Klein Cardoso, Silas (7 July 2022). What makes an artifact 'religious'? (Unpublished). In: EABS Annual Meeting / Ancient Jewish and Christian religions in their broader religious landscapes. Toulouse. 2022.
Full text not available from this repository.What makes an artifact ‘religious’ in the history of ancient Levantine religions? While the last thirty years saw a clear materialization of the field and new approaches sensitive to images, spaces, senses, and textures, one can still see the influence of previous disembodied practices. In other words, past hermeneutical paradigms, such as the conceptual dependence on traditional religious narratives, undue emphases on aspects proper to the Judeo-Christian tradition (e.g., 'God,’ 'Bilderverbot'), and problematic historiographical tendencies (e.g., 'faith/text' vs. 'ritual/material culture,’ priority of biblical texts), seems to continue to dictate reconstructions. This paper assesses the issue by analyzing how scholars deal with religious artifacts. By discussing how scholars in the field ascribe religiousness to artifacts, why these artifacts are integrated into their reconstructions, and how they structure their histories, the paper aims to reveal the epistemological, methodological, hermeneutical, and disciplinary influences of these paradigms into the practice.