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The Cross and the Prodigal: Luke 15 through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants is unavailable, but you can change that!

Where is the cross in the parable of the prodigal son? For centuries, Muslims have called attention to the father's forgiveness in this parable in order to question the need for a Mediator between humanity and God. In The Cross and the Prodigal, Kenneth E. Bailey—New Testament scholar and long-time missionary to the Middle East—undertakes to answer this question. Drawing on his extensive...

love becomes visible and for the first time he is able to understand it. Islam claims that in this story the boy is saved without a savior. The prodigal returns. The father forgives him. There is no cross, no suffering and no savior. But not so. The incarnation and the atonement are dramatically present in the story and form its first climax. The suffering of the cross was not primarily the physical torture but rather the agony of rejected love. In this parable the father endures such agony all through
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