Product Description: What Does It Mean to Be "Chosen"? Why Did God Have to Choose?“To be chosen can have a range of meaning from the mundane to the holy, but in all cases it means to be singled out and preferred over others. In a deep sense that permeates much or most of Western culture, having been chosen communicates a sense of something that is extraordinary, is transcendent, and entitles a reward...read more

Product Description: Author Leonard Swidler himself is one of the American originators of the term trialogue and here he raises it to a new level as he shares the podium with professors Reuven Firestone and Khalid Duran. These three professors, beginning with Firestone and Judaism, present their faith traditions and the challenges as well as possibilities for genuine trialogue...read more

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Scholars have long pointed to the great affinity between stories found in the Bible and the Qur an, yet no explanation has been proposed that satisfactorily explains the odd combination of incredible likeness and unique divergence. Firestone provides a refreshing, new approach to scriptural issues of textuality, exegesis, and the origins and use of legend. This book clearly presents the full range of Islamic legends from the Qur an and early Islamic exegesis about Abraham s journeys and adventures in the Land of Canaan and Arabia, many of them available for the first time in English translation. The author examines this broad sample of Islamic legends in relation to those found in Jewish, Christian, and pre-Islamic Arabian communities, and postulates an evolutionary journey of the literature. He presents a thorough textual analysis of the material and proposes a model for understanding early Islamic narrative based in literary theory, approaches to comparative religion, and the history of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic Middle East."