{"product_id":"sensing-sacred-texts-paperback","title":"Sensing Sacred Texts - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJames W. Watts\u003c\/b\u003e (Editor)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll the human senses become engaged in ritualizing sacred texts. These essays focus especially on ritualizing the iconic dimension of texts through the senses of sight, touch, kiss, and taste, both directly and in the imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRitualized display of books engages the sense of sight very differently than does reading. Touching gets associated with reading scriptures, but touching also enables using the scripture as an amulet. Eating and consuming texts is a ubiquitous analogy for internalizing the contents of texts by reading and memorization.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe idea of textual consumption reflects a widespread tendency to equate humans and written texts by their interiority and exteriority: books and people both have material bodies, yet both seem to contain immaterial ideas. Books thus physically incarnate cultural and religious values, doctrines, beliefs, and ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese essays bring theories of comparative scriptures and affect theory to bear on the topic as well as rich ethnographic descriptions of scriptural practices with Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and modern art and historical accounts of changing practices with sacred texts in ancient and medieval China and Korea, and in ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eJames W. Watts is Professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 256\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.56 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 26, 2018\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42103093559431,"sku":"9781781795767","price":51.21,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/a93d292b72655e7a0087f5e4f91c7ec5.webp?v=1732410380","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/sensing-sacred-texts-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}