Description
JUDAISM, Christianity, and Islam are all children born of the same Father and reared in the bosom of Abraham. They grew to adulthood in the rich spiritual climate of the Near East, and though they have lived together all of their lives, now in their maturity they stand apart and regard their family resemblances and conditioned differences with astonishment, disbelief, or disdain.
Rich parallels of attitude and institution exist among these three religions that acknowledge, in varying degrees, their evolution one out of the other. They have all engaged at times in reciprocal polemic of great ferocity, and sometimes pursued a more ecumenical course, but neither is the inten-tion here. My purpose is merely to underline both the parallels and the differences, and to connect them to common origins and to a common spiritual and intellectual environ-ment.
I have not attempted to write the history of these three religions; others have rendered that service to each. I have selected certain issues and institutions and laid them out in a manner that would invite comparison. The matter is some-times complex, and so I have tried to be clear in the text and generous in the footnotes, where the reader is invited to pursue more deeply questions I have only touched upon.