Kurt Richardson, Professor, Faculty of Theology McMaster University and Adjunct Professor of Theology, Trinity College, University of Toronto
Abstract
The Qur'an's appearance in the 7th-8th centuries with its combinations of canonical and extra-canonical gospels reflects Muhammad's movement and the larger Christian environment and use both biblical and
apocryphal sources. The quranic of narratives of gospel material reflect well established practices of reading New Testament apophcrypha with New Testament canon, the former as what Stroumsa has
called "secondary canon" based on customary ecclesiastical usage.
This paper explores this reciprocal relationship of Qur'an and Gospel as recent scholarship of the Syriac historical and theological sources have become more intensively researched. The paper interacts with
important implications of Neuwirth's work on Qur'an and Gospel.
Thank you, Kurt, for a very interesting overview of Neuwirth's and Tannous's writings on the relation of the Qur'an to both the canonical New Testament and to the non-canonical books, especially the Proto-evangelium of James. The parallels between Mary in the Qur'an and in the Proto-evangelium of James are indeed striking. I wonder, for the purposes of this conference's theme, if you could not reflect more on the concerns of P-J/the Qur'an and how they impact our reading of the annunciation and nativity accounts, especially in Luke. For example, does the concern with Mary's purity (both in drawing the veil in the Temple and of vindicating her purity in the face of accusations by her community) influence at all our reading of the Lukan text? Are they at odds with it?
Thank you very much for this distillation of Neuwirth's recent work, and of Tannous' PhD, which shed light on some of the relationships between Qur'an and early Christian writings. Not least in light of distinctions you make (p8) between different Qur'anic perspectives on the conception of Jesus, I found myself wondering what comments you have on intertextuality within the Qur'an? (eg., what lies behind the differences in detail in the birth accounts in Surat Maryam and Surat Al-Imran, as well as the ways in which conception is described in Surqt al-Anbiya and Surat al-Tahrim?)