Are #Texts the most important or central element of a religion/all religions?

From today’s lesson, I learned that even though texts from books or online can be great ways to learn about a certain religion, it does not completely define the religion. I believe to truly understand a specific religion, you have to do more than just read about it. I think texts are important, but I do not think it is the most important. Every religion can have some similarities and differences and the only way to really see that clearly is if you watch videos or hear about it from someone else. Texts are definitely more about telling a story, but it is not going to completely share what that one religion is all about. I believe you do not truly learn and understand a certain religion unless you are observing it in real life or hearing someone from that religion talk about it. What surprised me the most was that the Hebrew Bible could be identical with Judaism as a worldwide religion because the Hebrew Bible has a wide variety of national writings of ancient Israel.

My thinking about texts, interpretation, and religion has changed as a result of today’s lesson by seeing that texts may tell stories of religions, but different books or sources can share the same religion differently. It made me realize texts can be helpful when you want to get an idea of what one religion is about, but you cannot rely on it to fully comprehend one religion. Some texts can share basic information about a certain religion and another source could share information about the same religion with more details. Today’s lesson reminds me of religion itself, you cannot learn everything about it just from reading off a screen. Although you can learn a lot from reading about it, there is so much more to it than the information you are reading online.