This book answers the following question for Judaism: among all the things that happened in antiquity, what are the events that, seen from the perspective of the world that would endure, turn out to shape the long future? How did axiological events identify the focal points of the unfolding religious system, Judaism, in its formulation by the rabbinic sages of ancient times? This is the system that originated, in its own telling, with God’s teaching to Moses at Sinai in the Torah, in written and traditional form. Of all that happened to the Jews in the millennium from the formation of the Pentateuch (“Moses”) to the end of the formative age (“Muhammad”), the particular Judaism that emerged as normative responded to only a select few and did so within a logic all its own. Here we identify those definitive events of danger and opportunity — crisis — and the focal points that they highlighted.

This book answers the following question for Judaism: among all the things that happened in antiquity, what are the events that, seen from the perspective of the world that would endure, turn out to shape the long future? How did axiological events identify the focal points of the unfolding religious system, Judaism, in its formulation by the rabbinic sages of ancient times? This is the system that originated, in its own telling, with God's teaching to Moses at Sinai in the Torah, in written and traditional form. Of all that happened to the Jews in the millennium from the formation of the Pentateuch ("Moses") to the end of the formative age ("Muhammad"), the particular Judaism that emerged as normative responded to only a select few and did so within a logic all its own. Here we identify those definitive events of danger and opportunity - crisis - and the focal points that they highlighted.

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.

Both traditions recognize and draw theological and historical lessons from some of the same narrative sources, but this is the first comparative resource to provide interdisciplinary coverage of the history and textual sources associated with prophets and prophecy. This thorough treatment of a difficult and increasingly controversial subject area will encourage and cultivate knowledge and understanding. Entries are drawn from five main fields: 1. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 2. Bible and Biblical Studies 3. Judaism and Jewish Studies 4. The Quran and Quranic Studies 5. Islam and Islamic Studies Noegel and Wheeler treat each entry as a compilation of relevant data culled from these different traditions in order to take the reader beyond the expected parameters of research. Originally envisioned as an initial resource for students of comparative religion, the extensive chronology, bibliography, list of acronyms, and the overall accessibility of the passages make the Dictionary suitable for a much wider audience.

Invoking a concept as simple as it is brilliant, F. E. Peters has taken the basic texts of the three related--and competitive--religious systems we call Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and has juxtaposed them in a topical and parallel arrangement according to the issues that most concerned all these "children of Abraham." Through these extensive passages, and the author's skillful connective commentary, the three traditions are shown with their similarities sometimes startlingly underlined and their well-known differences now more profoundly exposed. What emerges from this unique and ambitious work is a panorama of belief, practice, and sensibility that will broaden our understanding of our religious and political roots in a past that is, by these communities' definition, still the present. The hardcover edition of the work is bound in one volume, and in the paperback version the identical material is broken down into three smaller but self-contained books. The second, "The Word and the Law and the People of God," discusses the scriptures of the three faiths in various contexts, exegetical and legal. Throughout the work we hear an amazing variety of voices, some familiar, some not, all of them central to the primary and secondary canons of their own tradition: alongside the Scriptural voice of God are the words of theologians, priests, visionaries, lawyers, rulers and the ruled. The work ends, as does the same author's now classic Children of Abraham, in what Peters calls the "classical period," that is, before the great movements of modernism and reform that were to transform Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Muhammad and the People of Book by Sahaja Carimokam asks the question, what was the nature of Muhammad’s relationship to non-Muslims, particularly Jews and Christians, and how did it change over time? This work is based on a chronological reading of the chapters of the Qur’an supplemented with Muslim commentary literature and biographical materials on the life of Muhammad. Carimokam traces Muhammad’s evolving religious viewpoint based on his borrowings of primarily Jewish and some Christian traditional/apocryphal materials. He shows how Muhammad’s inaccurate and anachronistic rendition of Jewish traditional literature ensured that the Jews would reject him as a Prophet. This rejection lead to his ultimatum to the Jews early in the Medinan period of the Qur’an and culminated with his call to Jihad against all non-Muslims, including those Jews and Christians who refused to acknowledge his Prophethood. The origins of takfir, declaring Muslims to be non-Muslims, are considered. Comparisons are made of moderate and traditional interpreters of the Qur’an. Historical-critical issues regarding the background provided by Muslim historical propaganda is considered in one chapter. The book concludes with a controversial issue for the interpretation of Islamic law in the 21st century based on the actual canonical practices of Muhammad.