Abraham Didn’t Found the Abrahamic Religions

Over the past century, there has been a growing trend to imagine the biblical figure Abraham as the founder of monotheism and progenitor of the three “Abrahamic religions,” namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is true that all three faiths revere Abraham, and also share certain ideas about God. But, Jon D. Levenson argues in conversation with the scholar of Islam Gabriel Said Reynolds, the Abraham of Genesis doesn’t come across as the founder of a religion, certainly not in the sense that Buddha, Confucius, or Mohammad were. Levenson instead explains Abraham as a father, who establishes not a belief system but “a natural family with a supernatural vocation.” (Video, 68 minutes.)