Texas launch for Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran, Sept. 12-13 (Mark Toulouse, Whit Bodman, Lynn Hendricks, Ralph Mecklenberger) Programs in Austin, Dallas and Ft. Worth are sufficiently varied that interfaith advocates may profitably attend one, two or all three. Activities begin on Wednesday at 7:30 pm in the Austin Presbyterian Seminary, featuring a public inclusive symposium with a “National Geographic” level of engagement and ambiance. In Dallas on Thursday a public, media and press conference is set for Thanksgiving Square at 10:00 am., a prelude to the main academic launch event in Ft. Worth at 3:00 pm in the new Harrison Building at Brite Divinity School for Brite, Perkins Seminary, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian and Texas Universities. Beginning with a reception, the afternoon includes a panel moderated by Principal Mark Toulouse of Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, with Ft. Worth Rabbi Ralph Mecklenberger, Brite Professor Shelly Matthews, and Austin’s Professor Whitney Bodman (recent author of Poetics of Iblis), introducing Book I – The Torah, Book II – The Gospel, and Book III – The Quran. Brian Arthur Brown reads from the book on the relationship between Hebrew and Zoroastrian monotheism, verses from The Muslim Jesus, and prayers of Zoroaster as possibly confirmed in the Quran, concluding with book sales & signings.

Next month we’ll also include details of the back cover endorsement blurbs and something about the media response so far in each city as word spreads about “The Scriptures of Abraham’s family being published together for the first time.”

A Beit Midrash on the occasion of publication of the scriptures

of the family of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar together for the first time.

To keep pace with our plans, and for host committees in each city to inspire each other, we move on this month to a preview of events in Washington, though there too planning is still underway. 

Book Launch for Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran in Washington

The launch event itself is at the Canadian Embassy at 3:00 pm on September 11. Ambassador Doer will greet diplomats, academics, politicians, clergy and “believers” from various congregations as they arrive for this launch on the eleventh anniversary of a terrible day in American history. The tenth anniversary was perhaps cathartic, but events like these are meant to be more positive, in support of Jews, Christians and Muslims moving into a new era together.

After social mingling and refreshments for possibly 200 expected guests, we will be called to order with a few words of welcome from the Canadian ambassador. Jenny Brown, wife of the contributing editor, ceremonially unveils a pile of books for presentation to representatives of the diplomatic community, political leaders, Georgetown University, the Rumi Forum, the Shalom Center, Catholic and Presbyterian church leaders, and representatives of other agencies.

Following a press conference for Sojourners Magazine, Interfaith Radio and various public and religious media, Brian Brown will present brief readings from the book, (Toynbee on Jeremiah Among Northern Exiles, verses from The Muslim Jesus and the paraphrased Prayers of Zoroaster).  In a panel style presentation, Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars will address three sections of the book (Book I – Torah, Book II – Gospel, and Book III – Quran). Those scholars are likely to be Rabbi Arthur Waskow (of the Shalom Center), Dr. David Bruce (the Canadian Catholic writer of the Introduction to the Gospel), and Professor Amir Hussain (editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion). The moderator will be Dr. Chester Gillis, Dean of Georgetown College. We plan to adjourn at 5:00 pm.

While in Washington, the writers on the tour expect to be engaged in multiple programs around the capital city, but mainly at Georgetown University’s sprawling Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, the Department of Theology at Georgetown College and potentially the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. From Washington, this travelling circus moves on to Dallas – Ft. Worth, with a side trip to Austin Seminary, for events to be described next month.

The first city on the Three Testaments launch tour will be New York, Sept. 5-9, 2012, with our launch as a prelude to the city’s own civic event on September 11. The theme of our event is The Eleventh Anniversary of 9/11: Jews, Christians and Muslims Entering a New Era Together, coordinated by Frank Fredericks of Worldfaith. This blog is intended to whet the appetites of New Yorkers and to stimulate the thinking of those planning the launch tour events which follow in Washington, Dallas, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and Toronto.

