Peters, a scholar without peer in the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, has thoroughly rewritten his classic book 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.
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Peters, a scholar without peer in the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, has thoroughly rewritten his classic book 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.
Read Less
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F.E. Peters, Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern Studies, History, and Religion at New York University has written extensively on the comparative studies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the early 1980s, he published a short book suitable for lay audiences titled "The Children of Abraham." Then, in 2006, Peters edited "The Children of Abraham" published it in this new edition together with a short introduction by John Esposito, University Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Services, Georgetown University.
The book offers a short yet erudite and thoughtful overview of the history and interrelationships of the three Abrahamic religions. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Peters writes, were "born of an event that each remembers as a moment in history, when the One True God appeared to an Iron Age sheikh named Abram and bound him in a covenant forever." These three religions "grew to adulthood in the rich spiritual climate of the Middle East, and though they have lived together all their lives, now in their maturity they stand apart and regard their family resemblances and conditioned differences with astonishment, disbelief, or disdain." The religions share in common their Abrahmic origins. Equally important, they share the belief in monotheism and worship the one and the same God. "Whether called Yahweh or Elohim, God the Father or Allah, it is the selfsame deity who created the world out of nothing, who fashioned humankind in his own image, who made the covenant with Abraham and his progeny, and who subsequently intervened in human history to punish his enemies and chastise his friends, and to send instructions, warnings, and encouragement to those who would listen."
The three Abrahamic religions have had an intertwined history and have sometimes been friends but too often enemies. Peters' book is a historical study of the similarities and differences among the three faiths. It has the more ambitious goal of provoking thought on how the plurality of warring religious traditions can be reconciled with the philosophical belief in one God.
The book covers the beginnings of each religion starting from the sixth century B.C. when the Jews returned to Palestine from the Babylonian Exile. It continues through the Middle Ages and concludes at roughly 1500 A.D. Peters explains: "[a]ll the issues of reform and all the wellsprings and mechanisms of revival are present in the place and period under consideration. Faith and reason, Scripture and tradition, understanding and enlightenment are all very old adversaries."
The scope of the book moves in a rough direction from history to philosophy. It begins with a discussion of post-exilic Judaism, the Second Temple, and the development of sects and Rabbinic Judaism. It develops the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity against this background. Then Peters shows the development of Islam by Mohammad, with the influences of the two earlier religions, in the highly different culture of sixth and seventh century A.D. western Arabia.
Peters continues with descriptions of the communal structure of the three religions, their understandings of Scripture, Tradition, and religious Law, and their ways of worshiping God. The final chapters of the book become philosophical as Peters discusses asceticism and mysticism in the three faiths and their philosophical development in the Middle Ages. The philosophical development begins with the classical Greeks and proceeds initially through a great series of Islamic philosophers. Jewish and Christian thinkers learned from and elaborated the teachings of the Greek and Islamic thinkers in the context of their own faiths. Peters throughout gives substantial attention to Philo Judaeus, an early Jewish thinker who lived at about the time of Jesus. Philo was among the first in the Abrahamic tradition to attempt to combine Greek philosophy with religious teaching and to propound an allegorical, philosophical reading of Scripture.
In the final chapter of his book, Peters moves from the secular history, which he develops in his book, to "sacred history" which is how each of the three religions sees itself. Peters writes: "[f]or Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike the history of revelation and the history of the community of believers are the twin foundations of sacred history, but it is the concurrence of the matter of that history that binds them forever together." Peters offers an insightful, suggestive discussion of how each of the three faiths understand themselves, their relationship to the Abrahamic covenant, and each other. His discussion is informed, fair, and non-polemical and does not privilege one form of understanding over others. The book will allow the reader to think more clearly about how, if at all, the belief in one true God can be reconciled with the diversity of ways of knowing and worshiping that God.
The text is succinct and as clear as a scholarly exposition will allow in a short space. The book includes extensive footnotes and references which will allow the reader to pursue the inquiry in more detail. The book includes a useful glossary of technical terms from the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Peters' book will appeal to readers with a serious interest in the comparative study of the Abrahamic religions and in the relationship between monotheism and religious diversity.
