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{en} Carlos A. Segovia, The Quranic Jesus: A New Interpretation (Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter, 2019)

Abstract

"Is it possible to rethink the multilayered and polyvalent Christology of the Qur'ān against the intersecting of competing peripheral Christianities, anti-Jewish Christian polemics, and the making of a new Arab state in the 7th-century Near East? To what extent may this help us to decipher, moreover, the intricate redactional process of the quranic corpus? And can we unearth from any conclusions as to the tension between a messianic-oriented and a prophetic-guided religious thought buried in the document? By analysing, first, the typology and plausible date of the Jesus texts contained in the Qur'ān (which implies moving far beyond both the habitual chronology of the Qur'ān and the common thematic division of the passages in question) and by examining, in the second place, the Qur'ān's earliest Christology via-à-vis its later (and indeed much better known) Muhamadan kerygma, the present study answers these crucial questions and, thereby, sheds new light on the Qur'ān's original sectarian milieu and pre-canonical development."--Publisher description.

"This study reassesses the too-often oversimplified, in fact multilayered and polyvalent Christology of the Qur'ān against the intersecting of competing peripheral Christianities, anti-Jewish Christian polemics, and the making of a new Arab state in the 7th-century Near East. Additionally, it sheds new light on the Qur'ān's original sectarian milieu, its intricate redactional process, and the gradual making of the Muhammadan kerygma."--Back cover.

Contents

Introduction: traditional views and new insights on the Quranic Jesus -- Descriptive vs. anti-christian theological texts? -- The study of the Quranic Jesus between the 1830s and now -- From Carl Friedrich Gerock to Denise Masson's ecumenical reading of the Qur'an -- Robert Charles Zaehner and the "nestorian" matrix of the Qur'an's Christology -- Henri Michaud and the hypothesis of a Jewish-Christian influence on the Qur'an -- Geoffrey Parrinder's theological approach to the Quranic Jesus -- From Ali Merad to Heikki Räisänen's historical interpretation -- Guiseppe Rizzardi, Claus Schedl, and Günther Risse -- Neal Robinson's comparative study on Christ in Islam and Christianity -- Addendum. investigations on the emergennce of Islam and 7th-century -- Purpose and argument of this book, with a note on the notion of "symptomatic reading" -- Three preliminary notions: polyphony, periphery, hypertextuality -- Introducing the argument of the book and its parts -- Jesus in the Quranic corpus: texts and contexts -- Distribution of the relevant passages -- The texts, with a brief commentary -- Sūrat al-Baqara (Q 2, "the cow") -- Sūrat āl Imrān (Q 3, "the house of 'imrān") -- Sūrat al-Nisā' (Q 4, "women") -- Sūrat āl-Mā'ida (Q 5, "the table") -- Sūrat al-An'ām (Q 6, "Livestock") -- Sūrat al-Tawba (Q 9, "Repentance") -- Sūrat Maryam (Q 19, "Mary") -- Sūrat al-Anbiyya' (Q 21, "The Prophets"); Sūrat al-Mu'minūn (Q 23, "The Believers") -- Sūrat al-Aḥzāb (Q 33, "The Factions") -- Sūrat al-Šūrā (Q 42, "Consultation") -- Sūrat al-Zuḥruf (Q 43, "Ornaments") -- Sūrat al-Ḥadīd (Q 57, "Iron") -- Sūrat al-Ṣaff (Q 61, "The Lines") -- Sūrat al-Taḥrīm (Q 66, "The Forbidding") -- Reassessing the typology, date, and ideology of the Jesus passages-and their setting -- Towards a new classification, formal and thematic -- Formal division -- Thematic division -- Deciphering the date of the Jesus passages -- Overlooked texts in defence of Jesus (and Mary) against the Jews -- The vindication of the Quranic prophet in Q 3:84 -- The parallel vindication of the Jesus in Q 2:136 -- Anti-jewish rhetoric, anti-christian texts, and the date of the Jesus passages -- Their setting and the chronology of the corpus -- Ideological stages, redactional layers, and historical periods -- The P1 Jesus passages and the making of a new religious identity -- Transition -- Moving backwards: a peripheral south-Arabian Christology? -- The withdrawal from Byzantium's political and religious control in 6th-century Yemen- and the Arabian Peninsula -- The making of a Christian Yemen in the 6th century -- Reflections on Abreha's enigmatic Christology -- Peripheral Christianity and formative Islam -- East Syria and Iraq, or Christianity beyond the limes of the Byzantine Empire -- Monks, bishops, and the plausible anti-Chalcedonian setting of Q 9:31, 34 -- Misunderstood terms and redactional layers in Q 9:30-1 -- Pro-Chalcedonian bishops and anti-Chalcedonian monks? -- The philological crux in v. 9:31a-and v. 9:30; Five hypotheses in search of Q 9:31's vorlage -- From the Qur'an's early Christology to the elaboration of the Muhamadan Kerygma -- A sketch of the early Qur'an Christology (Q 75-107) -- Introducing a systematically overlooked but crucial topic -- A heavenly messenger that speaks directly to mankind and refers to God as "He" -- but who is one with God -- Excursus 1: traces of an angelomorphic Christology? -- Introducing the human alongside the divine (Q 17, 68, 73-4, 81, 87, 88) -- The need of a human messenger-almost absent from the earliest Quranic layers -- The exaltation of the human messenger -- Substituting the heavenly messenger by a human messenger: the beginnings of the Muhamadan Kerygma (Q 53, 55, 69) -- A dual farewell to the heavenly messenger -- Re-imagining Jesus as a new John the Baptist -- Excursus 2: contesting the exclusiveness of the Muhamadan Kerygma, or reimagining proto-shite Christology vis-a-vis the making of a tribal- and supra-tribal religion -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index of ancient sources -- Index of ancient and modern authors.

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