RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/122502/our-abraham-not-theirs?all=1
Our Abraham, Not Theirs

Inheriting Abraham, by Jon Levenson, expertly dismantles the idea of the patriarch as the father of three great religions

We like to think that mutual understanding promotes tolerance. But sometimes we hate people because we understand them. Martin Luther’s exhaustive study of rabbinic commentaries as well as Hebrew scripture did not prevent him from proposing the destruction of every Jewish home along with every synagogue. Adolf Eichmann hoped to study Hebrew with a Berlin rabbi, the better to understand the people he planned to exterminate.

In Inheriting Abraham, Jon Levenson, the Albert A. List Professor of Bible at Harvard’s Divinity School, throws cold water on the mutual-understanding campfire. Misunderstanding is not what divides the image of Abraham in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the misnomered “Abrahamic religions”; on the contrary, the founders of the younger religions well understood Abraham’s role in Judaism. St. Paul’s transformation of Abraham into the father of all who believe, and the Quran’s recasting of Abraham as a Muslim prophet who prefigured Muhammed, both rejected the Jewish version by design, by inventing their own Abrahams to serve their own doctrinal purposes.

Through published excerpts and interviews, Levenson has been drawing attention to his most provocative conclusion: that it is wrong to present Abraham as a unifying figure who transcends the differences among Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The progressive wings of Christianity as well as Judaism have a great deal invested in this reassuring claim, and Levenson’s devastating refutation of the “three Abraham religions” thesis will be unwelcome. He makes short work of pop theologians like Bruce Feiler, whose best-selling book on the patriarch claims that “Abraham belongs to all of humanity” and that “the carefully balanced message of the Abraham story [is] that God cares for all his children—a tradition that existed for hundreds of years before the religions themselves existed.” Feiler and his co-thinkers, Levenson observes, have essentially invented another Abraham—“a neutral Abraham who can be made to serve as a control on the Abrahams of the three traditions that are thought to derive from him.”

So, it is clear that Levenson’s new book will be resented in liberal religious circles. What it won’t be, however, is easily refuted.

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Why should Abraham belong to all of humanity? For Jews and Christians, the answer lies in paternity and covenant: Abraham is the father of God’s people, through his son Isaac in Judaism, and for Christians, through the faith of those who belief in Jesus’ resurrection. Christianity’s departure from Judaism is an argument about lineage and legitimacy. The Abraham of Genesis, as Levenson notes, never preaches monotheism. The Abraham who smashed the idols in his father’s workshop appears in Second Temple sources, and that is the Abraham of the Quran: the prophet of monotheism who prefigures Muhammed. Abraham’s definitive act for Christians and Jews, his obedience to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac, is simply a prooftest of submission for Muslims, who are instructed by Muhammed as prefigured by Abraham.

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2013/01/25/le-monde-the-muslim-religion-is-the-subject-of-a-profound-rejection-by-the-french/ Gamal al-Banna’s impression, shared by an unhappy French public: “most Muslims today are Salafis” Yesterday (1/24/13), Le Monde (hat tip Religion of Peace) published IPSOS survey results of French public attitudes towards Islam under the self-explanatory headline, “La religion musulmane fait l’objet d’un profond rejet de la part des Français” [“The Muslim religion is […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/hillary-clintons-hissy-fit This week, the U.S. secretary of state tried to conceal her incompetence with an outburst of emotionalism. Time‘s headline: ‘Clinton on Benghazi: Tears and Anger’. Stressing feelings over facts in another calculated evasion preceding her departure from office after four failed years, Clinton told Congress: “I do feel responsible” (emphasis added) for the deaths […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/harris-zafars-islamic-intellectual-incoherence?f=puball

Harris Zafar, national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, posted recently at the Washington Post’s online Guest Voices blog the article “Making Islamic Sense of Free Speech.” Review of Zafar’s analysis shows that he makes no sense, Islamic or otherwise, at all with respect to free speech. If anything, Zafar deceptively offers justification for censorship all the while proclaiming respect for intellectual freedom.

Zafar references recent Saudi Arabian prosecutions of individuals for statements deemed offensive to Islam as “incidents” that “have re-ignited the age old debate about… freedom of speech, especially with regards to Islam.” Zafar asserts that “many secularists champion individual privileges” (not rights, Zafar curiously writes), while “Islam promotes… uniting mankind and cultivating love.” According to Zafar, both Islam and “modern-day free speech advocates” each “endorse freedom for people to express themselves, but Islam promotes unity, whereas” the latter “promote individualism.”

Linking to various verses of an online Koran at an Ahmadiyya website, Zafar seeks to show that Islam “promotes free speech when our intention is to serve a good purpose” but not if “our intentions are to insult others or promote disorder.” In contrast, free speech’s “most vocal proponents” believe “people can say anything and everything on their mind “resulting in “every form of provocation.” Such a “legal privilege to insult others… is neither democracy nor freedom of speech.” Whatever value free speech has “still pales in comparison to the cause of world peace.”

Despite Zafar’s relative weighing of “world peace” and free speech, Zafar, in an assessment surely surprising to many, claims that “Islam does not prescribe any worldly punishment for unseemly speech.” According to Zafar, the “Prophet Muhammad called differences of opinion a blessing in society and never sought to censor or threaten those who verbally attacked him.” Modern Muslims should thus “respond to speech with speech, but our speech is to be better and more dignified.”

When “enemies of peace create slanderous videos, cartoons or advertisements — like the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film, Pamela Geller’s new ignorant NYC subway ads and Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon about Prophet Muhammad,” Zafar calls for a rejection of

their claim that an individual’s privilege to say whatever they want is more important than the higher principle of uniting people and saving this planet from a path of animosity, hatred and destruction. Rather than falsely accusing Islam of censorship, let us understand the beauty of giving higher consideration to mankind over our own personal privileges.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-national-association-of-scholars-report-on-american-history Although conservatives reflexively assume race, class and gender dominate American history, there is now incontrovertible evidence that this assumption is true. In a careful study of U.S. history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A & M University, the National Association of Scholars recently released report indicates that race, class and gender […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obamas-second-declaration-of-war-on-america Sitting down to parse President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address of January 21st, one’s eyes begin to glaze over while scanning the transcript of the speech. There again are the same old platitudes, bromides, and catch phrases and secret coded messages. There again is the sanctimonious delivery of a person who wants to be […]

http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/gradualism-islamist-strategy-victory/#fm http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/detail/ryan-mauro One of the mistakes that the West makes is that it doesn’t listen to what the Islamists are saying. If only we listened, we could hear their strategy. In November 2011, Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Muslim Brotherhood theologian and arguably the most influential Sunni cleric in the world, called on Muslims to […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578259940213918254.html Since 1960, entitlement transfers have grown twice as fast as personal income—to $2.3 trillion annually. “Ask not what you can do for this country, ask what this country will give you for free……”rsk In President Obama’s second inaugural address, he not only outlined an ambitious agenda for his second term but also seemed intent […]

http://www.newmediajournal.us/ There has been a lot of talk since the re-election of President Obama about his ability, nay desire; his goal, of “annihilating” and “destroying” the Republican Party. If one listens to the mainstream media, some of their Obama-friendly operatives are openly declaring that the only way Mr. Obama can “cement his legacy” is if […]

http://q4j-middle-east.com The title of the large AP article discussing the recent election in Israel in my local paper on January 24th read, “Rise Of Israeli Centrist Raises Hopes For Peace.” It was referring to the surprising good showing of Israel’s Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. No doubt, this Aron Heller and Josef Federman analysis made […]