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.

Provides an extensive yet accessible guide to many ancient texts Includes artwork as well as historical writings to illuminate religious interpreters' genius and impact Explores the historical contexts of the divides between Jews, Christians, and Muslims

Embodied Performance presents a methodology by which performer-interpreters can bring their intuitive interpretations to the scholarly conversations about biblical compositions. It may not be comfortable, for scholarship is out of practice in listening to emotion and intuition. It may not be the only way to bring the fullness of human meaning making into scholarly discussions. It is a beginning, as Sarah Agnew, storyteller and scholar, places herself as the subject and object under examination, observing her practice as a biblical storyteller making meaning through embodied performance, and develops a coherent method rigorously tested with an Embodied Performance Analysis of Romans. Follow Sarah's story as she searches within Biblical Performance Criticism for such a method, before determining the need to strike out in a new direction from within an already innovative field. All biblical scholars are complex human beings, making meaning through their embodiment, their emotions, their embeddedness in community. Embodied Performance Analysis offers a way to attend to and incorporate the full range of human meaning making in our engagement with biblical compositions, for richer discussion closer to the intent of the compositions themselves.

Stories about gendered social relations permeate the Qur'an, and nearly three hundred verses involve specific women or girls. The Qur'an features these figures in accounts of human origins, in stories of the founding and destruction of nations, in narratives of conquest, in episodes of romantic attraction, and in incidents of family devotion and strife. Overall, stories involving women and girls weave together theology and ethics to reinforce central Qur'anic ideas regarding submission to God and moral accountability. Celene Ibrahim explores the complex cast of female figures in the Qur'an, probing themes related to biological sex, female sexuality, female speech, and women in sacred history. Ibrahim considers major and minor figures referenced in the Qur'an, including those who appear in narratives of sacred history, in parables, in descriptions of the eternal abode, and in verses that allude to events contemporaneous with the advent of the Qur'an in Arabia. Ibrahim finds that the Qur'an regularly celebrates the aptitudes of women in the realms of spirituality and piety, in political maneuvering, and in safeguarding their own wellbeing; yet, women figures also occasionally falter and use their agency toward nefarious ends. Women and Gender in the Qur'an outlines how women and girls - old, young, barren, fertile, chaste, profligate, reproachable, and saintly -enter Qur'anic sacred history and advance the Qur'an's overarching didactic aims.

This collection draws on research in educational areas displaying best practice pedagogy, theoretical and practical, underpinned by philosophy, empirical science, and neuroscience, among other disciplines. It focusses especially on implications for higher education, school education, professional ethics, and religion. Higher education exploration is on the diminution of the humanities and implications for the range of knowledge needed for future citizenship. The work includes a revisioning of higher education’s purpose, especially the changing role of the doctorate and its examination. The focus on school education takes the same pedagogical lens to humanities and social sciences, examining values education and religious studies. Ethical issues include colonisation and decolonisation, especially around the concept of land and ramifications for intercultural studies. The ethics and practice of teaching about life and death issues in medical education are explored in light of research in dialogic consensus. The religion section includes research on interfaith education, especially concerning Islam, and eco-theological education, especially focussed on climate change. Contributors are academic colleagues or former doctoral students of Terence J. Lovat (University Professor, Australia, UK, and Canada) whose internationally acclaimed research straddles these areas. Many of the contributors hold positions of influence in the academic or professional world, while others bring their newly minted doctoral research to the content. The intended readership includes academics and doctoral students across education, ethics, religion, social studies, ecology, health and medicine, indigenous studies, and international affairs. This collection, published in honour of Emeritus Professor Terence Lovat, provides rich insights into the scope and multidisciplinary depth of his scholarship. A philosopher of education whose main work has centred on curriculum theory and values education and ethics in education, Lovat’s scholarship reminds us that the education of children and young people must be concerned with more than academic attainment. In emphasising education as a holistic and moral endeavour—one involving hearts and minds—Lovat has consistently advocated for the provision of opportunities for young people to extend their horizons beyond the school environment to engage with issues in society that go beyond academic learning. Professor Lovat has also made a major and longstanding contribution to the development of Studies of Religion in schools and to the theology and history of Islam and Islamic Education. In traversing Lovat’s significant and remarkable contributions to education, religion and ethics, and the links between them, this book serves as a testament to a highly esteemed scholar. Associate Professor Deborah Henderson, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Arguably the single most important element in Abrahamic cross-confessional relations has been an ongoing mutual interest in perennial spiritual and ethical exemplars of one another’s communities. Ranging from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages, Crossing Confessional Boundaries explores the complex roles played by saints, sages, and Friends of God in the communal and intercommunal lives of Christians, Muslims, and Jews across the Mediterranean world, from Spain and North Africa to the Middle East to the Balkans. By examining these stories in their broad institutional, social, and cultural contexts, Crossing Confessional Boundaries reveals unique theological insights into the interlocking histories of the Abrahamic faiths.