Even in simple inductive research, where regular association of successive events is under scrutiny, one cannot be sure of the complete list of the relevant factors nor of the right aspects of the events subject to generalization. In all these cases one has to be equipped with a preassumed picture of the scene of research in order to know where to start from and where to end, what to include and take care of and what to exclude as irrelevant or unimportant. Now, more important than all that is their impact on the whole context of the final product of the research. Interestingly enough, scientific instruments which seem to provide us with careful observation and measurements, such as microscopes and nuclear magnetic resonance devices are nothing but complex theoretical assumptions arranged and objectified in such a way as to allow us to put forward certain questions to nature and obtain answers therefrom. The theory ladenness of observations has been shown to be a fact of the history of science, as well as an implicit requirement of the method of science, that is the logic of the understanding of nature.
Religious texts are no exception.
These assumptions can be of very different nature, ranging from philosophical, historical, theo- logical to the more specific assumptions such as liguistic and sociological ones. It is a branch of knowledge, no less no more. The science of religion is relative, that is relative to the presuppositions. The science of religion is age-bound, because presuppositions are. Revealed religion itself may be true and free from contradictions, but science of religion is not necessarily so.