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Unlike Eastern religions, Western ones (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have a normative nature. Reciting the scripture does not just give its member just spiritual sense but also creates norms for daily life. They emphasize action to perform the will of God. Many ‘dos and don'ts’ of the scriptures are clear enough to see this normative character. These holy texts cannot speak; however, their interpreters must do so on their behalf. And they interpret them within an interpretive context that is geohistorically, geoculturally and geopolitically rather different from one another. This is the reason why there are conflicts, not just among those who believe and don't, but among the members of the same holy text, as well. Through out-of-context quotations, some so-called devout members can easily distort the very meaning of the text, thus transforming it into a source of uproar and chaos rather than peace and serenity. Considering this historical experience, this paper draws a difference between the scripture and historical phenomena it has created in order to criticize the essentialist approach that identifies the scripture with its members.
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