About the Book
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered kindred religions-holding ancestral heritages and monotheistic belief in common-but there are definitive distinctions between these "Abrahamic" peoples. Shared Stories, Rival Tellings explores the early exchanges of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and argues that their interactions were dominated by debates over the meanings of certain stories sacred to all three communities. Robert C. Gregg shows how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpreters--artists as well as authors--developed their unique and particular understandings of narratives present in the two Bibles and the Qur'an. Gregg focuses on five stories: Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, Jonah and the Whale, and Mary the Mother of Jesus. As he guides us through the often intentional variations introduced into these shared stories, Gregg exposes major issues under contention and the social-intellectual forces that contributed to spirited, and sometimes combative, exchanges among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Offering deeper insight into these historical moments and their implications for contemporary relations among the three religions, Shared Stories, Rival Tellings will inspire readers to consider--and reconsider--the dynamics of traditional and current social-religious competition.
About the Author :
Robert C. Gregg is Professor in Religious Studies, Emeritus, at Stanford University. His publications are historical studies of belief systems, with special attention to the competition of religions in the late Roman-early medieval Mediterranean and Levant.
Review :
"[Gregg's] expertise in ancient languages, facility with exegesis, and skills in interpreting art
illumine and enrich each interpretation. This volume helps the reader understand and
appreciate the shared heritage of and theological differences between Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam."--Missiology: An International Review
"His immense learning, humane sensibility, and elegant prose make this book a joy to read, and to look at--there are some great illustrations The reader, whatever their level of knowledge of any of the three religious traditions being discussed, will be carried with ease by Gregg's learning worn lightly and his judicious comments. But the reader will also be carried by the power of the stories, their different tellings and re-tellings and the sheer complexity and inventiveness in these morphing moments."--Reviews in Religion and Theology
"...an abundance of memorable, surprising stories that will provide new insights even for readers who think they know this material very well." -- Christian Century
"Robert C. Gregg's book Shared Stories, Rival Tellings is an ode to those creative encounters between stories and readers (or hearers) in specific historical moments, and a powerful demonstration of the enormous value of "retellings" of sacred stories for understanding processes of identity formation, doctrinal differentiation, and religious competition."-- Marginalia
"...[A]n important well-written work... its breadth and depth make it a worthwhile investment for students of comparative religion, Judaism, early Christianity, and Islam." --Publishers Weekly
"A carefully crafted and explicitly balanced historical study...The variety of plates which enflesh the narratives and illustrate the richness of ancient imaginations are stunning. Very few of us will not learn something from the breadth."--Journal of the Bible and its Reception
and creativity of this book.
"A breathtaking combination of the verbal and the visual."--Journey with Jesus
"Tragically, religious conflict is alive and well in the twenty-first century. This is what makes Shared Stories, Rival Tellings such a timely and inspiring work of scholarship, a study that shows the interconnections among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptural interpretation. There are other helpful introductions to early Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation, but this volume makes its mark by enfolding Islam within its story and--in a move that makes this work even more of a gem--by drawing on art history as well as on texts. This work, dare I say it, is the opposite of religious extremism in its openness and ability to engage multiple perspectives." --Steve Weitzman, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania
"Robert Gregg brilliantly interweaves versions of Bible stories as Jews, Christians, and Muslims variously tell them--complementing, challenging, or clashing with one another--in a book that's fascinating and enormously informative about relationships within this diverse, often contentious, family of traditions." --Elaine Pagels, Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion, Princeton University
"Jews, Christians, Muslims--all have sacred stories. Some overlap, some also compete. No one has ever attempted to engage five of these Abrahamic sagas with equal seriousness and unflinching honesty. Combining art with narrative analysis, Bob Gregg has not only scaled the mountain, he has provided us a vista of the other side: a luxuriant tableau of piety and performance, at once animating, unsettling and delighting all who worship, or want to espy others who worship, the God of Abraham. A triumph, a masterpiece, a classic." --Bruce B. Lawrence, author of Who is Allah? (2015)
"In a period when relations between religious traditions are characterized by suspicion and lack of understanding, Gregg's even-handed and irenic treatment of each religion's biblical interpretation provides a positive appreciation of each on its own terms and an invitation for each religion to consider rejoining with the others in an important conversation." --Commonweal
