I prefer to take the structure of dates and genealogies for the life of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, very seriously. Whatever route we take, as sceptics or believers, we have a very precise model as one explanation of this ancient quarrel. Even if we doubt the facts, stories can work very powerfully for us. And understanding how a quarrel was said to begin is often a good way to see the possibilities of reconciliation. But there is no such thing as objective history.
Every historian brings a mass of very slanted assumptions to filter what seem to be facts.
Every day the best newspaper correspondents miss the real motives of the people they describe. And even when we have known a person intimately for many years we can misunderstand the heart longings and drives that move them. So writing three thousand years after the events, and on the basis of very terse documents, I know I am caricaturing the main characters. Caricatures can be deliberately vicious. But I would like this story to offer a model for Arabs and Jews, and even Christians, to look at where they have come from in creative ways.