About

Roots & Record makes the positive case for the heritage that Judaism and Christianity share, argued from ground that belongs to neither tradition alone. Three pillars hold the work up: the historical and theological connections between the two traditions, philosophy and the examined life, and history read as witness.

Roots & Record is written under the public pseudonym S. J. Iber, a lifelong student of philosophy and history, particularly the Ancient Near East and the thinkers who arose from it. The work stays close to primary texts, with secondary scholarship consulted only in support. None of this is offered as authority, only as context for where the arguments come from.

Raised Muslim, S. J. Iber left the faith. Years of wilderness as an atheist followed, and out of that wilderness came years in the Torah, the Talmud, the rabbinic tradition, and the early Church Fathers, and an arrival at the God of Israel and, through him, at Jesus, whose teaching is understood here as squarely and authentically Jewish, continuous with the tradition that produced it. There is no formal denominational affiliation; Roots & Record speaks in this voice alone, without institutional endorsement.

The aim throughout is truth, followed wherever the argument leads.

S. J. also established a separate body of writing on Substack, exploring ideology, religious and secular, and its unfolding across history and politics.

Substack

Correspondence, including from scholars and specialists who want to push back on something written here, is welcome at editor@rootsandrecord.com.