The Figure of the Villain Samaritan

According to the classical Orientalist view, the Qurʾān copies biblical stories and, not infrequently, does so in an incorrect way. The Qurʾānic story of the Golden Calf, with the Sāmirī (Samaritan) character as the protagonist, is given to be an explicit example of this incorrect copying. This paper, however, considers the possibility that the incidents depicted in the story might have happened in a different way from what is described in the Bible. Thus it aims to examine the Biblical version of the story with reference to the Qurʾānic version, but unlike the classical Orientalist view, adopts an unbiased attitude. In this way, an explanation is offered of the etymology of the word “Sāmirī” indicating its possible relation to the concept of “firstborn” as well as to the genealogy of Joseph.

Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition: The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christian and Muslims, ed. by Miriam Lindgren Hjälm, Leiden: Brill, 2017, pp. 198-239.

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 2021

This work draws upon a host of late antique and medieval sources to examine selected Muslim exegeses of Moses in the Quran. The Muslim exegetical image o f Moses in the Quran is linked with ancient Sumerian stories o f Gilgamesh, var- ious versions of the Alexander Romance (Ethiopic, Syriac, Persian), Aramaic translations of the Abraham story in Genesis, and rabbinic accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes in the Talmud and the Midrash. Muslim exegetes associate Moses with the Jacob story in Genesis, Dhu al-Qarnayn 's visit to the cities at the ends of the Earth, and the Prophet Muhammad as caretaker in the garden of Eden. In doing so, the Muslim exegetes do not confuse and mistake earlier sources, but they intentionally use non-Quranic elements thick in Biblical allusions to delineate a particular image of Moses, the Torah, and the Israelites. It is an image of Moses, drawn in contrast to the Biblical and Jewish image o f Moses, which the Muslim exegetes use to identify and authorize themselves as linked to the different image of the Prophet Muhammad. Using approaches from Biblical Studies, History of Religions, Folklore Studies, and Judeo-Arabic Studies, this book suggests how Muslim exegesis ofthe Quran is purposeful in its appropriation and adapta- tion ofelements consonant with Jewish and Christian interpretation and theology of the Bible.

The biblical text circulated in antiquity in different forms, many of which are now known to us, especially after the scrolls from the Dead Sea area have been found in recent decades. It is now clear that in the last pre-Christian centuries many different text forms were in use in Palestine. In these texts we can clearly discern different approaches to the biblical text and among them we also find different groupings of texts. Although the terms " recensions " and " text-types " , so often used in biblical scholarship, are in our view not applicable to these groups, 1 small clusters of texts are certainly discernible. One such group is that of the proto-Masoretic texts, of which many have been unearthed in Qumran (dating from 225 BCE until 68 CE), Masada (until 73 CE), Nahal Hever and Wadi Murabba'at (both until 135 CE). This group of texts does not reflect any characteristics from the point of view of the content of the texts. Much more easily definable is another group, viz., that of the so-called proto-Samaritan texts and the Samaritan Pentateuch. In addition, there are many independent sources that are not exclusively close to others such as several of the Qumran texts and—until further notice—the Hebrew parent text of the LXX. Within this framework the proto-Samaritan sources hold an important place since contents wise they contain a very distinct group. To be sure, all the texts which are named here " proto-Samaritan " are early non-sectarian texts (to be discussed in 5), and on one of these the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch was based. Because of this internal relationship, the proto-Samaritan sources should be discussed first, but because of their fragmentary state of preservation as opposed to the full evidence relating to the Samaritan Pentateuch, the discussion starts from the latter. In many ways, the Samaritan Pentateuch continues the textual tradition of the proto-Samaritan texts, so that the extensive discussion of the characteristics of that text also applies to the earlier proto-Samaritan texts. In its present form, the Samaritan Pentateuch contains a distinctly sectarian text. However, when its thin sectarian layer (pp. 402–3) is removed, together with that of the Samaritan phonetic features (p. 404), the resulting text probably did not differ much from the texts we now name proto-Samaritan. Origin and Background of the Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch contains the sacred writings of the Samaritans, presently a community of a few hundred members, living mainly on Mount Gerizim (near Shechem, modern Nablus) * For a good modern analysis of the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, see B. B. Waltke, 'The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Text of the Old Testament', in J. B. Payne (ed.), New Perspectives on the Old Testament (Waco, TX, 1970) 212–39. See further the bibliographies of L. A. Mayer (ed. D. Broadribb), Bibliography of the Samaritans, AbrNSup (Leiden, 1964); R. Weiss, Leqet bibliografi 'al ha-somronim (Jerusalem: Academon, 1974 3). 1 See E.Tov, 'A Modern Textual Outlook Based on the Qumran Scrolls', HUCA 53 (1982) 11–27.

The Reception of Golden Calf Traditions in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Alec Lucas, Eric Mason, and Edmondo Lupieri, 2018

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 53, 2022

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This paper argues that quranic recitations emerged in connection with developments in the final Byzantine-Sasanian war (602-28), particularly the disruption of Syrian and Levantine trade by the war's second phase (610-21). Basal surahs articulated the prophet as a new Moses. Summoned to the border of paradise during his devotions, God's servant was assured that the final judgment would soon resolve his people's crisis. In that eschatological context, the oaths of surahs 90 and 95 invoked the Deuteronomy 8 narrative, where Moses proclaimed that the Hebrew people would soon leave their insecure wanderings by returning to God's promised land. For basal quranic ideology that promised land was paradise itself, which men became worthy to return to by sacrificing their material wealth in God's service. That eschatological ideology was exegetically displaced, however, when later quranic recitations worked to instead articulate Mecca as a new Arabian promised land, which believers would render secure in historical time.