The Encyclopedia of World Religions

birth rituals S 55

Further reading: Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Michael D. Coogan et al., eds., The New Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha, 3d ed., ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); William Yarchin, History of Biblical Interpretation: A Reader (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004). birth rituals Religious rites performed in con nection with a birth of a child. The mystery of birth is recognized by RITUALS and observances in virtu ally all religions. It is a joyous occasion for parents and the community, yet at the same time is recog nized to be dangerous and perhaps also polluting, especially for the mother. During pregnancy, often special spiritual as well as physical precautions are taken on behalf of her well-being and that of the child. In H INDUISM , for example, she may be cov ered with flowers and amulets. At the time of birth, she may be moved to a separate lodge apart from family and community, as in ancient Japan. The secluded mother may be accompanied by selected women. But she is taboo to all others, including even her husband, because of the pollution and sacred awe associated with the event. After birth, the mother in many societies purifies herself, per haps by a ritual bath. In the traditional usage of the Church of England, she went to church for a rite of thanks and blessing called the “Churching of Women,” and was expected to do this before appearing socially. Birth rites for the newborn child are also com mon. In Japan a child is presented to the local S HINTO shrine about a month after birth. In many Christian traditions infants are baptized as soon

out that in ancient Aramaic “son of God” simply meant a righteous person. In ancient Greek, however, it had special connotations. Greek-speaking Chris tians later developed these connotations into the doctrine of the INCARNATION . The scholars claimed, however, that Jesus and his followers would neither have understood nor accepted those later ideas. In the last 200 years archaeologists have con tributed much to our understanding of the Bible. Much of their work has confirmed claims in the Bible, but much of it has also called the Bible into question. For example, the book of Joshua famously records the collapse of the walls of Jericho during the Israelite invasion. According to archaeologists, however, Jericho had already been uninhabited for a long time by the time of that invasion. The story was probably invented later to explain ruins that people could see. New Testament interpreters have been par ticularly interested in the life of Jesus. Many have tried to reconstruct “the historical Jesus.” The controversial “Jesus seminar” has done this recently. Members of the seminar produced a book identifying the authentic and inauthentic sayings of Jesus by voting on each passage. Other schol ars, however, doubt that it is possible accurately to reconstruct the historical Jesus. For one thing, the best attempts to do so have produced very different images of Jesus. For example, according to Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), what was dis tinctive about Jesus was his “eschatological con sciousness,” his sense that the world was about to end. More recent scholars have begun to reject that view. Modern interpreters of the Bible take an interest in many more methods and topics than those just mentioned. But it is also important to remember that not all Jews and Christians have embraced such views. For them the Bible is not a human product but contains ultimate truth. At the beginning of the 20th century, an extreme reaction against this biblical criticism emerged in FUNDA MENTALISM . It insists that the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God. As such the Bible is literally true and without error.