The family of Abraham: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpretations

Abstract

Readers of Carol Bakhos' book, The Family of Abraham: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Interpretations, may feel at times as if they are in a chamber of mirrors. The "family" in the title refers at first instance to the actual family of the biblical Abraham-Terah, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael-and to the parallel characters in Islamic traditions. These figures are the focus of the book. In parallel, it refers to the religions sometimes known as "Abrahamic"-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As Bakhos shows, these two types of "families" were in constant interaction. The mythical figures were shaped by centuries of interpretation by members of the three religions, and, in turn, the three religions and the relationships between them were conceptualized and imagined by reference to the figures. There was, therefore, a continuing reshaping of the role of Abraham and his family in each of the religions, and, moreover, of their roles as figures marking the ambiguous borders between the religions. Many have written on Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael, in the Bible and in subsequent traditions. Bakhos' book is, however, innovative in its focus on the whole family and on interactions between its members. This can be seen in the chapter outline. The first chapter of the book is a useful overview of the history of interpretation in each of the three traditions, mostly in the first millennium CE. Chapters two and three focus on Abraham himself, first as depicted in the Bible and the Quran and then as interpreted by subsequent traditions. Chapter four is dedicated to the confrontations between Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham, chapters five and six to Ishmael and Isaac, and chapter seven to the sacrifice of Isaac or Ishmael. The subject is also served well by the rigorous comparative framework: each chapter dedicates roughly equal space to each of the religious traditions, followed by discussion. The text is very readable, appealing to a wide audience, with the scholarly references confined to copious endnotes. A point which emerges from all of the chapters is the divide between Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and Islam, on the other. For the former the text of the Hebrew Bible is canonical, while for the latter it is not, even if parts of the narrative filtered into Islamic tradition. While Abraham himself frequently