Bøker i Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - Tension, Transmission, Transformation-serien

Arabischsprachige Evangelikale in Israel stehen in einem komplexen Identitätskonflikt: Sie sind israelisch, aber nicht jüdisch, arabisch und palästinensisch, aber nicht muslimisch, christlich, aber nicht traditionell-christlich, sondern evangelikal. Diesen Identitätskonflikt untersucht die Studie mittels in Nazareth erhobener ethnographischer Daten, die sie auf ihre Vorgeschichte und globale Verflechtung hin befragt. Sie zeigt auf, dass sich die arabischsprachigen Evangelikalen in Israel mit ihrer Hervorhebung des Glaubens und intensiven Frömmigkeit nicht dem Konflikt und der Welt entziehen, sondern eine aktive Kritik vorbringen, insbesondere an dem christlich-evangelikalen Zionismus und der Politisierung von Religion in Israel. Damit eröffnet die Studie neue Perspektiven auf Religion und Nation in Israel und das Verhältnis von Politik und Religion.

The present volume offers the first scholarly discussion of Gunter Luling's (1928-2014) work. Luling's views, long passages of the Qur'an are originally mere reworking of pre-Islamic Christian hymns have not received the scholarly attention they deserve, since they were published at the beginning of the 70s of the previous century. Luling attempted to reconstruct an "e;Ur-Qur'an"e; in order to show that Islam emerged in a Christian context in Mecca. He also believed that Muhammad converted from Trinitarian Christianity to paganism and that the Kaaba was a church. Luling's hermeneutical approach to the Qur'an and other Arabic sources on early Islam is, for the first time, the subject of the studies included in the present book. In addition, the volume offers interesting insights in the law case which accompanied the publication of Luling's work.

Still in its infancy because of the overly conservative views and methods assumed by the majority of scholars working in it since the mid-19th century, the field of early Islamic and quranic studies is one in which the very basic questions must nowadays be addressed with decision. Accordingly, this book tries to resituate the Qur'an at the crossroads of the conversations of old, to which its parabiblical narratives witness, and explores how Muhammad's image - which was apparently modelled after that of the anonymous prophet repeatedly alluded to in the Qur'an - originally matched that of other prophets and/or charismatic figures distinctive in the late-antique sectarian milieu out of which Islam gradually emerged. Moreover, it contends that the Quranic Noah narratives provide a first-hand window into the making of Muhammad as an eschatological prophet and further examines their form, content, purpose, and sources as a means of deciphering the scribal and intertextual nature of the Qur'an as well as the Jewish-Christian background of the messianic controversy that gave birth to the new Arab religion. The previously neglected view that Muhammad was once tentatively thought of as a new Messiah challenges our common understanding of Islam's origins.

This volume explores theoretical discourses in which religion is used to legitimize political violence. It examines the ways in which Christianity and Islam are utilized for political ends, in particular how violence is used (or abused) as an expedient to justify political action. This research focuses on premodern as well as contemporary discourses in the Middle East and Latin America, identifying patterns frequently used to justify the deployment of violence in both hegemonic and anti-hegemonic discourses. In addition, it explores how premodern arguments and authorities are utilized and transformed in order to legitimize contemporary violence as well as the ways in which the use of religion as a means to justify violence alters the nature of conflicts that are not otherwise explicitly religious. It argues that most past and present conflicts, even if the discourses about them are conducted in religious terms, have origins other than religion and/or blend religion with other causes, namely socio-economic and political injustice and inequality. Understanding the use and abuse of religion to justify violence is a prerequisite to discerning the nature of a conflict and might thus contribute to conflict resolution.

Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time, and on how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas.

The biblical Exodus not only plays a pivotal role in the Abrahamic religions, it is also a master narrative of border crossing. Leading scholars in Jewish and Islamic Studies, Theology and Literature, Art and Film history discuss the transitional aspects within the Exodus narrative, offering both a comparative and intercultural approach. The volume thus contributes to the broader understanding of contact points between the various traditions.

This book is the result of collaboration between scholars of medieval philosophy, science, literature and art. Despite their diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the contributors are committed to the hypothesis that medieval European, Jewish and Islamic textual culture can best be understood as a product of the dynamic processes of transmitting, translating and transforming the legacy of the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome and the Near East.

This study reassesses the too-often oversimplified, in fact multilayered and polyvalent, Christology of the Qur¿¿n against the intersecting of competing peripheral Christianities, anti-Jewish Christian polemics and the formation of a new Arab state in the 7th-century Near East. Additionally, it sheds new light on the Qur¿¿n¿s original sectarian milieu, its intricate redactional process, and the gradual making of the Muhammadan kerygma.

How did ancient communities approach the concept of religious knowledge? Was it something to be shared with all, or was it the provenance of certain initiates? This volume of collected essays illustrates a range of approaches to this dilemma, from ancient Babylon, Judaism (Dead Sea scrolls, Book of Jubilees, rabbinic traditions in the Roman Empire), Christianity (Gnosticism, Alexandria, Gospel of John) and Islam (Qur'¿n and Ismaili traditions).