I arrive in New York on Wednesday, September 5 to preach at the Riverside Church mid-week service that evening. An Academic Launch at Auburn Seminary is scheduled for Thursday with between 100 and 200 scholars and students with Justice Baird. On Friday morning I am in meetings at church and interfaith offices convened by Lucinda Mosher, with the afternoon reserved for mosque prayers and discussions in lower Manhattan with Hussein Rashid. Saturday morning I preach at a synagogue in that area, followed by an event yet to be announced. I share Sunday morning with Rev. Donna Schaper at Judson Memorial Church in Wellington Square.

The main event in New York is at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, across from Ground Zero on that Sunday afternoon, September 9 at 4:00 pm. It is both a “launch event” and press conference, which may become something akin to a “rally” for perhaps several hundred people. The media is keen for the footage for the Monday news as a run-up to the 9/11 civic event at Ground Zero on Tuesday morning, so we are expecting New York City press and National TV news coverage. They will join a dozen religious magazines and various blogs that have already signed on for an event featuring leading spokespersons from the three faith traditions as well as certain high profile media personas … more to be announced about that in coming days.

Welcome to the Virtual Launch of Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran by
Brian Arthur Brown, from Rowman & Littlefield in print May 2012, with a
foreword by Amir Hussain, editor of the Journal
of the American Academy of Religion, and contributions by distinguished scholars.

You are now attending the opening
of a nine segment “Virtual Launch” party with almost 1000 other guests. You received your invitation in one of
three ways:

(a.) 
You were in an online community for the past 30
months, monitoring Three Testaments

(b.)
 You were
chosen by one of those monitor / collaborators engaged in this project, or

(c.) 
 You are a
personal friend or relative of one of the ten contributing writers of this
book.

Over the nine month gestation from
January to September 2012, you will be privileged to preview media events,
anticipate press conferences, help plan academic seminars, and join the Actual
Launch celebrations if you are close to one of seven cities below where we will
recognize

The Eleventh Anniversary of 9/11:
Muslims, Christians and Jews Entering a New Era

The Actual Launch tour of these seven cities in September 2012 will
take place just as reviews appear in print media, university classes start, and
the book market preps for Christmas sales. The tour is sponsored by the Winberg
Foundation of Toronto in cooperation with local organizers in each city.
Scholarly contributors to the book will play key roles in each event, with
Brian Arthur Brown in attendance in each case, along with online collaborators
from those seven cities. In each city there will be media appearances and
visits to university faculty and student lounges, as well as preeminent
churches, synagogues and mosques, supporting the main launch theme with a press
conference and a media event / symposium of 90 minutes in a public venue,
featuring remarks by politicians, media personas, religious leaders and
scholars. 

This Virtual Launch will continue online next month, previewing the
Actual Launch activities beginning with New York, introducing the expected
guests and announcing the rather exciting details. Then city by city, month by
month until September, we only take a break in May to make advance review
copies of the book available to everybody at this Virtual Launch.

We are glad you are
here. Stick around … the party is just starting!

I will soon have finished two and a half years of this blog since our shared event in New York in May of 2009. Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran is moving into the production phase. In about six months there will be a “virtual launch” online, followed next September by a seven city launch tour beginning at Ground Zero in New York, the Canadian Embassy in Washington, and on to Dallas, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and Toronto.

In the meantime I plan to move to a more professional blog style, with a little help from friends, and I ask you to send me the names of any of your friends and colleagues who might like to join us for the last lap of this marathon. There are about 270 scholars and students getting this now (plus a few of my own friends and family). Your colleagues, friends and family would be elegible to receive a free copy of the book (a $40. value, just for paying the postage) from the publisher to help us get it out there. Just send me their names and email addresses to my email address (reply to the Blog Alert), with their permission.

A few of you joined us near the beginning, not by being with us in New York but at the recommendation of a friend who was there. We would like to  expand the circle to about 500 in an online community anticipating the historic event of this book’s launch. To gain their interest, you might introduce them to the diagram in the box under “Join the Conversation” on my website (called The Revelations of Allah in the Holy Quran). You saw it earlier in a blog, and to me it looks technical, but it has generated a lot of interest. We can promise that most of the book will be a “good read,” in addition to the historic aspect of publishing these three scriptures together for the first time.

