Religions of a Single God; A Critical Introduction to Monotheisms from Judaism to Baha'i; Zeba Crook

Zeba A. Crook [+–]

Carleton University

Zeba A. Crook is Professor of Religious Studies at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. He is a specialist in early Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture, but was drawn to the study of religion more broadly, and the study of these three religions in particular by teaching it. That his course on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam at Carleton University has attracted an average of six hundred students per year since he arrived there in 2003 shows the enduring interest in this material among young adults.

Religions of a Single God is like no other introductory textbook on the Western monotheistic religions. As expected, it teaches both the basics of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, presenting the trajectories of their development over time, their main theological debates and claims, sacred writings, and their common practices and holy days. But rather than claiming to show the “essence” of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, Religions of a Single God shows the diversity within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic experience, theological dispute, and practice. Rather than relying solely on the traditional theorists of religion, this book also introduces the approaches of contemporary critical thinkers to questions of defining, classifying, and studying religion. Rather than presenting Mormonism and the Baha’i Religion as “New Religious Movements”, this book treats them as part of the continuing history of religion, growing out of and within Christianity and Islam respectively. Religion, in other words, is not a thing of the past. It’s happening right now, all around us.

Preliminaries

List of Figures [+–] vi-x

Religions of a Single God is like no other introductory textbook on the Western monotheistic religions. As expected, it teaches both the basics of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, presenting the trajectories of their development over time, their main theological debates and claims, sacred writings, and their common practices and holy days. But rather than claiming to show the “essence” of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, Religions of a Single God shows the diversity within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic experience, theological dispute, and practice. Rather than relying solely on the traditional theorists of religion, this book also introduces the approaches of contemporary critical thinkers to questions of defining, classifying, and studying religion. Rather than presenting Mormonism and the Baha’i Religion as “New Religious Movements”, this book treats them as part of the continuing history of religion, growing out of and within Christianity and Islam respectively. Religion, in other words, is not a thing of the past. It’s happening right now, all around us.

List of Text Boxes [+–] xi-xii

Sources and Acknowledgments [+–] xiii-xvi

Chapter 1

Towards a General Theory of Religion [+–] 1-22

This chapter surveys a portion of the history of studying religion, and introduces some of the complex issues that scholars of religion wrestle with. Scholars of religion disagree on so many things, substantial and seemingly insubstantial, but the one feature that permeates all of their work despite those differences is that the study of religion differs from being religious. It is not that they are incompatible. They’re just different.

Part One: Histories

Part One Introduction [+–] 23-26

This introduction to Part One explains the decision in this textbook to begin the history of Judaism with the return from exile (and not with Adam and Eve as is commonly done), the history of Christianity with Constantine (and not with Jesus as is commonly done), and the history of Islam in Medina (and not with the birth of Muhammad as is commonly done).

Chapter 2: History of Judaism [+–] 27-55

That no religion has an essence is a feature of contemporary theory of religion. To say that we cannot speak of Judaism in the past until monotheism has been developed is not to say that monotheism is the essence of Judaism. But it is suggest that monotheism is the most innovative theological development before the common era, and that until its development, the religion of Israel is one among many competing national religions devoted to a national god. It is monotheism that sets them apart from the religions around them, and that allows us to suggest a shift from “Israelite Religion” to Judaism. The development of monotheism occurs as a response to the Babylonian exile, and so we begin there. The rest of the history of Judaism is one of interaction and interchange with non-Jews, minorities always living among Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Egyptians, Byzantine Christians, Muslims, and then European Christians. This is a history of diaspora and eventually nationhood.

Chapter 3: History of Christianity [+–] 57-86

Christianity has been the largest religion in the world for over 1500 years, currently accounting for 31.5% of the global population, or 2.2 billion people, compared with 1.6 billion Muslims, and 14 million Jews. This chapter attempts to explain how a movement of fourth century Christ-followers scattered around the Mediterranean went on to become the largest of all religions in the world. First, we must establish how these groups of Christ-followers become Christianity, and from there we can discuss how the twists and turns of history, politics, geography, and piety combined to establish the wealth, power, unprecedented and unpredictable global presence of Christianity.

Chapter 4: History of Islam [+–] 87-118

Islamic history begins, arguably, in Medina with the establishment of a religio-political charter and a discrete community. From there, we can trace the expansion and spread of the movement to form, eventually, the Islamicate. But establishing an empire and leading an empire are different enterprises, so much of this chapter focuses on the challenges Muslims faced when it came to leadership. The history of the Islamicate reveals little agreement concerning the nature and qualifications for leadership. Although some Arab features will likely always remain in Islam because of its Arab origins, we will see that Islamic history (and in a later chapter, Islamic culture) have been shaped even more profoundly by Persians, Berbers, and Turks, but also by interactions with Jews, Christians, and Hindus.

Part Two: Orthodoxies

Part Two Introduction [+–] 119-122

Orthodoxy refers to “correct belief,” and it is a common claim of religious communities to represent the one true way of believing. This introduction to Part Two considers the challenges of generalizing about beliefs across three religions with such diversity, and at the way in which even the theological notion of monotheism is contested between and within each religion.