Der interdisziplinäre Band versammelt aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven auf das Wechselspiel von Tradition und Traditionskritik in Judentum, Christentum und Islam. Beleuchtet werden die vielfältigen historischen und gegenwärtigen Formen von Kritik an den überlieferten Traditionen sowie die dynamischen Prozesse, die diese Kritik in den Religionen ausgelöst hat. Traditionskritik erweist sich als integraler Bestandteil von religiösen Traditionen.ligiösen Traditionen.

The study of Islam''s origins from a rigorous historical and social science perspective is still wanting. At the same time, a renewed attention is being paid to the very plausible pre-canonical redactional and editorial stages of the Qur''an, a book whose core many contemporary scholars agree to be formed by various independent writings in which encrypted passages from the OT Pseudepigrapha, the NT Apocrypha, and other ancient writings of Jewish, Christian, and Manichaean provenance may be found. Likewise, the earliest Islamic community is presently regarded by many scholars as a somewhat undetermined monotheistic group that evolved from an original Jewish-Christian milieu into a distinct Muslim group perhaps much later than commonly assumed and in a rather unclear way. The following volume gathers select studies that were originally shared at the Early Islamic Studies Seminar. These studies aim at exploring afresh the dawn and early history of Islam with the tools of biblical criticism as well as the approaches set forth in the study of Second Temple Judaism, Christian, and Rabbinic origins, thereby contributing to the renewed, interdisciplinary study of formative Islam as part and parcel of the complex processes of religious identity formation during Late Antiquity.

Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

This volume presents Theodore Abu Qurrah's apologetic Christian theology in dialogue with Islam. It explores the question of whether, in his attempt to convey orthodoxy in Arabic to the Muslim reader, Abu Qurrah diverged from creedal, doctrinal Christian theology and compromised its core content. A comprehensive study of the theology of Abu Qurrah and its relation to Islamic and pre-Islamic orthodox Melkite thought has not yet been pursued in modern scholarship. Awad addresses this gap in scholarship by offering a thorough analytic hermeneutics of Abu Qurrah's apologetic thought, with specific attention to his theological thought on the Trinity and Christology. This study takes scholarship beyond attempts at editing and translating Abu Qurrah's texts and offers scholars, students, and lay readers in the fields of Arabic Christianity, Byzantine theology, Christian-Muslim dialogues, and historical theology an unprecedented scientific study of Abu Qurrah's theological mind.

Features contributors who are committed to the hypothesis that medieval European, Jewish and Islamic textual culture can best be understood as a product of the dynamic processes of transmitting, translating and transforming the legacy of the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome and the Near East.

Is it possible to rethink the multilayered and polyvalent Christology of the Qur'an against the intersecting of competing peripheral Christianities, anti-Jewish Christian polemics, and the making of a new Arab state in the 7th-century Near East? To what extent may this help us to decipher, moreover, the intricate redactional process of the quranic corpus? And can we unearth from any conclusions as to the tension between a messianic-oriented and a prophetic-guided religious thought buried in the document? By analysing, first, the typology and plausible date of the Jesus texts contained in the Qur'an (which implies moving far beyond both the habitual chronology of the Qur'an and the common thematic division of the passages in question) and by examining, in the second place, the Qur'an's earliest Christology via-a-vis its later (and indeed much better known) Muhamadan kerygma, the present study answers these crucial questions and, thereby, sheds new light on the Qur'an's original sectarian milieu and pre-canonical development.

Few studies focus on the modes of knowledge transmission (or concealment), or the trends of continuity or change from the Ancient to the Late Antique worlds. In Antiquity, knowledge was cherished as a scarce good, cultivated through the close teacher-student relationship and often preserved in the closed circle of the initated. From Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts to a Shi''ite Islamic tradition, this volume explores how and why knowledge was shared or concealed by diverse communities in a range of Ancient and Late Antique cultural contexts. From caves by the Dead Sea to Alexandria, both normative and heterodox approaches to knowledge in Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities are explored. Biblical and qur''anic passages, as well as gnostic, rabbinic and esoteric Islamic approaches are discussed. In this volume, a range of scholars from Assyrian studies to Jewish, Christian and Islamic studies examine diverse approaches to, and modes of, knowledge transmission and concealment, shedding new light on both the interconnectedness, as well as the unique aspects, of the monotheistic faiths, and their relationship to the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent.

This volume opens up new research perspectives on the interplay between the formation of religious traditions and the criticism addressed to them in different contexts. The scholarly investigation of how religious traditions have been criticized, reconsidered, and modified helps to better understand the dialectics of continuity and rupture that pervade religious communities. The exploration of the interactive processes of emergence, criticism, and reconsideration of religious traditions not only provides insight into how religions have developed in the past but also illuminates the present rise of new forms of religiosity within the framework of postmodernity. Belonging to different scholarly disciplines such as Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Christian Theology, Islamic Studies, History, Philosophy, and Sociology, and resorting to a broad spectrum of methodological tools, the authors of this volume delve deep into the realms of religious reality and shed new light on the dynamics of religious transformation, past and present.