Bruce Lincoln’s “How to Read a Religious Text”

An Experiment of Application

Authors

  • Ipsita Chatterjea Vanderbilt University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i2.13

Keywords:

Bruce Lincoln, Sara J. Duncan, African Methodist Episcopal Church, women and religion

Abstract

In Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions, Lincoln’s “How to Read a Religious Text” is anchored in decades of work with mythological texts or canonical texts, the six points deployed have their origins in his prior work, Theorizing Myth (Lincoln 2012, 5-15; Lincoln 1999, 150-155). 1 The sections from the Chandogya Upani?ds that Lincoln uses to illustrate his points thus, fall in line with a number of his selected examples over the course of his career, add to this the analysis of relatively discrete events. The essay will apply Lincoln’s six lines of inquiry to Sara J. Duncan’s Progressive Missions in the South and Addresses: With Illustrations and Sketches of Missionary Workers and Ministers and Bishop’s Wives (1906) to walk through of the utility, limits and necessary adaptations that surface when Lincoln’s categories are applied to other types of religious texts beyond myth and canon.

Author Biography

  • Ipsita Chatterjea, Vanderbilt University

    Ph.D Candidate Graduate Department of Religion.

References

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Published

2013-04-03

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Chatterjea, I. (2013). Bruce Lincoln’s “How to Read a Religious Text”: An Experiment of Application. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 42(2), 13-19. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i2.13