Görge K. Hasselhoff, Knut Martin Stünkel (Eds.)

Görge K. Hasselhoff Transcending , Knut Martin Words Stünkel (Eds.) Th e Language ofE Religious Contact Between Buddhists,B Christians, RO P in Premodern Times SE Jews, and Muslims LLESEPROBEE Verlag Dr. Dieter Winkler Table of Content Introduction Th e Emergence of Religious Language in Situations of Contact ......................... 7 Jörg Plassen Th e Taoist Voice of the Buddhist Commentaries? Some Remarks on the Infl uence of the Chuang-tzu on the Use of Language in Buddhist Commentarial Literature .................................................... 13 Gerhard Endress “Th is is Clear Arabic Speech” God’s Speech and Prophetic Language in Early Islamic Hermeneutics, Th eology and Philosophy . 27 Anna A. Akasoy Are We Speaking the Same Language? Translating Truths across Intellectual Traditions in al-Andalus ......................... 43 Jörn Müller Lessons in Communication A New Approach to Peter Abelard’s Collationes .................................... 55 Beate Ulrike La Sala Al-Ghazālī and Jehuda Halevi Divine Attributes, Metaphors and Possible Ways to Speak about God ..................... 69 Piero Capelli Conversion to Christianity and Anti-Talmudic Criticism from Petrus Alfonsi to Nicolas Donin and Pablo Christiani ............................................... 89 Görge K. Hasselhoff Rashi for Latin Readers: Th e Translations of Paris, 1240 With an Edition of the Excerpts from Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy ............... 103 Ann Giletti Gentiles and Jews Common Ground and Authorities in the Mission of Ramon Martí’s Pugio fi dei .............. 111 Knut Martin Stünkel Towards the Miracle of Language Ramon Llull and the Creation of a Christian Religious Language ........................ 127 Roberto Hofmeister Pich A Confl ict of Reason Scotus’ Appraisal of Christianity and Judgment of Others Religions ...................... 143 6 Table of Content Ulli Roth John of Segovia and Religious Language / Interreligious Communication ........... 169 Günter Bader Johannes 1,1 in den Sermones des Nikolaus von Kues ........................... 181 Knut Martin Stünkel Towards a Th eory of Meta-communicative Elements in Medieval Religious Dialogues Abelard’s Collationes and the Topology of “Religion” ................................ 193 Saverio Campanini Das Hebräische in Reuchlins Werk ......................................... 207 Oswald Bayer Reliable Word Luther’s Understanding of God, Humanity, and the World ............................ 217 Wulfert de Greef Calvin: We Learn True Wisdom in the School of God .......................... 227 Index ................................................................ 241 Contributors .......................................................... 247 Introduction Th e Emergence of Religious Language in Situations of Contact I Th e close and almost symbiotic relation of religion and language is a widely acknowledged and intensely examined phenomenon in the study of religion. Religious Studies as an academic disci- pline, takes the conjunction seriously. In most cases the scholarly interest is, on the one hand, fo- cused upon the expression of religious experience for reasons of communication. On the other hand, the possibility of communication with a transcendent sphere is scrutinized. Religious Lan- guage, as defi ned in an encyclopaedia of religion, comprises two interrelated fi elds in particular: the emergence of a cultic language and the formation of a special vocabulary of the prevailing religious group.1 Of course, this defi nition is in need of some additional criteria. Th e “Manual of Basic Notions in Religious Studies” (Handbuch religionswissenschaft licher Grundbegriff e) lists fi ve basic forms of religious language, fi rst the revelational language of the Gods, the teaching and promising language of the Gods, prayer, and expressive language under the heading of “communication” (Kommunikation), second “performativity” (Performanz) which comprises the eff ective word, the creative word, the eff ective word in history, the hypostatic word and the magical word. Th ird, there is “representation” (Vergegenwärtigung), divided into myth as the representation of the world of Gods, and ritual language followed by forth “interplay” (Wechselwirkung) of language describing, reporting, and passing down religious experience which in turn infl uences the use of language itself. Finally, there is the possibility of Entsprachlichung, the “elimination of language (and thought)” as to be found in mysticism to gain the highest level of religious experience which cannot be grasped in language at all.2 As such, the theme of “religion and language” opens a vast spectrum for scholarly research endeavours hardly to be overseen and even less to be accomplished in a manageable