Abstract
For over fourteen centuries, critics—from Meccan skeptics to modern Orientalists—have repeated the same claim: that the Qur’an is a compilation of ancient tales and borrowed legends. The Qur’anic verse, “When Our revelations are recited to him, he says: 'Tales of the ancients!'” (Q 25:5), predicted and refuted this accusation in advance. This article examines these claims through textual comparison, linguistic analysis, and historical evaluation. It reveals that while the Qur’an and earlier scriptures share certain thematic intersections (due to shared Abrahamic heritage), the Qur’an uniquely purifies narratives from anthropomorphism, moral corruption, and historical error—displaying a linguistic and theological precision unattainable by human editing. When compared closely, the Qur’an emerges not as a derivative text, but as a rectifying revelation.
1. Introduction: The Perennial Charge of ‘Asāṭīr al-Awwalīn’
The verse “When Our revelations are recited to him, he says: 'Tales of the ancients!'” (Q 25:5) records one of the earliest objections to the Qur’an. The Quraysh accused the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ of compiling myths and old stories. Centuries later, modern critics such as those on the website Answering Islam recycle the same argument, alleging that Muhammad ﷺ borrowed from Biblical, Talmudic, and apocryphal traditions. The enduring nature of this claim demonstrates both its historical shallowness and its rhetorical persistence.
2. The Critics’ Framework: Modern Repetition of a Qurayshi Argument
Modern critics assert three main points:
Source Borrowing — that Muhammad ﷺ incorporated stories from Jewish and Christian texts.
Cultural Exposure — that living among Jews and Christians in Arabia enabled this borrowing.
Linguistic Dependence — that Arabic Qur‚nic vocabulary includes Hebrew or Syriac loanwords, implying dependence.
They cite encyclopedic sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica, claiming the Qur’an is a fusion of religious legends and Muhammad’s personal invention. However, classical scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah (in al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ) and al-Qurṭubī have thoroughly dismantled these premises. Each point reveals a misunderstanding of historical linguistics, oral transmission in the late antique Near East, and the Qur’an’s own meta-textual awareness of revelation.
3. Internal Comparison: The Qur’an vs. Earlier Texts
3.1 Narrative Accuracy vs. Mythic Deformation
The Qur’an refines earlier narratives both morally and historically. A case in point is the story of Joseph. In the Book of Genesis, the Egyptian ruler is called Pharaoh, though the title was not used until the New Kingdom period. The Qur’an, by contrast, calls him al-Malik (the King) — a term historically consistent with Middle Kingdom Egypt.
Similarly, where the Bible attributes moral corruption to prophets (Lot’s drunkenness, David’s adultery, Solomon’s idolatry), the Qur’an presents them as divinely guided humans, protected from such indecency. The Qur’an corrects rather than copies.
3.2 Linguistic Precision and Rhythmic Depth
The Qur’an’s linguistic pattern is rhythmic yet semantically exact. It does not merely tell stories; it reveals principles. The Bible’s multiplicity of authors, textual variants, and contradictions contrasts with the Qur’an’s consistent grammatical structure and unified voice—hallmarks of non-human authorship.
3.3 Theological and Moral Coherence
The Qur’an describes God as transcendent (laysa kamithlihi shay’un, Q 42:11) and morally perfect. In contrast, the Bible attributes human emotions to God—regret, jealousy, even weariness. The Qur’an thus restores divine majesty and coherence lost in human retellings.
4. Case Studies of Misapplied Prophecies in the New Testament
The New Testament writers often reframe Hebrew prophecies in ways that distort their original meanings:
Matthew 2:15 cites Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt I called my son”) as prophecy of Jesus. Yet Hosea refers to Israel’s exodus and subsequent idolatry. The parallel ironically portrays Jesus within a narrative of rebellion.
Matthew 27:9 cites Jeremiah instead of Zechariah regarding Judas’ silver pieces—a textual confusion that reverses roles and misidentifies the subject.
John 19:37 cites Zechariah 12:10 (“They will look on me whom they have pierced”), but the Hebrew context refers to a collective national lament, not a messianic piercing.
These inconsistencies expose interpretive liberties absent from the Qur’an, whose internal cross-references remain exact and self-consistent.
5. The “Borrowed Words” Fallacy
Linguistic overlap across Semitic languages is natural, not evidence of plagiarism. Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac share a root structure that predates any religious text. The Qur’an’s occasional cognate terms (e.g., Torah, Injīl, Sakīnah) demonstrate linguistic kinship, not borrowing. Shared vocabulary across sister languages is a reflection of shared culture—not dependency.
6. Responding to the “Mary, Sister of Aaron” Claim
Critics allege a chronological error where Mary is called “O sister of Aaron” (Q 19:28). Yet Sahīh Muslim (Hadith 2135) narrates that when the Christians of Najran raised this, the Prophet ﷺ explained that Israelites named their descendants after prophets and pious figures. Ibn Taymiyyah confirmed this in al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ: the title signified honor and lineage, not literal kinship.
7. Epistemic Reflection: What Is Revelation?
If the Qur’an had truly borrowed, one would expect it to inherit the inconsistencies and theological limitations of its sources. Instead, it corrects and elevates them—moralizing errant myths, refining chronology, and restoring monotheism. The Qur’an functions as tashīh al-ma‘ānī (rectification of meanings), not imitation.
8. Conclusion: The Unbroken Voice
From Meccan skeptics to modern critics, the refrain remains: “Asāṭīr al-Awwalīn.” Yet the Qur’an endures with unbroken eloquence, unity, and historical precision. The same verse that recorded their doubt stands as its eternal answer:
“If it were from other than God, they would have found within it much discrepancy.” (Q 4:82)
Appendix: Comparative Summary
| Biblical Citation | Qur’anic Parallel | Key Difference | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis 41:1–46 | Q 12:43–49 | “Pharaoh” vs. “King” | Qur’an historically accurate |
| Hosea 11:1–3 / Matthew 2:15 | — | Contextual distortion | Matthew misuses Hosea |
| Zech 11:12–13 / Matt 27:9 | — | Misattributed prophecy | Jeremiah misquoted |
| Zech 12:10 / John 19:37 | — | Contextual mismatch | Original refers to Israel, not Messiah |
🔹 Linguistic Rebuttal: The Misconception of “Foreign” Biblical Names in Arabic
A recurring misconception in certain modern commentaries and online discussions is that Arabic’s use of words like Injīl (ٱلْإِنجِيل), Tawrāt (ٱلتَّوْرَاة), and Sijjīl (سِجِّيل) reflects the borrowing of “foreign” (particularly Greek or Hebrew) religious terminology into an otherwise unrelated Semitic language. This claim, however, oversimplifies a far more intricate linguistic history — and inadvertently obscures the deep shared ancestry between Northwest Semitic and Central Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, and Arabic.
1. Common Semitic Root Structures
Most of these so-called “loanwords” are not foreign at all, but shared cognates inherited from Proto-Semitic or early Northwest Semitic stages.
-
The Arabic Tawrāt (توراة) and Hebrew Torah (תּוֹרָה) share the triliteral Semitic root t-w-r/y, denoting “instruction” or “law.”
-
Similarly, Injīl (إنجيل) corresponds to the Greek euangelion (“good news”) only in scriptural context; its form and phonology, however, follow Aramaic mediation, which had already been deeply integrated into the Levantine linguistic sphere centuries before Islam.
-
Even Sijjīl (سِجِّيل) — used in the Qur’an to mean “baked clay stone” (Qur’an 105:4) — reflects a compound of Persianized Aramaic roots (sang + gil, “stone + clay”) long naturalized in the region, rather than a sudden foreign intrusion.
In each case, the apparent “foreignness” is better understood as internal Semitic evolution within the greater Levantine-Arabian continuum. These linguistic flows mirror what archaeogenetics has now confirmed: a shared cultural substrate spanning the Levant and Arabia from the Bronze Age onward.
