Co-produced Religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

The intersections of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are well known, but scholars tend to treat each as largely independent from the others, at least after some initial point of origin. We seek rather to emphasize their ongoing inter-dependence and demonstrate the implications for both historical and theological work. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have continuously formed, re-formed, and transformed themselves by interacting with or thinking about one another. That co-production, in all the ambivalence it entails, has shaped not only the rituals and teachings of these traditions but also some of our most enduring forms of prejudice as well as the conceptual tools with which we undertake the study of these religions. After first offering a definition of religious co-production, we then give an example, in the monk Sergius-Bahira, of what historical and theological insights a methodology of co-production can yield. Finally, we offer an exploration of the critical and constructive potentials of that insight, gesturing toward the possibility of both a history and a theology of co-production.