Submission and publication criteria
Submissions of up to 5,000 words may be considered when they address the project’s overall aim and meet the following principles:
a. Be not only of historical, linguistic, or doctrinal comparative interest; and do not claim that the meaning of one verse, surah or aliyot is “the same” as another except for its cultural and religious clothing.
b. Address and explore how distinctive calls to humankind made in and through each of the scriptures might find a resonance both with each other and with readers who are culturally shaped by these scriptures, and/or who personally and in their communities draw upon them as living points of reference for their belief and practice.
c. Be fully informed by scholarly work on the scriptures while also being understandable to a wide range of readers, including believers and practitioners within each tradition, as well as those who would not describe themselves in these ways but recognise historical and/or cultural connections to the traditions.
d. Acknowledge the diverse understandings, interpretations and definitions of the scriptures associated with different denominations and movements within each of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions.
e. Acknowledge how these diversities of understanding, interpretation and definition can sometimes become conflictual, but avoid promoting factional understandings in ways that might lead to, or reinforce, conflicts within the traditions.
f. Recognise the importance of the historical contexts, cultures and languages of the scriptures by being as faithful as possible to the authors’ understandings of these, while also exploring and addressing the potential meanings of the scriptures in current contexts, cultures and languages.
g. Focus on the main aims of the project rather than on other issues, however important those issues may more generally be for the three traditions concerned and/or for the relations between them.
Review and decision-making
1. A submitted article is circulated to the project’s Steering Group for peer review against the publication criteria and for detailed feedback where appropriate.
2. The Project Co-Ordinator considers the recommendations and responses, makes a decision and communicates it—together with relevant feedback—to the author or authors.
3. If no Steering Group comments are received within four weeks, the Project Co-Ordinator undertakes the review and prepares a recommendation.
4. In that case, a Steering Group member from the tradition from which the submission is mainly written, or one of the traditions it principally addresses, is invited to confirm agreement or disagreement before the final decision.
Publication decisions remain with the Project Co-Ordinator following the review process.