Chapter 5: Jewish Theology and Theological Writings [+–] 123-142

Jewish mythological and theological narratives of their origins reveal the view that God was active in the world, creating it, teaching it, punishing it, choosing a people to be uniquely loyal to him and serve as beacons in the world, and promising to stand by them. These foundation narratives tell us about the Jewish view of God. Jewish theology has a long and rich tradition, but this short chapter can offer just a few of the central components of Jewish theology: monotheism, covenant and election, sin and repentance, messiah, Kabbalah, and afterlife. From there we turn to a survey of the writings that are central of the construction of Jewish religious life: Torah and Talmud.

Chapter 6: Christian Theology and Theological Writings [+–] 143-165

In this chapter you will learn the theological narrative of the origins of Christianity, which can be found in the New Testament stories of Jesus Christ and Paul of Tarsus. These narratives are a central element of Christian theology, as are several key elements of Christian theology, such as the trinity, justification, resurrection, salvation (life after death), and mysticism, and eschatology. We shall also explain the content of the New Testament.

Chapter 7: Islamic Theology and Theological Writings [+–] 167-188

This chapter introduces the theological narrative of the origins of Islam and Islamic beliefs about the life and figure of Muhammad, as well as the core positions that inform much of Islamic theology, the six pillars of faith. Next, we learn about Islamic mysticism, called Sufism, and the productive, though controversial, encounter between Greek philosophy and Islam. In the second part of the chapter, we shall look at the foundational texts that provide the basis of almost all of Islamic theology: the Qur’an, the incarnate word of God for Muslims; the Hadiths, the sayings, stories, and example of a prophet believed to be incapable of error in his knowledge of God’s will; and tafsir, or commentaries on the Qur’an. Muslims rarely agree on how to interpret these various texts, but they all agree that these are the key sources for their competing theologies.

Part Three: Orthopraxies

Part Three Introduction [+–] 189-192

Orthopraxy refers to “correct action.” This introduction to Part Three looks at the question of religious practice, especially as it relates to the common assumption that Christianity is not a religion of practice, and to the construction of religious time and calendars.

Chapter 8: Jewish Practice and Holy Days [+–] 193-216

Discussing thousands of years of Jewish practices would be impossible in so short a survey, so this chapter focuses on modern Jewish practices, though some of the practices do go back thousands of years. Understanding religious practice is important because much can be expressed in practice, such as one’s understanding of God and one’s relationship with competing groups, whether inside or outside of the religion, whether majority or minority. In addition, practice is one of the key ways that communal identity is expressed. This chapter summarizes some common Jewish practices and the widely observed Holy Days. Finally, to speak of practice is also to speak of Jewish culture, Jewish homes, and Jewish life.

Chapter 9: Christian Practice and Holy Days [+–] 217-240

This chapter will describe a variety of Christian practices, particularly liturgical practices involved with church worship. It will also examine the key Christian holy days and periods, as well consider Christian culture displayed in art, music, and architecture. The chapter will close with a glance at the numbers and denominations of Christians around the world.

Chapter 10: Islamic Practice and Holy Days [+–] 241-266

Islam is a religion with legal codes that govern the shape of daily life, from religious services to dress and diet. This chapter will illustrate just some the vast diversity of Islamic legal interpretation. We shall look at the development and characteristics of Shariah as it pertains to daily life, the legal schools, and the five pillars of action. We will also look at topics such as diet, modesty, and the pressures of assimilation. This chapter also describes the main Islamic holy days and religious and practices associated with them. It closes by looking at various features of art and culture in the Islamicate, and the global demographics of Muslims.

Part Four: The Continuing History of Religions

Part Four Introduction [+–] 267-268

It is common for LDS and Baha’i religion to be treated as New Religious Movements in a final chapter with other global New Religious movements. This introduction to Part Four explains why in this book, these two religions are treated much more seriously, and what we learn about the birth and spread of religion by doing so.

Chapter 11: Latter-Day Saints and Baha’i Religion [+–] 269-291

In this chapter we survey the histories of the founding and development of the LDS Church and Baha’i religion, as well as the theological innovations, collections of sacred writings, and distinct practices that most commonly characterize each group.

End Matter

Bibliography [+–] 292-295

Index [+–] 296-303

Reviews

Crook provides a theoretically sophisticated and pedagogically useful introduction to monotheistic religions. These are but two of the many features that will distinguish this book from the competition.
Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester

It’s a challenge to integrate theoretical advances in any field with introductory-level teaching, with some concluding that it just can’t be done. Religions of a Single God nicely proves them wrong; for it takes the common descriptive information of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and rethinks it in light of work now being done by scholars at some of the field’s most interesting cutting edges. From the distinction between insiders and outsiders and the importance of avoiding anachronism when writing history to the need to see the people that we study as anything but uniform or locked in amber—such that there are differences and disagreements, with new groups always forming from the old—Zeba Crook offers readers a survey that satisfies their interest in the descriptive details while getting them thinking far more critically about how scholars go about their work.
Russell T. McCutcheon, University Research Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, University of Alabama

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Religions of a Single God

A Critical Introduction to Monotheisms from Judaism to Baha'i

Zeba A. Crook [+–]

Carleton University

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