Abrahamic Vernaculars: Rivals Thinking Together Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Lecture

Contemporary media often emphasizes the competitive nature of the Abrahamic monotheisms. This is not entirely unjustified. Relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims have certainly included their share of religious wars, theological polemic, and oppression. Yet there is also another side to the Abrahamic coin. Even in the midst of communal rivalry, Jewish, Christian and Muslim practitioners have often turned to each other to think through religious concepts, elucidate a shared sense of sacred history, and enrich their ritual practices. From the development of shared ritual practices surrounding childbirth to ecumenical medieval study groups, this talk explores historical moments when Jews, Christians, and Muslim have done their religious thinking together.
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From Dr. Wollenberg: I teach biblical reception history, or the history of Jewish biblical interpretation. My research explores the diverse ways in which historical Jewish communities have imagined the Hebrew Bible as a revelation and the varied modes in which they have engaged with the biblical tradition in practice. While centering rabbinic Jewish communities, my research frequently looks at loci of intersection between rabbinic Jewish thinkers and neighboring communities, from early Christian lay practitioners, to late antique readers of Homer, and the medieval Muslim scholars who foreshadowed scholarly biblical criticism.