F.E. Peters, a scholar without peer in the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revisits his pioneering work. Peters has rethought and thoroughly rewritten his classic The Children of Abraham for a new generation of readers-at a time when the understanding of these three religious traditions has taken on a new and critical urgency. He began writing about all three faiths in the 1970s, long before it was fashionable to treat Islam in the context of Judaism and Christianity, or to align all three for a family portrait. In this updated edition, he lays out the similarities and differences of the three religious siblings with great clarity and succinctness and with that same remarkable objectivity that is the hallmark of all the author's work. Peters traces the three faiths from the sixth century B.C., when the Jews returned to Palestine from exile in Babylonia, to the time in the Middle Ages when they approached their present form. He points out that all three faith groups, whom the Muslims themselves refer to as "People of the Book," share much common ground. Most notably, each embraces the practice of worshipping a God who intervenes in history on behalf of His people. The book's text is direct and accessible with thorough and nuanced discussions of each of the three religions. Footnotes provide the reader with expert guidance into the highly complex issues that lie between every line of this stunning edition of The Children of Abraham. Complete with a new preface by the author, this Princeton Classics edition presents this landmark study to a new generation of readers.

Collects essays from fifteen prominent thinkers analyzing how sacred texts from different religions support religious tolerance.

America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war? There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an. In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims—such as Pope Francis—find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration—and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.

Jews, Christians and Muslims all trace their history and spiritual raison d'etre to their common tribal ancestor, Abraham. Their religious identities are interrelated and even dependent on each other. Jesus lived as a Jew and Christianity was born in the heart of Judaism. Early Christianity was inherently Jewish, referring to the same scriptures-the Tanach, later called the "Old Testament"-and holding to the same messianic promises. Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, knew both Christianity and Judaism. The Qur'an contains material indebted to the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, as well as stories and teachings from the New Testament; and Mohammed himself met Jews and Christians alike during his lifetime. Furthermore, the three religions share many fundamental ideas and beliefs. They testify to the same memory of Abraham; value the same divine law; urge the same ideal of righteousness; and proclaim the same hope of peace for the earth and salvation for humankind. Despite this shared heritage, the three Abrahamic faiths have sometimes been more closely identified not for what they offer to save the world but for what they bring to destabilise it. It is one of the depressing paradoxes of religion- supposedly a force for good-that it is all too frequently the occasion for conflict instead of peace, generosity and better treatment of one's neighbor. The contributors to this volume start from the premise that there is a price to be paid by the "sons of Abraham": whether Jews, Muslims or Christians. And that is the cost of learning how to be brothers through mutual and attentive engagement. Mature interfaith discussion offers respect for a shared heritage while also recognising points of distinctiveness. This book explores what articulating such regardful difference, as well as commonality, might mean for the future of faith relations. Including provocative reflections by Elie Wiesel, Irving Greenberg, Hans Kung and others, the book makes a vital contribution to dialogue. In its searching analysis of issues of peace, justice, hope and forgiveness, it will engage all students and scholars of interfaith studies.

An examination of the practice and philosophy of sacrifice in three religious traditions In the book of Genesis, God tests the faith of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice the life of his beloved son, Isaac. Bound by common admiration for Abraham, the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also promote the practice of giving up human and natural goods to attain religious ideals. Each tradition negotiates the moral dilemmas posed by Abraham’s story in different ways, while retaining the willingness to perform sacrifice as an identifying mark of religious commitment. This book considers the way in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to “sacrifice”—not only as ritual offerings, but also as the donation of goods, discipline, suffering, and martyrdom. Weddle highlights objections to sacrifice within these traditions as well, presenting voices of dissent and protest in the name of ethical duty. Sacrifice forfeits concrete goods for abstract benefits, a utopian vision of human community, thereby sparking conflict with those who do not share the same ideals. Weddle places sacrifice in the larger context of the worldviews of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, using this nearly universal religious act as a means of examining similarities of practice and differences of meaning among these important world religions. This book takes the concept of sacrifice across these three religions, and offers a cross-cultural approach to understanding its place in history and deep-rooted traditions.

In this volume, Jon Levenson subjects the powerful story in Genesis of Abraham's calling, his experience in Canaan and Egypt, and his near-sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac to a careful literary and theological analysis.