Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism

This volume is the first attempt to explicitly investigate how the multiplicity of religions and forms of spirituality interconnect with the multiplicities of language, such as digital lingo and the language of science. This book analyzes how religious and linguistic multiplicities become a pluralism, that is, how they enter into polyphonic relations, as well as how they interconnect, grow together, and why they often clash. The contributors are renown international scholars working in interreligious dialogue, philosophy and sociology of religion, history of religious arts, and the crossroads of religion and science.
This text provides the setting for a dialogue on a rich variety of religious languages and traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism, and Christianity. Each chapter connects these traditions either in profound interreligious means, or with linguistic codes such as: vernacular speeches, sacred dialects and technological language. Some linguist examples are the impact of Artificial Intelligence on religious beliefs, the synergy between science and religion in the alchemist tradition and in magic, as well as the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and current religious practices. This volume contributes to interfaith studies and teaching, to sociology and philosophy of religion, and finally to the history and anthropology of religion and the sacred arts. It is intended for students, researchers, instructors and professionals alike.