The Qur'an and its Biblical Subtext

A Response to Stephen L. Young, “Let’s Take the Text Seriously”: the Protectionist Doxa in Mainstream New Testament Studies

“…Moreover, the point is not only to ask the same questions but also to answer them with the same methods, the same criteria, and the same requirements, as those used for any other kind of question, without any sort of "exceptionalism" (another typical protectionist move).2 To paraphrase a judicious formula by Chase Robinson,3 the history and the texts made by people from any religion are comparable to those made by people from another one, or with no religious bent at all, and the historian (qua historian) should treat them as such.4 In this regard, to refer to one example discussed in the paper, insulating Paul's rhetoric from the wider ethnic sensitivities and ideologies of the Ancient Mediterranean world is indeed hardly warranted. Similar insulating moves were widespread in Qurʾanic studies, but it has now become commonplace to speak of the Qurʾān as a text from Late Antiquity (Neuwirth 2010), with a Biblical subtext (Reynolds 2010). The Qurʾān is now studied as a text in close dialogue with Late Antique living Jewish and Christian traditions: this is a huge step forward from the time when, in Qurʾanic studies, pre-Islamic Arabia was considered as a cultural void, and historians relied mainly on the classical Muslim commentaries in their exegesis of the Qurʾān (as if NT scholars wrote a historical commentary on the Gospel of Matthew using as their main and even only evidence the writings of Origen).…”

Cultural Liturgies goes to a madrasah: What can Christians learn from how Muslims educate children?

“…The text stresses the difference between Muslim and Christian beliefs about Jesus, noting the former do not believe in Jesus as Son of God nor in the idea that he was crucified. This is typical of how the lives of Prophets are used to provide a paradigm for believers, as their stories are given a specifically Islamic interpretation (Reynolds, 2010; Tottoli, 2002; Wheeler, 2002). History is taught to be imitated.…”

Muhammad und die frühe islamische Gemeinschaft aus historischer Sicht

“…Leute von Arabien haben sich vielmehr, wenn nicht als "Gläubige", so als Mitglieder einzelner Stämme identifiziert. 16 Lüling 1974;Luxenberg 2000;Sawma 2006;Reynolds 2010. 17 Bell 1926Lüling 1981;Torrey 1933.…”