Journal of Ecumenical Studies

The emerging field of interreligious studies suggests the central role that religion and religious responses play in religious conflicts, large and small, within our religiously plural world. In the tradition of Hans Gustafson, ed., Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field (Baylor University Press, 2020); and Eboo Patel, Jennifer Howe Peace, and Noah Silverman, eds., Inter-religious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field (Beacon Press, 2018), Mikva offers her analysis of the emerging field of interreligious studies: “The field of Interreligious Studies . . . entails critical analysis of the dynamic encounters— historical and contemporary, intentional and unintentional, embodied and imagined, congenial and conflictual—of individuals and communities who orient around religion differently. It investigates the complex of personal, interpersonal, institutional, and societal implications” (p. 320).

Subtopics of various length are scrupulously presented: introduction, annotation (relevant references, analytic discussion, glossary, case summaries, and footnotes), translation (English from the original tongues), and detailed bibliography. Mikva proposes a setting marked by the collaboration of literary and sacred selections from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Atheism, Bahai, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Humanism, Ifá, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Unitarianism, Wicca, Zoroastrianism, and more, pertaining to ancient culture viewed as the “formal” religion of functionaries and the “popular” religion representing the great mass of the people. Abounding with sacred writings, contextual readings, and historical resources, the book explores the ethical, philosophical, and theological foundations of monotheistic and nonmonotheistic faiths that yield religion’s trend of individuality and support of pluralism. [End Page 605]

Mikva’s objectives are to provide critical issues that are central/pivotal in religion; to present the necessary textual and interpretive tools to read and appreciate their indispensable value in the formation of centuries-old religion’s belief, culture, and practice; to introduce the importance of exterior material in rationally comprehending a religion’s sacred ways and writings; and to combine a variety of genres to appreciate a religion’s cultural uniqueness and commonality with neighboring groups and lands—for example, biblical Israel and Ammonites, Edomites, and Moabites in Transjordan; Philistines and Phoenicians on the Mediterranean coast; Assyria, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia bordering on the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley; Egypt; and so on. Further, Mikva investigates the constituent characteristics of lived culture popularly identified as religion that yield a complex interdependence of orthodoxy and heterodoxies viewed synoptically.

Her selections reflect case studies that speak to such contemporary divine-human issues of concern as the treatment of sin, God’s justice, personal lament, making of vows, view of self and outsider within the sacred visionary tradition, and material culture. The author’s methodological approach focuses on the personalization of religious belief, theosophy, and practice. Overall, the volume critically surveys the scholarship and raises important exegetical and sociological questions relevant to the author’s enthusiasm to understand further the cultural life of religion in society from the perspective of individual and group experience and expression—in short, to reconstruct compromise and maligned views on religion to the status of legitimate positive contributors to reconstruct a vibrant moral society.

The book seeks to introduce readers to the wide range of spiritual beliefs, religious lifestyles, documents, and writings whose variety of genres are complemented by case studies that better enable us to grasp religion’s beginnings and development. Part 1, Mapping the Field (four chapters), introduces and explains features of the book, including challenges to naming religion and navigating religious differences. The methodology immerses traditional religious exegesis and eisegesis in categories of enlightened modernity formatted to be read as lively textual narrative. In the chapters on reading selected interreligious studies and explaining ethical, philosophical, and theological differences in religious pluralism, Mikva reads the text as text and emphasizes word study, elements of style, conceptual clarification, and heightened emphasis. Accompanying these narrative selections are concise, detailed explanations that help clarify particular Self ideas and arguments within the broader historical and ideological context of the Other. [End Page 606]

Part 2, Meeting Spaces (four chapters), embraces diverse individuals and groups of people of similar, different, or no religious preference, who are guided by a...