Reading scripture as literature requires a secular historical development of sensibilities

Evidence

Whether historical facts alleged were true was decided on theological grounds, and in a framework of exaggerated contrast; it was appropriate, and therefore true, that the enemy of Christ should be in every way and as much as possible unlike Him. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1376 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The Romantic view of art as autonomous, existing in and for itself, meant that it was ideally positioned to replace God as the transcendent repository of value. The secularization of the university in the nineteenth century ironically furthered the religious aura accumulating around art and literature, while the humanities took shape as a discipline emerging from philology and moral science. In Asad’s view, art and literature became central in “imparting a moral essence of European civilization to students in higher education through the study of great literature and great art. Thus the idea of European civilization became fused with great aesthetic achievements[,] … and criticism accordingly became the disciplinary means to celebrate these achievements.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 92 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Canonical sacred texts betray their own youthful radical origins; Reading scripture as myth helped constitute the secular as an epistemological domain — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 204; Reading scripture is shaped by tradition, habit, and situation — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 50 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Secular literary study acquired a religious aura as Europe’s moral essence #complicates (0.75) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 92
• Medieval historiography judged historical truth by theological fitness #complicates (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1376