11. Interpreting Canon

This chapter shifts from the controversies in making canon to focus on the content itself. What determines meaning and truth? The deep ken seeks the meaning intended by the divine author, mediated by the guarantees of tradition, and received by a pious reader. The plain ken considers the intentions of scripture's human scribes (or “co-authors”), as well as the historical circumstances of both those original scribes as well as generations of copyists. A comparative history of Biblical and Qur'anic interpretation contrasts the Christian deep-ken quest for depth (meaning buried in the text by God) with the Muslim plain-ken quest for flatness (a simple meaning revealed through the historical circumstances of revelation). In the fifteenth century, Muslims (especially al-Biqa'i and al-Suyuti) continued to build on these early plain-ken foundations. The Christians held the deep ken close, but (especially Valla and Erasmus) inched towards the plain ken, in particular by revising their understanding of literal meaning and by historicizing manuscript production.