People collecting old written record for religious studies (8)
I believe the answer is:
theology
'religious studies' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'people collecting old written record' is the wordplay.
'people' becomes 'they' (they refers to a group of people).
'collecting' indicates putting letters inside.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'written record' becomes 'log' (log is a kind of written record).
'o'+'log'='olog'
'they' going around 'olog' is 'THEOLOGY'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for theology that I've seen before include "Religious studies" , "Systematic study of religion" , "Study of God, etc" , "Bible study" , "Study of religious beliefs" .)