The Voice, the Word, the Books: The Sacred Scripture of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims - Hardcover

Peters, Francis Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691131120 ISBN 13: 9780691131122

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2007

Synopsis

Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe that their Scriptures preserve God's words to humanity, and that those words were spoken uniquely to them. In The Voice, the Word, the Books, F. E. Peters leads readers on an extraordinary journey through centuries of written tradition to uncover the human fingerprints on the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran, sacred texts that have enriched millions of lives.

Bringing the latest Biblical and Quranic scholarship to a general audience, Peters explains how these three powerfully influential books passed from God's mouth, so to speak, to become the Scriptures that we possess today. He reveals new insights into their origins, contents, canonization, and the important roles they have played in the lives of their communities. He explores how they evolved through time from oral to written texts, who composed them and who wrote them, as well as the theological commonalities and points of disagreement among their adherents. Writing in the comparative style for which he is renowned, Peters charts the transmission of faith from the spoken word to the printed page, from the revelations on Sinai and Mount Hira to Mamluk ateliers in Cairo and Gutenberg's press in Mainz.

Peters is an acknowledged expert who has written extensively on these three great world religions, each of them an inheritor of the faith of Abraham. Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the British Library, this illustrated book includes beautiful images of the rare editions on exhibit and constitutes Peters's most ambitious and illuminating examination yet of the sacred texts that so inform civilization both East and West.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"The Voice, the Word, the Books is an important new work on the authoritative texts of the Abrahamic religious traditions. It amounts to a comparative study of the three major Western faiths by looking through a window--in this case the window of scripture. Frank Peters is preeminently qualified to write such a work."--Richard C. Martin, Emory University

"This is a thorough and rich book, the remarkable work by one of the great authorities of our time on the three Abrahamic monotheistic religions. It examines scripture--Jewish, Christian, and Muslim--from every conceivable angle. It is written in Peters's engaging prose and accessible to any intelligent reader."--Mark R. Cohen, Princeton University

About the Author

F. E. Peters is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. His books include The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam: A New Edition and the forthcoming The Creation of the Quran: The Making of Muslim Scripture (both Princeton).

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0691131120
• ISBN 13: 9780691131122
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 328