Sacred texts — reading and interpretation

Every tradition that has produced a sacred text has also produced centuries of argument about how to read it — and that argument is itself part of the tradition. The Talmudic practice of layering commentary on commentary, the Islamic science of tafsir, the Christian tradition of allegory, the Hindu understanding of shruti and smriti: all are sophisticated answers to what a sacred text is and what it demands of its reader. A living tradition is not one that has stopped interpreting — it is one whose interpretation never ends.