Revelation and tradition: texts, books, practices

Abstract

Worship, religion, ideology and variations of the three are as old as mankind itself. Belief has been around since ‘in the beginning’, but it has taken on as many guises as there are people. However, these different forms have at least one thing in common: the search for life’s meaning, for significance concerning the uncertainties of existence and for answers to questions great and small. Many people have found such answers in the books at the heart of this exhibition. They are channels of meaning in the lives of individual Jews, Christians and Muslims. For believers, these books have a divine significance: these writings are auguries connecting present and future, the here and now with the hereafter, and one must treat them with reverence. They are superhuman, sacrosanct and, for some, they are simply Sacred Books.

Worship, religion, ideology and variations of the three are as old as mankind itself. Belief has been around since ‘in the beginning’, but it has taken on as many guises as there are people. However, these different forms have at least one thing in common: the search for life’s meaning, for significance concerning the uncertainties of existence and for answers to questions great and small. Many people have found such answers in the books at the heart of this exhibition. They are channels of meaning in the lives of individual Jews, Christians and Muslims. For believers, these books have a divine significance: these writings are auguries connecting present and future, the here and now with the hereafter, and one must treat them with reverence. They are superhuman, sacrosanct and, for some, they are simply Sacred Books.

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