Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives

by Phyllis Trible, Letty M. Russell

Overview

In different ways, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all trace their beginnings to Abraham. His wives, Hagar and Sarah, though also pivotal in the story, have received far less attention. In this book, however, noted Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars focus on Hagar, Sarah, and their children, from Ishmael and Isaac to their many descendents through the centuries.

Moving from ancient and medieval sources to contemporary appropriations of the Sarah and Hagar story, the authors begin with an overview of the three religions—from their scriptural beginnings to their contemporary questions. They then explore how the story was developed after its canonization, in rabbinic interpretations, in the stories of Islam, and in the teachings of the early church fathers. They also present contemporary womanist and feminist perspectives. Timely, relevant, and provocative, this book provides an entree into interreligious discussion and understanding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664229825
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	03/02/2006
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Phyllis Trible is Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The author of influential works such as God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality and Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Trible specializes in literary and rhetorical analysis of biblical texts from a feminist perspective.

Letty M. Russell was one of the world's foremost feminist theologians and a longtime member of the faculty of Yale Divinity School. She died on July 12, 2007, at age 77. She was one of the first women ordained in the United Presbyterian Church and served as pastor of the Presbyterian Church of the Ascension in East Harlem for ten years. She joined the faculty of Yale Divinity School in 1974 and retired in 2001. She wrote and edited numerous books, including Church in the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church, Dictionary of Feminist Theologies (with J. Shannon Clarkson),and Inheriting Our Mothers' Gardens: Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective (with Kwok Pui Lan, Ada Maria Isasi Dias, and Katie Cannon).