Study of Patriarch Abraham; the book reveals what interpretations of Abraham’s life unite the three religions, and which ones divide them.
Source; The Jewish week by Steve Lipman
Concurrent with the early Torah portions in Genesis that deal with the life of the patriarch Abraham, Princeton University Press is releasing a book about how the three monotheistic faiths view him. In “Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity & Islam,” Jon Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at the Harvard Divinity School, deals with the question, “Who was the real Abraham?”
“The question, it turns out, is considerably more complicated than most people think,” Levenson writes. His book reveals what interpretations of Abraham’s life unite the three religions, and which ones divide them. The Jewish Week discussed Levenson’s book with him by e-mail.
Q: Why another book on Abraham? That is, why is there still interest in the first patriarch, four millennia after he lived?
A: Abraham is a foundational figure in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The question of the relationship among them and how they developed from a common heritage increasingly suggests itself. Some people in recent years have suggested that Abraham should serve as a source of unity and concord among what are increasingly called “the Abrahamic religions” — I have written this book in some measure to show why that view is simplistic.
More reasonable is the prospect that by learning about the processes of interpretation of the other two communities, a Jew, Christian or Muslim will see commonalities and complications he or she has been missing.
The three traditions differ on which one inherits, or best inherits, the Abrahamic legacy. For Jews, the heir is Am Yisrael, the people Israel. For Christians, it is the Church, the multi-ethnic community that through Christian faith have become descendants of Abraham. For Muslims, though, the question is not, “Who are his valid descendants?” as it is for Jews and Christians. Rather, in Islam Abraham is an important figure in a whole series of prophets that culminates in Muhammad, who restored the true religion of Abraham.
Why has Abraham, of all biblical figures, become an empty canvas, a “neutral” individual as you call him on which the monotheistic faiths project their own spiritual messages?
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