The Family of Abraham: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Interpretations

296 Pages·2014·1.51 MB·English

by  Carol Bakhos

The Family of Abraham

The
Family Abraham
of
JEWISH, CHRISTIAN, AND MUSLIM INTERPRETATIONS
Carol Bakhos
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, Eng land 2014
Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data
Bakhos, Carol.
The family of Abraham: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
interpretations / Carol Bakhos.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0-6 74- 05083-9
1. Abraham (Biblical patriarch) 2. Abrahamic religions.
3. Religions—R elations. I. Title.
BS580.A3B335 2014
222'.11092—dc23 2013040577
To Vivienne, for planting and watering the seeds

Contents
Note on Transliteration ix
Introduction 1
1. Scriptures and Interpreters 15
2. The Biblical and Qur’anic Abraham 51
3. The First Mono the ist 80
4. The Wives of Abraham 106
5. Sibling Rivals 137
6. Firstborn Son 154
7. The Sacrifi ce of Isaac and Ishmael 190
Conclusion 214
Notes 221
Ac knowl edgm ents 275
Index 277

Note on Transliteration
T
HIS BOOK is written for both general and scholarly readers.
Some will be familiar with Arabic and Hebrew, and others with nei-
ther language. One of my objectives is to make both languages as
accessible as possible to all readers. I have therefore adopted a simpli-
fi ed system of rendering Hebrew and Arabic into En glish. With the
exception of the Arabic hamza and ‘ayn, I have not used any diacriti-
cal marks or special characters in personal names, unless of course
the names appear in a quotation or are included in a term such as
dīn Ibrāhīm. For Arabic terms and book titles, I have followed the
system of transliteration used by the International Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies (IJMES). Anglicized derivatives of Arabic words have
not been transliterated. For Hebrew words, I have employed the
general- purpose system of transliteration used by the Society of
Biblical Literature (SBL), with one exception: the khet is rendered ḥ
(proper names notwithstanding). I trust that my colleagues in the
fi elds of Jewish and Islamic studies understand my need to adopt a
more basic system of transliteration and forgive any inconsistencies.