Teachings on Disability in the Abrahamic Religions. An English Presentation of a 2017 Doctoral Research Study
Teachings on Disability in the Abrahamic Religions. An English Presentation of a 2017 Doctoral Research Study

Summary/Abstract: While disability studies have a history spanning only a few decades, interpretations of sacred texts are as old as the texts themselves. Millennia have passed, each era with its own goals, its own self-perception, and its own ideas about the surrounding world and the transcendent reality above it, namely God. Consequently, the interpretations of teachings evolved, and the translations of texts have also changed over time. What was the objective? What was the message? Who conveyed it, to whom, and about whom? Perhaps it is hardest to break free from scholars influenced by atavistically entrenched and power-driven structures, as numerous elements of contemporary cultures and civilizations are built upon them. The respect for authority, adherence to tradition, and fear of the new and the different can easily bind us. These mechanisms, though seemingly hidden, play an inescapable role in the complex system of social and cultural influences. Is it knowledge? Assumed knowledge? Science? Or merely experiments and constructs? This research undertook nothing less than to identify the fundamental teachings on disability and persons with disabilities within the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Naturally, the term itself is a modern concept, yet the reality of impairment has always been part of community life and its complex structures. However, exclusion, stigmatization, and in extreme cases, annihilation, could not have been part of the revealed teachings. They could only serve as a framework for legitimizing a distorted reality shaped by other interests.

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