Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an as Literature and Culture

Sacred Tropes interweaves Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an essays which collectively and individually enlist literary approaches including environmental, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalytic, ideological, economic, historicism, law, and rhetorical criticisms. Sacred Tropes represents a pioneering, comparatist approach to Abrahamic studies.

“This is not a volume that requires a sequential reading from start to finish. It is a multi-course feast, one that can be read piecemeal and will be consulted for years to come.” Harvey Cox, Harvard University in Journal of the American Oriental Society "Despite the growth in modern scholarship of interest in sacred texts and interfaith and interreligious studies, prior to this work there has been no collection of essays or otherwise that addresses the Tanak, the New Testament, and the Qur’an as works of literature and their influence on different world cultures. While this initially would seem a rather daunting endeavor, mainly due to the scope of the texts in question and the varying methods of approach to them, Sacred Tropes manages to overcome these obvious difficulties and to offer a coherent, well-edited, and structured group of essays that not only is easy to read but is of interest to scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and faith backgrounds." Maire Byrne, Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin, Ireland in Review of Biblical Literature (SBL). "Reading this volume is like eating at an extravagant banquet where foods from three related yet distinct cultures are being served. Food items are not separated by cultures but by culinary themes. It is clear that each dish is from its own culture; there are no fusion dishes here. Similarities and differences between these culinary traditions must be made by the guest. No one will complain about the amount and diversity of food. Each reader will find their new favorite dishes. All will find plenty to chew on and leave this banquet well fed." Uriah Y. Kim, Hartford Seminary, in Muslim World. “Clearly, one volume cannot be taken as representational of the scope of three academic fields, but this collection does give a snapshot of a wide variety of approaches. Despite the eclecticism of the collection and the range of approaches, it encompasses, what do come through are correspondences between scholastic attitudes and interests and the problematics of dealing with any scripture in terms of literary culture. Above and beyond this, it is refreshing to be presented with a collection of articles that is so unreservedly devoted to diversity in the process of interpretation itself. The volume is well thought out and generally well presented, and the footnotes are a goldmine for directions for further reading.” Helen Blautherwick, School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London, in Journal of Qur'anic Studies.

Roberta Sabbath, Ph.D. (1994) Comparative Literature, University of California, Riverside, teaches in the English Department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She focuses on Tanakh-inspired literary traditions, including her monograph-in-progress, Re-Membering the Body: Figurative Readings of the Jewish Sense of Wonder.