All the contributors to Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran were actively engaged in the launch tour activities last month as we interfaced with some 2500 people in 40 events over three weeks in seven major urban areas. En route we picked up support from more than 100 local scholars, media people and others, mostly colleagues of the contributors on this team. As editor I am very proud of them all, the contributing team, their colleagues and some outstanding community leaders new to the interfaith agenda or new to us. In the next few blog entries we wish to highlight a few of the latter, beginning with Her Excellency Ambassador Houda Ezra Nonoo.
Her Excellency Houda Ezra Nonoo, US Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain (center) at the Canadian Embassy book launch in Washington 9/11, 2012, surrounded by some of the contributors to Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel & Quran, Ellen Frankel (Preface to the Torah), Amir Hussain (Foreword to the Book), Brian Arthur Brown (Editor), and David Bruce, (Introduction to the Gospel).
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2012 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – During remarks at an event marking the release of Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran at the Canadian Embassy in Washington last week, Bahrain’s Ambassador to the United States and Non-resident Ambassador to Canada, Houda Nonoo, lauded the book as a positive harbinger for religious co-existence.
“As a member of the Jewish faith, born in a Muslim country, and educated at a Catholic convent, I believe this book is destined to be a defining spiritual landmark for the twenty first century,” she said.
Three Testaments, presents the scriptures of the three Abrahamic faiths together for the first time with commentary by respected scholars of the three traditions. Brian Arthur Brown, the book’s editor, presented a copy to each event attendee.
“This book and this occasion point in a direction of greater mutual respect among people, especially religious people,” Ambassador Nonoo said. “As the scriptures teach us, everyone in this room must be dedicated to this mutual respect and offer leadership in that regard as the way to peace on earth.”
Canada’s Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer co-hosted the event with U.S. International Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Suzan Johnson Cooke. Held on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the event also featured a joint panel of academics and religious leaders discussing issues of mutual interest and was attended by Ambassadors from several countries.
The event in Washington was part of a seven-city launch tour that began in New York on September 6th, concluding in Toronto on September 27.
(SOURCE: Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain)