Building Bridges Seminar

Both the Bible and the Qur'an speak of prophets, messengers charged with bringing the Word of God to the world. How do Muslims and Christians understand prophecy? What do their scriptures have in common and how do they differ in describing the prophets? What are the places of Jesus and of Muhammad in their faiths, and in their view of one another's faiths? These were some of the questions addressed by the 30 Christian and Muslim scholars who met at Georgetown University in March 2004 for a three-day seminar convened by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Their focus was the intensive study of passages from the Qur'an and the Bible, reading one another's scriptures with respectful attentiveness and scholarly rigor. This book provides a record of those discussions, the papers presented during the seminar, and reflections after the event. T

download | PDF of the book (provided by Church House Publishing)

Table of Contents

• Building Bridges in Georgetown 
  

Chapter 1: What Is Dialogue? 

• Analysing Atheism: Unbelief and the World of Faiths | Rowan Williams
• Scriptures in Dialogue: Are We Reckoning without the Host? | Mustansir Mir
• Hospitable Readings: Comments on Scriptures in Dialogue | Miroslav Volt

Chapter 2: Called by God 

• Scripture Dialogue I: Ta Ha 20.1-36; Exodus 3.1-14
• Scripture Dialogue II: Acts 9.1-22; al-Muzzammil 73.1-20
• Questions from the Scriptures

Chapter 3: What Is Prophecy?

• What Is Prophecy? Reflections on a Qur'anic Institution in History | Wadad Kadi
• "My Devoted Friend": The Prophet as the Intimate of God | Ellen F. Davis

Chapter 4: Sent to Humanity 

• Scripture Dialogue III:  Hud 11.25-49; Jeremiah 26
• Scripture Dialogue IV: 1 Kings 21; al-Shu'ara' 26.123-91
• Questions from the Scriptures

Chapter 5: Jesus and Muhammad 

• Isa and Jesus: Christ in Islamic Christology | Mahmoud Ayoub
• Jesus and Muhammad: The Sufficiency of Prophecy | Daniel Madigan

Chapter 6: The Completion of Prophecy

• Scripture Dialogue V: Maryam 19.16-36; Luke 1.26-38
• Scripture Dialogue VI: Hebrews 1.1-4; al-Ahzab 33.40, al-Ma'ida 5.3
• Questions from the Scriptures

Chapter 7: Reflections from the Dialogue

• Building Bridges: A Personal Reflection from a Christian | Teresa Okure
• Bearing the Word: Prophecy and Scripture in Christian and Islamic Scriptures | Michael Ipgrave