Later in November you will receive a blog entry by clicking directly on your email screen, but in the meanwhile you are welcome to invite others to the lead up to, and virtual launch of, what one Rabbi has called “possibly the most important book of the twenty first century so far.” We’ll announce all the endorsers and launch tour activities in the coming blog entries, once your friends are on board. They may be scholars, students or just sharp minds who may see the value in what we are doing.

Shalom, Peace, Salam

Brian

For many people the 10^th Anniversary of 9/11 this month was a helpful catharsis for grief and fear, anger and anguish, all still very real in 2011. In ten years since the traumatic events on that date there have been three responses, two reactive and one proactive. The first two, heightened security and military action, have been well documented. The book Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran is part of a third element, the positive spiritual response in communities all over North America and the world, against a negativity that threatened to drown the American dream, and many other dreams with it. On the security front, there have been affirmations and questions, but acts of terrorism have been faced and managed. On the military front, again some questions, but Saddam Hussain and Osama bin Laden are dead, Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak have been overthrown, and other developments continue to unfold. With less fanfare, religious leaders and scholars have been at work on the spiritual front in the quest for understanding. Our book, to be published in the spring and launched in New York and Washington on the eleventh anniversary of September 11 in 2012, is an indication of how far we have come in the positive direction. Jews, Christians and Muslims are learning to appreciate each other’s Scriptures at least, and Islam is becoming increasingly integrated into the life of communities in North America and elsewhere. When the Quran is published in the same volume as the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, we will have come a long way since the earlier impetus to burn the Quran. With a long way to go still, we ask, “Are we really ready to move on, even yet?”

Without making too much of it, nor indeed too little, this diagram represents a respectful and graphic understanding of the Quran at the present stage of interfaith investigation, illustrating the principle that clusters of material in the Quran can be identified as relating to God’s previous revelations to Zoroaster, shown in white. Those white portions, previously revealed to Zoroaster and recorded in the Avesta, were not “copied” into the Quran, any more than were the Hebrew Torah or Christian Gospel portions, identified in the diagram as striped and gray respectively. Such material was revealed afresh to Muhammad, though just as some verses of Hebrew and Christian Scriptures appear almost verbatim from the Bible record, the opening and closing of the Quran, Chapter 1 and Chapters 113 and 114, may have an almost literal affinity with the Avesta – a matter for Muslim scholars to adjudicate. In a more general sense, anything in the Quran that is related to Judgment Day, for example, should be correlated to earlier Zoroastrian revelations, just as references to the law given to Moses are correlated to the Hebrew revelations and allusions to Jesus as the messiah are correlated to the Christian connection. Confirmations of Hanif monotheistic oral traditions, and condemnations of Arabian idolatry, superstition and pagan practices are as obvious as the revelations rejecting Babylonian polytheism.

In this diagram the sections of the Quran corresponding to previous revelations, confirmed or corrected, and false religions, condemned and rejected, are given names for purposes of classroom or book club discussion. Limited to black, white and gray colors in this printed text, passages related to the Zoroastrian Avesta are shown in white, or “sunshine.” Those echoing the Hebrew Torah are shown in a striped design we call “prayershawl,” and those corresponding to Christian Gospel material are shown in the gray “cloud-of-presence,” recalling Jesus’ baptism, transfiguration and ascension, as well as the pillar of cloud in the desert. Babylonian polytheism is shown here in slanting stripes we call “pathways astray,” while the monotheism of the desert Hanifs is pictured as “arabesque tapestry.” Arabian idolatry, paganism and superstitions are shown in a design we call “sandstorm,” and the asides unique to the Quran, parenthetical explanations, and applications of the eternal words of God to the particular situation of Arabia in the time of Muhammad are shown here in the black of “Night Journey.”

