Sharing and Hiding Religious Knowledge in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

In Antiquity, knowledge was cherished as a scarce good, cultivated through
the close teacher-student relationship, and often preserved in the closed
circle of the initiated. From Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts to a
Shi‘ite Islamic tradition, this volume explores how and why knowledge was
shared or concealed by diverse communities in various ancient and late antique
cultural contexts. In these essays, a range of scholars from Assyrian studies
to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic studies examine diverse approaches to,
and modes of, knowledge transmission and concealment, shedding new
light on both the interconnectedness, as well as the unique aspects, of the
monotheistic faiths and their relationship to the ancient civilizations of the
Fertile Crescent.