time and space. However, an important point is to be made with regard to such an approach: By doing so, the close relation of religion to certain languages is un- doubtedly stressed but, as a consequence, the scholarly examination is concentrated on autoch- thonous areas, i. e. on developments within a single religious tradition. From its very beginnings, however, Religious Studies were closely connected to philology and its perspectives and methods. As one might learn from (Friedrich) Max Müller as one of the founding fathers of the new science in the 19th century, the only secure way to understand religion is language. Accordingly, there are important parallels between the study of religion and philology, above all the necessity of a comparative perspective in order to arrive at valid results. Mül- ler’s famous Goethean maxim “He who knows one, knows none”3 is the expression of the idea for both religion and language. But despite the attempted abandonment of any preference of religion in the process of research,4 the problem remains if comparison can be performed by the scholar on strictly neutral terms, i. e. by not imposing concepts or notions on one or the other po- sition thus avoiding forms of scientifi c imperialism that have been justifi ably criticized by ana- 1 See Hiroshi Kubota, Art. “Sprache”, in: Christoph Auff arth et al. (eds.), Metzler Lexikon Religion. Gegenwart – All- tag – Medien, Vol. 3: Paganismus – Zombie, Stuttgart 2000, 363 – 366, here 364. 2 See Reinhard Wonneberger, Art. “Sprache”, in: Hubert Cancik et al. (eds.), Handwörterbuch religionswissenschaft licher Grundbegriff e, Vol. 5: Säkularisierung – Zwischenwesen, Stuttgart et al. 2001, 89 – 101, here 94 – 101. 3 Friedrich Max Müller, Introduction to the Science of Religion. Four Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution in February and May, 1870, London 1882, 13. 4 Müller, ibid., 26, himself was positive that his idea was soon to be realized: “A Science of Religion, based on an im- partial and truly scientifi c comparison of all, or at all events, of the most important, religions of mankind is now only a question of time.” 8 Introduction lysts of Orientialism in the vein of Edward Said. Th us, the main problem for the scholar of religions seems to be how to do comparative work i. e. how to introduce adequate notions and concepts without loosing touch with one’s material. Some leading scholars of Religious Studies, among them Jonathan Z. Smith, claim that current scholarship has not yet met the challenge of Müller’s basic tenet, i. e. his both comparative and generalizing approach.5 Our hypothesis is that the problem may be solved by the introduction of a contact-related perspective. It is of vital importance to draw the consequence from the comparative perspective as introduced to Religious Studies and examine occasions where the perspective is applied by the religious traditions themselves, i. e. situations of contact and to scru- tinize their refl ections regarding their presuppositions as well as the possibilities of that perspective. By doing so one may witness the emergence of meta-language, of comparative concepts and notions, within object-language itself, and thus, by describing this process and using the concepts and notions evolving here, keeping close contact to the material itself without imposing scientif- ic vocabulary on the phenomena in question. Accordingly, the question for the role of language in an interreligious context inevitably arises. As it is commonly accepted, religions and religious traditions are not to be described as monolithic entities which are subject only to internal developments, but they rather emerge, ex- pand and stabilize under conditions of interreligious exchange processes. As one may learn from the history of religions, it is the contact of diff erent religious traditions which causes an intensi- fi ed interest for language as a medium of dealing with the prevailing other tradition or traditions. Th is interest manifests itself, for example, in the so-called religious dialogues,6 but also (and, in fact, much more oft en) in projects and concepts of translation. In this regard, anything might be expected from the material. A medieval translator, as it is insistently stated in a recent publica- tion on the subject, “would also know the joy of cross-fertilizing languages, and of fi nding new contexts and audiences for text through their translation.”7 In any case, the other religious tradition provides a challenge which has to be answered explicitly – and this is, above all, done via language. Religious language might be examined in a twofold way. On the one hand, with regard to the ways of talking about the religious (the numinous) respectively how to talk religiously. On the

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