In diagrammatic scale, chapters of less than 100 verses are shown in units or bars 4 millimeters deep (like Chapter I). Those between 100 and 200 verses occupy bars 8 millimeters deep (Chapter 6), and those up to 300 verses are shown in bars of 12 millimeters in depth (Chapter7). The size of the colored blocks are equal to the proportion of that chapter that confirms or critiques specific previous revelations. For example, the box showing Chapter Six illustrates that about 48% of its contents may reflect the previous Avesta revelation in two white blocks, some 40% appears to be related to previous Hanif oral traditions of revelation as shown in “tapestry,” 10% of this chapter reflects revelations given previously to Jews and 2% is unique to the Quran.

Theological chapters revealed in Mecca represent approximately two thirds of the Quran, while the application of God’s instruction in Medina is represented in the remaining third. Shown in white, the most obvious feature of the diagram is the preponderance of material reflecting what was revealed in the Avesta Scriptures of Zoroastrianism, far surpassing even the Jewish and especially the Christian Scriptural echoes. This should not be a surprise, given the predominance of Zoroastrian influence of Arabia’s largest, nearest and most significant neighbors, traditionally identified by the name of its closest exemplar, the Sabaean religion. The title, The Diagram of Previous Revelations from God Confirmed in the Quran makes a point that Muslims already understand, but that Jews and Christians need to appreciate, namely, that confirmation of previous revelations is by far the dominant motif of the Quran, though critique, putative correction, and even condemnation are all important elements.

The foreword is yet to be completed by a person who can express the essence of the book, and it should be someone with a high enough profile to help sell it. I have had a lot of good advice on this and suggestions that we might invite Hans Küng, the Aga Khan, Harold Kushner, David Frost or Rowan Williams. Any of them might have been willing and each of them would have been appropriate, but the choice has fallen on Amir Hussain, the Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

As perhaps the leading interfaith commentator in America at least, Amir is a Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, who describes himself as “a Muslim Canadian teaching in an American Catholic university.” I have seen the first draft of his piece and it is both insightful and succinct. Because we have a couple dozen new readers of this blog during the countdown to publication, the first half of Professor Hussain’s foreword might make a good introduction to the work for them, and I know that others of you will enjoy it too. The rest will follow in due course.

Foreword by Amir Hussain

The book that you hold in your hands is revolutionary. It presents together the texts of the Torah, Gospels, and Qur’an, inviting the reader to examine the interdependence of the Scriptures that are central to Jews, Christians and Muslims. That shared presentation in and of itself gives Three Testaments its name and makes it extraordinary. What makes it revolutionary are the connections that Brian Arthur Brown and the other contributors to this volume make between these three great traditions.

In speaking about itself as it often does, the Qur’an says (3:7) that those whose knowledge is sound will say that: “We have faith that what is in it is all from God. But only those who have wisdom understand”. This book provides both the wisdom and the understanding.

To show the deep connections in our religious history, my mentor, Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith began one of his books, Towards a World Theology, with the story of Leo Tolstoy, his Confession from 1879, published in 1884. How many of you are familiar with Tolstoy and the story of his “conversion” from a worldly life to a life of ascetic service? The story that converted him was the story of Barlaam (the hermit) and Josaphat (the Indian prince). In the story, the Indian prince Josaphat is converted from a life worldly power to the search for moral and spiritual truths by Barlaam, a Sinai desert monk. Tolstoy learned the story from the Russian Orthodox Church. However, it was not a Russian story, as the Russian Church got it from the Byzantine Church. But it was not a Byzantine story, either, as it came to the Byzantine Church from the Muslims. But the story did not originate with Muslims, as Muslims in Central Asia learned it from Manichees. And in the end, finally, it was not a Manichean story, as the Manichees got it from Buddhists. The tale of Barlaam and Josaphat is in fact a story of the Buddha. Bodhisattva becomes “Bodasaf” in Manichee, “Josaphat” in later tellings of the tale.

However, Wilfred’s genius was not in simply pointing to the history of this story, but to how it moved forward in time. Those who know Tolstoy know that he was an influence on a young Indian lawyer, Mahatma Gandhi, who founded Tolstoy farm in South Africa in 1910. And those that know Gandhi know that the story does not end with him. Gandhi was an influence on a young African American minister, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The story shows that we are connected to each other, both forwards and backwards in time.

