How do you regard the holy books of the two other Abrahamic religious traditions?

God of Abraham looks to bottom line

Rabbi Scott White is the spiritual leader of the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive:

I am not a literalist. I don’t posit that every word of my religious tradition’s holy books — Hebrew Scriptures — comes directly from God. Rather, I believe that the Hebrew Bible is “divinely inspired,” that those who composed it were imbued with God’s spirit. At the same time, I wholeheartedly aspire to follow God’s will as set forth by Jewish law, which finds its ultimate authority in Hebrew Scriptures.

Long ago, I made an existential choice placing myself in that milieu. That choice happens to accord with the religious tradition into which I was born, and to which both sides of my family have clung, as far back as I’ve been able to establish. Nevertheless, I freely say that, if Judaism failed to meet my spiritual needs, I’d have no qualms about looking elsewhere.

That said, I also freely accept the necessary limitations Judaism places on what a Jew believes, in this case, about what Scriptures Jews may deem holy. I can respect the fact that Christians view the New Testament and Muslims the Koran as holy — yet stop short of accepting them as such for myself.

There are two primary reasons why I take that position, the first personal, the second institutional, if you will.

First is the fact that both the New Testament and Koran contain passages which have been interpreted to depict Jews in a very negative light and deserving of persecution.

Second is that if I equate the holiness of non-Jewish Scripture with that of Hebrew Scripture, I do damage to the history and integrity of my faith tradition. Historically, it is in the Hebrew Bible and its rabbinic outgrowth alone that Jews have sought to know God and God’s will. Whereas the same process may be said to have taken place in the New Testament and the Koran, those participating in that search have not, by and large, been Jews.

Regarding the non-Jewish holy books on a different plane intrinsically needn’t preclude, however, equating the value and status of the benefit of actions by those who believe in the intrinsic holiness of those books. If the belief that the New Testament and the Koran are holy inspires Christians and Muslims respectively to deeds which advance the cause of peace, harmony, and mutual respect, then I would certainly say that the actions those works inspire are themselves holy.

We humans may have our necessary limitations on what we regard as holy, but I doubt Abraham’s God has the same. My guess is that the God of Abraham looks to the bottom line: God regards the holy books as holy to the extent that those who believe in their holiness conduct their lives in a holy manner because of them.

— Send e-mail to Rabbi Scott White at rabbi@sunflower.com.

Believe in one God worthy of worship

Moussa Elbayoumy, director of the Islamic Center of Lawrence, 1917 Naismith Drive:

The first thought that comes to mind in addressing this question is what God revealed in the Quran (Surat Al-Baqarah 2:136):

“Say (O Muslims): We believe in God and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which (all) the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.”

This is a clear statement of what every Muslim should believe and witness to. The first pillar of Islam speaks to faith which is not complete unless all its articles are adhered to; including the firm belief in God, his angels, his messengers and prophets, his revealed books (Scriptures) to them, the Day of Judgment and in God’s destiny.

Prominent among these “books” that all Muslims must believe in are the Torah and the Bible. While we may differ in the fine details of theology, Muslims do believe that the essence of God’s commandments as originally revealed to all his messengers is the same. That is why we always refer to Islam as the culmination of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition (sometimes called the Abrahamic tradition).

God’s message is to believe in the one God worthy of worship who created us, follow his commandments to guide us to the straight path that will ultimately make us better beings, and make our world a better world.

— Send e-mail to Moussa Elbayoumy at director@islamicsocietylawrence.org.