o Describes these basic components of religious traditions and their relationship to the sacred:

• What a religious tradition says—its teachings, texts, doctrine, stories, myths, and others • What a religious tradition does—worship, prayer, pilgrimage, ritual, and so forth • How a religious tradition organizes—leadership, relationships among members, and so forth

o Identifies key critical issues in the study of religion.

o Includes specific examples from the various religious traditions described in the Week One readings that honor the sacred—such as rituals of the Igbo to mark life events, the vision quest as a common ritual in many Native American societies, or the influence of the shaman as a leader. You may also include examples from your own religious tradition or another religious tradition with which you are familiar.

1. There are a couple of critical issues when it comes to the study of what a religious tradition says. The first is to make a distinction between the oral tradition and the written tradition. Many well-developed, world religions have an established canon of sacred texts, as well as an oral tradition. In some cases, this also has come to be written down. For instance, in Judaism, there is the tradition of the Oral Torah and the written Torah. The written Torah has become the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible as we know it. The Oral Torah has also been written down in established commentaries in the Talmud. However, many indigenous religions have not written down their oral traditions. In fact, there are still some indigenous people that do not have a written language, and so their entire religious tradition is passed down orally from generation to generation. These oral traditions are more difficult for scholars to study and to follow over time.

Another critical issue is to determine what the teaching or