Does God Speak to Different Peoples Through Different Religions?

“In the course of history,” wrote the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his The Dignity of Difference, “God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims.” To some of his Orthodox readers, this statement seemed a radical departure from traditional understandings of revelation. Indeed, in the second edition of the book—a powerful and humane defense of pluralism and particularism—Sacks reworded it. Gil Student, drawing on an array of ancient, medieval, and modern rabbinic sources, argues that the original formulation rests on grounds that even the most strictly Orthodox reader should see as solid: