to James and Rashkover, "Textual Reasoning gave birth to Scriptural Reasoning (SR) as early Textual Reasoners developed friendships with Christian and Muslim scholars and began to experiment with reading scripture together."<ref>{{Harvnb | James | Rashkover |2021 | p=21}} </ref> Ochs recounts the early history: <blockquote>Beginning in 1994, a group of scholars of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity joined together to discover a way to conduct dialogue across the borders of these three Abrahamic scriptural traditions...We met for five years of biannual study until we discovered and refined the best method, which we called "Scriptural Reasoning" (SR).<ref>{{Harvnb | Ochs|2012}}</ref></blockquote>The term "Scriptural Reasoning" was coined by [[Peter W. Ochs|Peter Ochs]]<ref>{{Harvnb|Mudge|2008|p=123}}; {{Harvnb|Hauerwas|2008|p=19 n.43}}. Note that the phrase can also be found in some other contexts – sometimes in apparent dependence upon SR usage, as in {{Harvnb|Campbell|2006|p=60}}; '"scriptural reasoning" for Paul is necessarily a social and communal activity rather than being purely individual and personal.' Note that Campbell had already written on SR before using the term this way: {{Harvnb|Campbell|2001}}. Other uses, like that of {{Harvnb|Donnelly|2009}}, seem to be unconnected to SR.</ref> to distinguish the interfaith practice of scripture study from its tradition-specific antecedents. Ochs also argues, however, that SR presupposes parallel formation in practices of study across difference like TR: <blockquote>In its broadest meaning, SR includes two sub-practices: study-across-difference within a single scriptural tradition and study across the borders of different scriptural traditions...[T]he former, which we label "Textual Reasoning" (or TR), also makes an irreplaceable contribution to the overall practice of SR.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2019|p=35}}</ref> </blockquote>The international Society for Scriptural Reasoning (SSR) was founded in 1995.<ref>{{Harvnb |Ford|2007| p=278}}.</ref> The founders include Ochs himself, [[David F. Ford]], [[Daniel W. Hardy]], and Basit Koshul.<ref>{{Harvnb |Ochs|2006| p=147 n.3}}; {{Harvnb |Torrance|2009| p=128}}; {{Harvnb |Afzaal|1998| pp=3–5}} describes the importance of Basit Koshul in the extension of this practice to Muslims.</ref> In 2001, the SSR established a ''[https://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/ Journal of Scriptural Reasoning]'' to publish research into SR and to displays the academic fruits of SR as a practice.
=== Developments ===
Scriptural Reasoning began as an academic practice and expanded rapidly in academic circles. SR scholars formed an "additional meeting group" at the [[American Academy of Religion]] which later became the official Scriptural Reasoning Program Unit.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ochs|2013|p=627}}. See also {{Harvnb|Mudge|2008|p=33}} and {{Harvnb|Clooney|2008|p=28}}.</ref>
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== Criticisms ==
Criticisms of Scriptural Reasoning which have been made by academics from different traditions address some of its founding practitioners' claims to their having requisite knowledge of ancient traditions of Islamic, Jewish and Christian exegesis and, on that basis, the purported authority to "correct" or "repair" binarist or fundamentalist interpretations of Scripture. Scholars also challenge SR's underlying presuppositions, and raise concerns about the dynamics of power, money and control in SR's practical outworking.
=== Christian ===
Theologian Adrian Thatcher has questioned whether Scriptural Reasoning flattens theological differences in the way the three traditions approach their respective Scriptures, arguing that "Christian people are not the people of a book, even a very holy book. They are people of a Savior, the One who reveals a loving God who, by God’s Spirit, remakes and renews humankind in the image of the Son...Its danger lies in the implication that the relation between believers and their respective sacred texts lies along an axis of similarity". He notes "the paucity of references to Jesus Christ" in the essays in ''The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning'' (see, e.g., Ford and Pecknold 2006), and asking whether this "may indicate … the further erosion of Christocentric biblical interpretation."<ref>See {{Harvnb |Thatcher|2008| pp=193–4, n.1}}.</ref>
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=== Muslim ===
Under the title, ''The Broken Promise of Scriptural Reasoning'', Muslim theologian, Muhammad Al-Hussaini, presents a critique of David Ford's Anglican-led Scriptural Reasoning initiatives, which he argues lack parity between participant religions, have been characterised by colonialist politics of control, and which he categorises as '''amalīyya fāsida'' ([[Arabic]]: عملية فاسدة), "corrupt practice".<ref>{{Harvnb|Al-Hussaini|2022| p=xviii}}: 'This was followed up with the written proposal from St Ethelburga’s that David Ford chair a “Scriptural Reasoning Reference Group” which would thereon exercise authority in relation to the proper usage and handling in SR of sacred Islamic and Jewish texts—matters which for centuries have been the sovereign and autonomous prerogative of jurists respectively of Islamic ''<nowiki/>sharī'a'' and Jewish ''<nowiki/>halakhāh'' alone'.</ref> He states that Fordian Scriptural Reasoning has "No ''minhag/minhaj'', no timeless established Judaeo-Islamic discipline of dialectical ''exegesis traditionis'', of thickly-reading holy books using instruments of philology, grammar, received oral tradition and sensitive exposition of concentric layers of literal through to allegorical readings of a verse". He contends, "Instead, Ford’s Anglican-led SR becomes merely a poor kind of inter-faith Protestant Bible study fashioned within the competency limitations of its self-appointed leadership". He expresses concern at what he suggests "appeared to be SR’s failure to respect indigenous ways of reading Islamic Scripture, namely alongside [[hadith]] and classical commentaries", and further asserts, "Over time I became increasingly offended at the instrumentalising of biblical and Quranic materials for political and funding agendas".<ref>{{Harvnb|Al-Hussaini|2020}}: 'In my protesting such fraudulent behaviour with respect to sacred texts of God [alleged financial dishonesty], I was instructed that, far from democratic parity of control in the project between the three participating faith houses, there was instead what David Ford claimed as “the asymmetries of hospitality” arising out of Anglican hosting and ownership in this initiative'.</ref>
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