the bible in arabic

[Jack B. Tannous]

This may be of interest for those who have not seen it yet:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ovkqmT5fy9cC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

[William Hume]

Regarding Professor Griffith's book, "The Bible in Arabic":
Pages 11-13 suggest that there is an "evidentiary presumption" against the notion that Jewish Christian groups flourished in Arabia at the rise of Islam, because there is no "indisputable evidence" from the texts, that they were there.  He asserts that the whole argument arises from "extrapolations" from Biblical allusions in the Quran.

Before I say more: This is just one small, three-paged passage in an extremely erudite book, that overall is also quite judicious in tone.  Everyone should buy one, since it is available for less than $17 as an "e-book". 

With that being said:  the passage at pages 11-13 is 20 years behind the "neo-Orientalist" scholarship on "Islamic origins".  It is not at all current with the scholarship on Jewish Christianity among the "Apocryphes Chretiennes" crowd.  It employs the language of the Law of Evidence, but does not use the methods of legal proof as any trained litigator would.  It necessarily denigrates, a priori, the "genetic-reconstructive" method which is used in Evolutionary Biology, Linguistics, History of Religions, nonparochial "textology"/ textual criticism, and geologic stratigraphy -- in other words, all of the enterprise of the modern academic venture History, where positive evidence is lacking.   And finally, the passage -- please read it -- acts as if Jewish Christianity would have been the only surviving "non-pre-Constantinian-Roman" forms of Christianity -- i.e., the Arians and the Manichaeans (and, perhaps, some bizarre Melchizadekan-Christological sects).

 Opening point:
Quran IV:171, "Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word."  The text could read "messenger of Allah and [of] His word," but local Muslims here in Los Angeles point out that their particular text's "reading" is kalimatuhu, and not kalimatihi.  They have a point that there is an Arian-incarnationalist reading that is possible here.
In order for my "[of] His word" reading to work, would require some text-criticism in Quran, or maybe just a peek into Samarqandi's book of "Readings".  One scholar has said that I cannot make a "complex idafa".  Thus, we are stuck with a sura that makes Jesus the "Word of Allah".  Gee.  Sounds Arian.  And not an "extrapolation" from "biblical references" at all.  I really, really, wanted a non-incarnational-christology Quran. 

---

From: Jack B. Tannous <jtan...@Princeton.EDU>
To: "nas...@googlegroups.com" <nas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2013 5:55 AM
Subject: [nascas] the bible in arabic

This may be of interest for those who have not seen it yet:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ovkqmT5fy9cC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

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