Carol Bakhos is Associate Professor of Late Antique Judaism at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In her lucid new book, [Bakhos] challenges the notion that the
first patriarch can be so innocuously pressed into the service of
interfaith reconciliation… She proves uniquely attuned to the
interpretive richness with which each tradition fashioned and
refashioned its own Abraham and, therefore, to the perils of
detaching a pluralistic one-size-fits-all Abraham from the
particular traditions that, for better or worse, have so enduringly
granted him life and meaning. Alfred North Whitehead once quipped
that the history of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato. If
Carol Bakhos is any guide, today’s contentious continuities and
discontinuities among Jews, Christians, and Muslims may none too
hopefully be said to be a footnote to Abraham.
*Weekly Standard*
Bakhos is a unique voice in an arena that seems to attract some
particularly overstated positions. A valuable book that will find
an eager readership among those interested in learning more about
the differences and similarities to be found across Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
*Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria, British Columbia*
In this elegant book, Carol Bakhos interprets the conflicts in
Abraham’s family, following them through the centuries in the
intertwined traditions of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Insisting
on important differences as well as similarities, The Family of
Abraham is a lively and intelligent guide to the comparative study
of these three religions.
*Guy Stroumsa, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem*
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