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Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature: Difference between revisions
Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature (view source)
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, 15 June→Abraham Becomes a Monotheist: Added the parallel of Abraham's main virtue as 'a pure monotheist' being explicitly found in extra-biblical works rather than the bible itself. Have linked academic sources.
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==Abraham Becomes a Monotheist== | ==Abraham Becomes a Monotheist== | ||
=== His conversion === | |||
The Quran tells a story in which Abraham converts to monotheism after pondering the heavenly bodies and realising that Allah has power over them all. This is in fact a development of a Judeo-Christian exegetical tradition inspired by a couple of Biblical verses. | The Quran tells a story in which Abraham converts to monotheism after pondering the heavenly bodies and realising that Allah has power over them all. This is in fact a development of a Judeo-Christian exegetical tradition inspired by a couple of Biblical verses. | ||
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{{Quote|Apocalypse of Abraham 4:3-6<ref>"The Apocalypse of Abraham" translated by Alexander Kulik, 2005, https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/kuliktranslation.html ([https://web.archive.org/web/20220516014629/https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/kuliktranslation.html archive])</ref>|4:3 And I declared and said to him, “Hear, Terah, [my] father! It is the gods who are blessed by you, since you are a god to them, since you have made them; since their blessing is perdition, and their power is vain. 4:4 They could not help themselves, how [then] will they help you or bless me? 4:5 [In fact] I was for you a kind god of this gain, since it was through my cleverness that I brought you the money for the smashed [gods].” 4:6 And when he heard my word, his anger was kindled against me, since I had spoken harsh words against his gods.}} | {{Quote|Apocalypse of Abraham 4:3-6<ref>"The Apocalypse of Abraham" translated by Alexander Kulik, 2005, https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/kuliktranslation.html ([https://web.archive.org/web/20220516014629/https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/kuliktranslation.html archive])</ref>|4:3 And I declared and said to him, “Hear, Terah, [my] father! It is the gods who are blessed by you, since you are a god to them, since you have made them; since their blessing is perdition, and their power is vain. 4:4 They could not help themselves, how [then] will they help you or bless me? 4:5 [In fact] I was for you a kind god of this gain, since it was through my cleverness that I brought you the money for the smashed [gods].” 4:6 And when he heard my word, his anger was kindled against me, since I had spoken harsh words against his gods.}} | ||
=== His virtue as a monothiest === | |||
Abraham's rejection of idol worship and virtue of devoted monotheism is seen in many apocryphal works<ref>Neuwirth, Angelika. ''The Qur'an: Text and Commentary, Volume 2.1: Early Middle Meccan Suras: The New Elect (pp. 103-104).'' Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. </ref> and also a key feature of his personality and story in the Qur'an,<ref>Neuwirth, Angelika. ''The Qur'an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage (Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity) (p. 391-394). Abraham - his Qur'anic Developement: 11.3.1 Genealogical Paternity versus Transcendent Bond O''xford University Press. Kindle Edition. </ref> related to the repeated description of him as a ḥanīf.<ref>''ḥanīf (li-) | fervently devoted (to God or to worshipping God)'' | |||
Sinai, Nicolai. ''Key Terms of the Qur'an: A Critical Dictionary (p. 236-244).'' Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. </ref> | |||
{{Quote|{{Quran|4|125}}|Who has a better religion than him who submits his will to Allah, being virtuous, and follows the creed of Abraham, a Hanif? And Allah took Abraham for a dedicated friend.}}{{Quote|{{Quran|3|67}}|Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian. Rather, he was a Hanif, a Muslim, and he was not one of the polytheists.}} | |||
Kugel (1997) notes that Abraham's great virtue explicitly being the rejection of idolatry and monotheism is found many extra-biblical expansions in late antique literature rather than in the bible itself. | |||
{{Quote|Kugel, James L. <i>The Bible As It Was. Chapter 7: Abraham Journeys from Chaldea (GENESIS 12): Abraham the Monotheist (Kindle Edition. pp. 206-207).</i> Harvard University Press.|He— and not his father, Terah, or his brother, Nahor— was summoned personally to God’s service.. ..Out of this basic insight— arrived at by reading the beginning of chapter 12 of Genesis in the light of Josh. 24: 2– 3— arose an interpretive tradition that held Abraham’s great virtue (never mentioned in Genesis itself, nor even stated explicitly in the Joshua passage) to have been his refusal to worship other gods. They served other gods, but not Abraham. And so Abraham came to be thought of in more general terms as the great opponent of polytheism (the belief in the existence of many gods), in fact, as the person who, in the midst of a nation that worshipped many gods, had become convinced that in truth there is only one God. | |||
How far back this line of thinking goes we do not know, but it is certainly present very early. For example, it is found in a part of the book of Judith that some scholars date to the second century B.C.E. (if not earlier).}} | |||
==Abraham and the Idols== | ==Abraham and the Idols== | ||