As Catholic and Islamic ideologies clash in violent debate abroad, professor Daniel Lasker of Ben-Gurion University, Israel, came to Boston University yesterday to explain to students how religious debate between Christianity, Judaism and Islam played out in the Middle Ages.

Religion professor Deeana Klepper introduced Lasker at his first lecture, “Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The Three-Way Debate in the Middle Ages.”

“You are sitting at the feet of a master, but at the feet of a master who knows how to take the breadth of his knowledge and make it accessible,” Klepper said.

Lasker covered the ninth and 10th century within the Islamic context regarding the polemics of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. He said polemics, or controversial arguments, are generally thought of as low-brow, vulgar, religious debates where a person of one religion aims to refute or discredit another or others, whereas religious philosophy is seen as intellectual and elitist. He said the two are intertwined and tell a complete history of the interaction between religions.

Religion professors Deeana Klepper and Diana Lobel arranged Lasker’s visit. Prior to his lecture, Klepper illustrated present day issues that contribute to the timeliness of these lectures. To provide context, she mentioned President Bush’s crusading language, Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ and Pope Benedict XVI’s recent “accidental polemic” regarding Islam.

Religion graduate student Emily Neeson, who is enrolled in Klepper’s seminar, said it is “fascinating to think about the long history of religion and polemics, and that the same conflicts are at play 1,000 years later.”

In a second lecture at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Lasker spoke further on the relationship between philosophy and polemics. The lecture, titled “The Jewish-Christian Debate: The Interplay of Philosophy and Polemics in the Middle Ages,” addressed the ninth century through the 15th century.

Lasker said all polemics are similar in message and methodology and are “all part of one tradition. All religions attack each other over similar principles and in roughly the same way. Questions that are typically at the center of religious debates speak to whether or not Jesus was the Messiah, if Jesus intended to die and questions regarding the unity of God and morality.”

Lasker said people engage in religious debates as an intellectual engagement, if one is in doubt of religion or if one is a believer who wants to persuade those in doubt.

New York University religion professor Michah Gottlieb attended the second lecture and praised Lasker as a “fantastic scholar” and a “wonderful speaker.” He said Lasker’s lecture “is an especially interesting topic today with the contemporary heating-up of religious debates and with Jews seeking to define themselves as different within Christian society.”

Though religious criticism abounded in the Middle Ages, there are also many instances of tolerance. Lasker told the story of a Spanish Muslim visiting Baghdad, Iraq in the 10th century. During that time, Baghdad was an open society and a literary and cultural center. Lasker said that Muslim man was “scandalized” when he attended a forum where Christians, Jews and Muslims openly debated one another.

Lasker said he tries not to make specific comparisons relating historical religious debates to contemporary debates, but by studying religious polemics and philosophy in a historical context, it is easier to understand various relationships between religions today. He said although everyone can learn from history, it does not necessarily mean history’s mistakes will not be repeated.

Lasker holds three degrees from Brandeis University and has taught at Princeton University, Yale University, University of Toronto, Ohio State University, University of Texas, University of Washington, Yeshiva University, Jewish Theological Seminary, Kirkland College and Gratz College. He is the author of four books and more than 100 publications about Jewish religion and philosophy.

He is currently in the United States for seven weeks as a short-term research fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.