2. The Continuum, Not a Divide
Arabic did not “adopt” the Levantine religious lexicon ex nihilo — it retained and adapted words that had already existed in the common Semitic environment for millennia. Scholars such as Edward Lipiński (Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, 2001) and John Huehnergard (A Grammar of Akkadian, 2011) emphasize that Arabic preserves many archaic Semitic forms lost in later Hebrew or Aramaic. Thus, the linguistic relationship between the Qur’anic Arabic of 7th-century Hijaz and the Biblical Hebrew of Iron Age Israel is not one of borrowing but of kinship.
3. Cultural Transmission Through Aramaic Mediation
Between the 1st millennium BCE and the early centuries CE, Aramaic functioned as the lingua franca of the Near East. Religious terminology, literary motifs, and idioms moved freely through this shared space — from Jewish Aramaic and Nabataean to Syriac and early Arabic dialects. By the time of Islam’s emergence, the “Biblical” vocabulary was already part of the regional linguistic ecosystem, not external to it.
4. Relevance to Genetic and Cultural Continuity
This linguistic evidence aligns seamlessly with genetic findings indicating that modern Levantine and Arabian populations descend largely from the same Bronze-to-Iron Age gene pool (see: Lazaridis et al., Cell, 2022; Fregel et al., Nature Genetics, 2019). The parallels are striking: both language and DNA show that what is often framed as “foreign influence” is, in fact, a continuation of an ancient regional unity that long predates the distinct formation of Israelite, Arab, or other identities.
Suggested sources for inclusion:
-
Lipiński, Edward. Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Peeters Publishers, 2001.
-
Huehnergard, John. A Grammar of Akkadian. Harvard Semitic Museum Publications, 2011.
-
Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed. Free Press, 2001.
-
Lazaridis et al., “Genetic Continuity in the Ancient Levant,” Cell (2022).
-
Fregel et al., “Ancient DNA from the Levant and Arabian Peninsula,” Nature Genetics (2019).
-
Rubin, Aaron D. The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Archaeogenetic Correlations: Language, Land, and Lineage
Recent advances in archaeogenomics have made it possible to trace the biological and demographic movements of Levantine peoples across thousands of years — revealing a level of genetic continuity that parallels the linguistic and cultural persistence of the region’s Semitic heritage. Far from depicting isolated “ethnic replacements,” genetic studies consistently show that the inhabitants of the Southern Levant, from the Bronze Age Canaanites to the Iron Age Israelites and their descendants, were part of a largely continuous ancestral population.
1. Continuity Through the Bronze and Iron Ages
Ancient DNA (aDNA) extracted from burials at sites like Sidon, Megiddo, Ain Ghazal, and Ashkelon demonstrates a remarkable degree of genetic homogeneity across time.
-
The landmark study by Lazaridis et al. (Cell, 2022) and earlier by Haber et al. (AJHG, 2017) found that present-day Palestinians, Lebanese, Druze, and many Jewish groups retain substantial genetic affinity with Bronze and Iron Age Levantines.
-
Rather than showing abrupt population replacement, the data indicate gradual admixture with neighboring groups — Anatolian, Iranian, and Arabian — yet preserving a core Canaanite ancestry that persisted for over 3,000 years.
This genetic thread parallels the linguistic thread: as Semitic dialects diverged and evolved (Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean, Arabic), their speakers remained descendants of the same regional substrate.
2. From Canaanite to Israelite to Arab — A Continuum, Not a Break
Archaeologically, the shift from Late Bronze Age Canaanite city-states to early Iron Age “Israelite” settlements was cultural and ideological, not demographic. Excavations at Shiloh, Bethel, and Khirbet Qeiyafa reveal continuity in pottery, architecture, and diet — suggesting that the so-called “Israelite” identity emerged internally from the Canaanite milieu.
Modern genetic evidence mirrors this: Iron Age Israelite genomes cluster tightly with preceding Bronze Age Canaanites and later with modern Levantines. Thus, both biologically and linguistically, the Iron Age Israelites represent a localized cultural evolution, not an introduced ethnicity.
3. The Arabian Connection
Genomic data from the Arabian Peninsula (Fregel et al., Nature Genetics, 2019; Fernandes et al., PNAS, 2021) reveal a deep bidirectional flow between Arabia and the Levant, particularly during the Bronze and Iron Ages. This exchange is mirrored in the linguistic evidence of shared Semitic roots across Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic.
In both DNA and language, Arabia and the Levant form a single historical continuum, explaining why Arabic retained cognates and theological lexicon deeply resonant with Biblical idioms.
4. Gene, Tongue, and Text: The Deep Substrate of the Levant
When linguistic, archaeological, and genetic data are viewed together, a unified picture emerges:
-
Language: Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic evolved within the same Northwest–Central Semitic continuum.
-
Lineage: The genetic core of Levantine populations today is overwhelmingly derived from ancient Canaanite ancestry.
-
Land: Material culture and settlement patterns show local continuity rather than mass displacement.
In essence, the “Biblical lands” did not merely transmit stories or scriptures — they preserved the very populations and linguistic frameworks that produced them. Modern genetics has now given material confirmation to what comparative philology long suspected: that the descendants of ancient Canaanites and Israelites are still largely present in the Levant, speaking evolved forms of the same ancestral language family, and carrying the same deep cultural DNA that defined their forebears.
🔗 Synthesis: One Revelation, One Region, One Root
When language and lineage are studied together, they tell the same story: a single, continuous civilization of the Semitic world — speaking dialects of one ancient tongue, living across one historical landscape, and preserving one evolving spiritual tradition. The Qur’an did not arise from external borrowing or imitation; it emerged organically from this deep Levantine–Arabian continuum, where prophetic revelation, linguistic genius, and ancestral memory converged. The supposed “borrowings” are not plagiarisms — they are shared inheritances, refracted through the purity of divine articulation. Modern genetics has merely confirmed what the Qur’an declared long before:
“This is a Book whose verses are perfected, then detailed, from One who is Wise and Aware.” (Qur’an 11:1)
Suggested sources for inclusion:
-
Lazaridis et al., “Genetic Continuity in the Ancient Levant,” Cell (2022).
-
Haber et al., “Continuity and Admixture in the Ancient Canaanite Gene Pool,” American Journal of Human Genetics (2017).
-
Fregel et al., “Ancient DNA from the Arabian Peninsula,” Nature Genetics (2019).
-
Fernandes et al., “The Arabian Peninsula as a Genetic Crossroads,” PNAS (2021).
-
Finkelstein & Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (2001).
-
Rubin, Aaron D. The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. (2011).
.5. Linguistic Rebuttal: The Myth of Borrowed Words in the Qur’an
One of the oldest orientalist claims against the Qur’an is that its lexicon borrows from Hebrew, Syriac, or Aramaic — as if a text rich in inter-Semitic vocabulary must, by definition, be derivative. Yet this assertion fails to appreciate a crucial linguistic reality: the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant formed a single cultural-linguistic continuum, not isolated linguistic islands. The Qur’an itself situates its revelation within this Semitic world, as part of the natural flow of prophetic language rather than as a foreign import.
Take, for instance, key theological terms such as Injīl (Gospel), Tawrāt (Torah), and Sijjīl (baked clay tablets). Critics assert these words were “borrowed” from Jewish or Christian scripture. Yet comparative Semitic linguistics reveals the opposite: these terms share common ancestral roots across the Northwest and South Semitic branches. The term Tawrāt, for example, stems from the triliteral root W-R-Y, meaning “to illuminate” or “reveal” — conceptually parallel to the Arabic nūr (light), underscoring revelation rather than textual borrowing. Similarly, Injīl descends from the Greek euangelion through Nabataean Aramaic transmission long before Islam — but it had already entered the Arabo-Semitic lexicon centuries prior to the Qur’an’s revelation. The Qur’anic use therefore reflects historical absorption, not plagiarism.
Even more striking is the word Sijjīl (Q 105:4; cf. 11:82), denoting “stone of baked clay.” Orientalists once proposed it was derived from the Persian sang + gil (“stone + clay”), but early Arab philologists such as al-Farrā’ and al-Zamakhsharī identified it as a pure Semitic reduplicative form — sijjīl from sijil (record, decree), reinforcing the concept of divine inscription or command.¹ The Qur’an’s linguistic architecture consistently follows internal Arabic derivation and semantic logic, even when the words share cognates across Semitic tongues.
Far from evidence of dependence, these linguistic intersections demonstrate that the Qur’an functions within a shared linguistic cosmos, in which divine speech historically manifested through kindred dialects — from Hebrew and Aramaic to Arabic. The Qur’an articulates this awareness explicitly:
“And We did not send any messenger except in the language of his people, to make the message clear to them.” (Q 14:4)
Thus, to interpret linguistic overlap as borrowing is to mistake genealogical unity for imitation. As Toshihiko Izutsu noted, the Qur’an reconfigures ancient terms into an entirely new semantic universe, redefining moral, spiritual, and theological horizons in ways unmatched by any prior scripture.²
6. Archaeogenetic Correlations: Lineage, Land, and Revelation
Recent population-genetic studies have reinforced this linguistic picture by uncovering a profound genetic continuity among the peoples of the Levant and western Arabia.³ Ancient DNA retrieved from Bronze and Iron Age Canaanite and Levantine burials (c. 2000–800 BCE) reveals that both modern Jewish and Arab populations descend from a common ancestral population native to this region.⁴ This finding dismantles the ethnocentric narrative that positions Islam, or the Qur’an, as alien to the Biblical heartland. Instead, both the genetic and linguistic data indicate a single, enduring Levantine–Arabian civilization — one that experienced multiple revelations over time, culminating in the Qur’an’s final articulation.
This genetic continuum corresponds with the Qur’an’s self-description as a confirmation and guardian (muṣaddiqan wa muhayminan) over prior scriptures (Q 5:48). The Qur’an thus emerges not as an isolated or reactionary text, but as the latest revelation within a continuous prophetic sequence stretching from Abraham to Muhammad (peace be upon them). The accusation of “borrowing” presupposes separation — yet archaeology, genetics, and linguistic history all testify to deep civilizational integration.
Notes
-
Al-Zamakhsharī, Al-Kashshāf ‘an Ḥaqā’iq al-Tanzīl, commentary on Q 105:4.
-
Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur’an (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966), pp. 12–18.
-
Lazaridis et al., “Genomic Insights into the Origin of the Bronze Age Levantines,” Nature 536 (2016): 419–424.
-
Flegontov et al., “Genetic Proximity of Modern Palestinians and Ashkenazi Jews to Iron Age Levantines: A Quantitative Paleogenomic Analysis,” BioRxiv (2024).
7. Textual Parallels and Theological Precision
The polemic that the Qur’an “borrows” from Biblical narratives presumes that parallelism implies dependence. Yet the presence of similar figures — Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Mary, and Jesus — is not an index of plagiarism, but the inevitable result of a shared revelatory heritage. What distinguishes the Qur’an from its Biblical predecessors is not who appears in its stories, but how they are presented — with theological precision, moral consistency, and linguistic coherence absent from the surviving Biblical corpus.
The Qur’an itself asserts this position explicitly:
“Indeed, this Qur’an relates to the Children of Israel most of that over which they differ.” (Q 27:76)
This self-awareness transforms the Qur’an from a supposed imitator into a rectifier of textual corruption. Each parallel with the Bible reveals the Qur’an’s internal logic — an act of purification rather than repetition.
7.1 The Case of Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15 – The Misapplied Prophecy
Matthew 2:15 cites Hosea 11:1 as a prophecy fulfilled by Jesus’ flight to Egypt:
“Out of Egypt I called My son.” (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15)
However, a straightforward reading of Hosea 11:1–3 reveals that the “son” in this context is the nation of Israel, not an individual messiah:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from Me; they sacrificed to the Baals.”
The text explicitly continues by describing Israel’s rebellion and idolatry — a narrative arc incompatible with Christ’s sinless nature. Matthew’s midrashic repurposing therefore distorts the original context, transforming a national-historical metaphor into a personal prophecy.
In contrast, the Qur’an’s treatment of prophetic history maintains contextual and theological consistency. When describing the Exodus, it speaks of collective deliverance and collective moral failure — precisely as Hosea did, but without conflating typologies.
“And We certainly delivered the Children of Israel from the humiliating torment of Pharaoh.” (Q 44:30–31)
Where Matthew reconfigures the text to suit a Christological narrative, the Qur’an restores the original integrity of revelation: Israel was indeed God’s chosen community, but its moral decline necessitated renewed guidance through successive messengers.
7.2 Matthew 27:9, Zechariah 11, and the Inverted Symbolism
Matthew 27:9–10 claims that Judas’s betrayal fulfilled a prophecy:
“They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”
Yet no such passage exists verbatim in Jeremiah, whom Matthew cites — scholars have long noted that this phrase more closely resembles Zechariah 11:12–13, in which a worthless shepherd is rejected and his “thirty pieces of silver” are cast to the potter in the House of the Lord. The context of Zechariah 11, however, identifies the “shepherd” as the corrupt leader who misguides God’s flock — the anti-messiah, not the redeemer.
In this sense, Matthew’s citation inadvertently reverses the prophetic symbolism, placing Jesus in the position of the condemned shepherd. The Qur’an, by contrast, safeguards prophetic honor:
“And We made them leaders guiding by Our command, and We inspired them to do good deeds, to establish prayer, and to give zakah; and they were worshippers of Us.” (Q 21:73)
The Qur’anic presentation of prophets is consistently free of moral degradation or contradiction. Its textual precision not only preserves the spiritual dignity of revelation but also reflects an internal consistency impossible under the Biblical system of conflicting redactions.
7.3 The Qur’an’s Purified Christology
The Gospel of John (19:37) cites Zechariah 12:10 — “They will look on me, the one they have pierced” — to describe the Roman soldier piercing Jesus’ side. Yet the Hebrew original may not even refer to a messianic figure; it describes the mourning of Jerusalem after a military defeat, and the word translated as “pierced” (dāqar) means “stabbed in battle.” The application of this verse to Jesus’ crucifixion thus rests on a fragile textual leap.
The Qur’an rejects this distortion with succinct clarity:
“They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them.” (Q 4:157)
Rather than borrowing from Christian soteriology, the Qur’an reverses its premises, affirming divine protection and the unbroken honor of God’s messengers. In Qur’anic theology, salvation is achieved not through vicarious atonement but through personal submission (islām) to God’s will — restoring the Abrahamic doctrine to its primordial form.
7.4 A Structural Comparison: Revelation by Correction
| Theme | Biblical Rendering | Qur’anic Rendering | Theological Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exodus / Hosea 11:1 | “Out of Egypt I called My son” misapplied to Jesus | Children of Israel delivered from Pharaoh (Q 44:30) | Context preserved, no typological distortion |
| Zechariah 11 / Matthew 27 | Jesus equated with rejected shepherd | Prophets as morally upright guides (Q 21:73) | Restoration of prophetic dignity |
| Zechariah 12:10 / John 19:37 | “They pierced him” → crucifixion motif | “They did not crucify him” (Q 4:157) | Theological correction and divine vindication |
| Anthropomorphic depictions of prophets | Drunkenness, adultery, deception (Gen. 19; 2 Sam. 11) | Prophets as purified exemplars (Q 6:84–90) | Moral coherence of revelation |
These juxtapositions demonstrate that the Qur’an does not depend on earlier texts — it diagnoses and repairs them. Its narrative method functions as a theological critique of textual corruption: clarifying, not copying.
7.5 Continuity, Not Borrowing
By aligning with the same ancient prophetic continuum yet purifying its misinterpretations, the Qur’an situates itself as the final corrective revelation. Where Biblical redactors left traces of human error, tribal politics, and polemic adaptation, the Qur’an reestablishes divine unity, moral coherence, and historical consistency.
“He has sent down to you the Book in truth, confirming what was before it and as a criterion (furqān) over it.” (Q 5:48)
This furqānic function — to distinguish truth from distortion — transforms the charge of “borrowing” into evidence of divine continuity and correction. The Qur’an stands not as an echo of the Bible, but as the echo’s source, the final articulation of the same revelation purified of human interference.
Notes
-
R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 72–75.
-
T. McKenzie, “Hosea and the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no. 3 (2009): 512–526.
-
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., Matthew: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, vol. 3 (London: T&T Clark, 2004).
-
Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur’an (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966), 131–147.
0 comments:
Post a Comment