Part IV: Reckoning with Loss - Identity, Ethics, and Imagination
Loss changes everything. When texts disappear, communities don't simply mourn what's gone—they reimagine what remains. New traditions emerge from the gaps, oral practices compensate for missing manuscripts, and absence itself becomes a shaping force in religious life. Through contemporary testimonies, scholarly reflections, and ethical debates, this final section explores how loss has shaped what faith looks like today—and what responsibilities we bear as inheritors of this fragile, precious heritage. The sacred texts that survive do so because someone, somewhere, decided they were worth saving. Now that choice belongs to us.