We see that connection when we study our scriptures. Our best scholarly evidence tells us that the Torah was written in its final form during the Babylonian Exile. We know how the Zoroastrian tradition, present in Babylon during the exile, influenced the Bible. In this book, Brian Brown credibly re-establishes the traditional understanding that Jewish monotheism predates that of Zoroaster, despite popular and esoteric predilections placing him thousands of years earlier. Moses or one of the neighbouring Hebrew prophets may even have been a source of inspiration for Zoroaster, whose dates we now believe to be early seventh century BCE, though, at a later time, Zoroastrians helped the Jews in their midst to recognize God himself as the only “Redeemer” of Israel. Brown then shows how possible exposure to Zoroastrianism may have been a revelation to Jesus about his messianic destiny, not only to restore the Davidic kingdom, according to his spiritual understanding of it, but also to be the “Savior” of the whole world. Finally, Brian Brown presents the Qur’an’s self-understanding as confirming both the Jewish monotheistic heritage and the messiahship of Jesus. He shows the Quran to confirm Scriptures in addition to those of the Hebrew and Christian communities, (notably Zoroastrian), by employing a traditional Islamic perspective that may be a welcome affirmation for Muslims and helpfully insightful for Jews and Christians in particular.

Ellen Frankel and Marc Brettler present their portrayals of the resolute dedication of Jews to their covenant relationship with God and with each other, as well as certain inconsistencies in the various expressions of that heritage since at least the time of Moses. Henry Carrigan and David Bruce describe the devotional aspect of the stories of Jesus in Christian tradition and the intricacies associated with the texts of the Christian Scriptures. Laleh Bakhtiar and Nevin Reda bring the cutting edges of both classical and progressive Islamic scholarship to bear on challenges associated with presenting the Quran in the context of twenty first century investigations.

(To be continued)

Jenny and I spent most of last week in Washington where we did tourist things and talked with the Canadian Ambassador about the Embassy hosting a book launch in Washington for politicians, diplomats and national religious leaders. Most importantly I signed the contracts and spent some “quality time” with Sarah Stanton, editor at Roman and Littlefield, plus three other key people in production, special sales and marketing, Jin Yu, Lynsey Weston and Kim Lyons.

Three Testaments will be well produced in a 7 x 10 inch format, to allow the Scriptures to fit into two columns, each of the three on a little over 100 oversized pages. The whole compendium, at that size, may require something a little over 600 pages, half Scripture and half commentary. It will be a hefty and handsome volume in a hardcover, at an affordable price – probably a free copy for you.

Last month I had a few inquiries about Rowman & Littlefield, so here is an over-simplified list of their imprints and areas of publication:

AltaMira – Humanities and the Arts

Bridge Works – Literary Fiction

Cooper Square – Performing Arts

Cowley – Episcopal Publications

Derrydale - Sports

Government Institutes - Law and Regulation

Ivan R. Dee - Popular Culture

Jason Aronson - Psychotherapy

Lexington - Business

M. Evans – Cooking

Madison - Film and other Media

SR Books – Scholarly Research

R&L Press – Special Interest Bestsellers

R&L Education - Textbooks and Teaching

Robert Rinehart - American West

Scarecrow – Reference and General Interest

Sheed & Ward Roman Catholic Publications

Taylor - Health

Univ. Press of America - Several university presses operate under the aegis of R&L

Richard Fruend’s popular Digging through the Bible (archaeology) and Islam on the Street (popular Muslim culture) by Muhsin al-Musawi are among their best known Jewish and Muslim books of late. Rowman & Littlefield is the publisher of The Inclusive Bible, the most successful of several recent inclusive translations. It is the preferred text of Lauren Mayfield, worship coordinator at The Riverside Church in New York, and sets a new standard in inclusiveness with a profound rationale of that agenda.

