THE NAMES OF GOD IN JUDAISM CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM pdf

The Names of God in Judaism Christianity and Islam A Basis for Interfaith Dialogue by Maire Byrne

THE NAMES OF GOD IN JUDAISM CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

Throughout most of the history of world religions, there have always been efforts among some adherents of a particular religion to understand other belief systems.

This task has been undertaken with a variety of aims; some simply out of curiosity, academic or otherwise, and some to foster a more developed and understanding relationship between two or more religions.

 This exercise has never succeeded on a very large scale, as geography and world events in history tend to steer the process away from a particularly coherent route.

 The modern process of interreligious dialogue has become an increasingly vibrant and successful endeavor, helped by the increasing interest in the growth of religious pluralism.

Despite considerable progress in the academic pursuit of interreligious dialogue, there exists still a certain degree of distrust and suspicion regarding the beliefs and practices of other religions, a clear example of this being the view of modern Islam following world events such as September 11, 2001, and the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

 Humans as a rule tend to be suspicious of things they do not understand (as in the fear of the unknown), and this lack of education and understanding is conducive to the development of false ideas concerning a religion – for example, that Muslims are predominately extremists and fundamentalists.

 Interactions and intersections between religious faiths are not usually considered an overwhelming success; one of the many reasons for this is that we do not have a common language with which to further (or in some cases begin) a dialogue.

As Leonard Swidler 3 stated, ‘We always needed dialogue as a species, but now we are aware of it. These are times like no other in human history.’

This search for dialogue and language does not of course mean a shared spoken language such as English, French, or Arabic as even within academic circles there has been little work on the language of the dialogue between faiths.

‘Language’ in this instance is the words and terminology (formal or otherwise) that are needed to explain and to learn from each other.

The language does not necessarily have to be formal or religious but in the main the terms and words