With Sheed & Ward in particular, the following giants in the field of religion have been published by Rowman & Littlefield: G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Day, Hans Küng, Clare Boothe Luce, Jacques Maritain, Francois Mauriac, and Edward Schillebeeckx. In recent years, Rowan Williams, Daniel Berrigan, Joan Chittister and Andrew Greeley are among their best known Christian authors.

Rowman & Littlefield is also the publishing partner for the Smithsonian Institution and several other agencies. We are privileged to have R&L Press, the flagship of the group,
as our publisher.

1. My old Wipf & Stock, since they are one of the more creative publishers of serious theology.

2. Georgetown University Press, a Catholic university press connected with a community not sufficiently included in our plans at that point, and a press well established in the interfaith field.

3. Roman and Littlefield, a commercial trade publisher that also has both academic and religious credentials (they co-publish with the Smithsonian Institution and they operate the noteworthy Episcopal and Catholic imprints, Cowley and Sheed & Ward).

Roman & Littlefield also owns the National Book Network, the second largest independent book distributor in America, so when they said “get back to us when the project is further along,” they went to the top of our list for future reference. Wipf & Stock said they would be pleased to publish but thought the book deserved mass market exposure. (That would be impossible at their proposed selling price of $49.95, but we kept them in mind as well.) Georgetown did not reply, but I went back to them later when Henry Carrigan furnished a personal contact. Like a few other university presses we talked to, Georgetown decided it was too big a project for them to attempt.

Then I had correspondence with a British publisher who wanted to know if we had ninety thousand pounds to invest, and a Canadian publisher who could not imagine anyone who could do this complex book in the present perfect storm of publishing, i.e. the recession, combined with the war between print and electronic books, plus competition between bookstores and online sales. I shopped a few religious denominational publishers, but they are too small. We tried some of Henry’s friends at Harper and Doubleday. They called the concept “compelling,” but their books are now all of the cookie-cutter variety, for economic reasons, whereas we want the Scriptural portions in two columns, plus calligraphy, Arabic, Greek and Hebrew scripts, complications with nine writers and three Scriptural copyright holders. This project also faced a measure of Islamophobia, or of fear of backlash relating to the publication of the Quran as part of “a new Bible,” as some saw it.

Kazi Islamic Publishing might have formed a partnership with The Jewish Publication Society if we had found them an adequate Christian partner. Mellon offered to publish a library edition, selling at $100. per copy. Several publishers offered to publish in three separate books over time, but this would defeat the vision. Wipf & Stock was still ready to go and there were other positive possibilities, but Rowman & Littlefield was still our first choice. I went back to them this winter when the text had taken shape, hoping for at least an offer from one of their subsidiaries. Ideally this might be Sheed & Ward, now claiming to be the largest religious publisher in the world, or perhaps AltaMira, Lexington, Scarecrow or one of the university presses they manage, all of whom have access to the National Book Network, as does the Smithsonian Institution. 

Sarah Stanton, the Rowman & Littlefield acquisitions editor, replied that R&L, their flagship trade imprint, was itself increasingly interested. They sent out the text to a spectrum of independent readers who responded with enthusiasm. They offered a good publishing agreement which I have accepted, after some improvements.  To generate reviews and awards, and to sell to libraries and other specific targets, R&L decided to make Three Testaments available in hardcover first, in the spring of 2012 @ $36.98, followed by the paperback in 2013 @ $29.98, at which point I will quit my day job and hit the lecture circuit. We hope to have a free copy of the hardcover for each of you, and this online community will have certain privileges in a virtual launch early in 2012. This is a mammoth undertaking and we will want your involvement and support, but we are in good hands with the publisher we preferred from the beginning.

Special thanks to Henry Carrigan for contacts, wisdom and patience with my almost impossible demands and unreasonable expectations, and to David Bruce who took the responses, positive and negative, and made some modifications and adjustments so that most of the glitches and any disjointedness was gone by the time R&L saw the final product. Ellen Frankel, Laleh Bakhtiar, and Amir Hussain also contributed guidance leading up to the publishing decision. Thank you all for your continuing interest; we are now entering the home stretch of this odyssey.