Papers by Reuven Firestone
Michael Pregill's The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an sets out, via a thick reading of a sin... more Michael Pregill's The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an sets out, via a thick reading of a single pivotal and representative narrative in the story of the Calf (or "Golden Calf" in common Jewish and Christian discourse), to situate the Qur'an within the larger religious and literary context of the Late Antique world. That it takes him nearly 450 pages to present and develop his argument attests to the complexity of the intertextual relationships he examines and the sticky methodological issues that have plagued and continue to beset those trying to make sense of traditions known from the Bible as they occur in the Qurʾān. It also attests to the extent of due diligence he undertook through his exhaustive reference to earlier research on the episode in its many literary settings. The core passage in question is found in Q Ṭā Hā 20:83-98, a qurʾānic chapter ripe with renderings of stories known also in the Jewish and Christian Bibles as well as other pre-Islamic extra-biblical works; a second and shorter telling is found also in Q al-Aʿrāf 7:148-153 and a brief reference in Q al-Baqarah 2:51-54.
The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism
This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the... more This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the West – meaning the Greco-Roman world until its mantle passed to Europe. There has never been agreement over the meaning of antisemitism, even among scholars of antisemitism let alone the public at large, and it often serves in the popular press as a vehicle for particular political or religious positions that tend to be reductive and essentializing. While it is true that Jews suffered as a minority community in the Muslim world just as they did elsewhere, it is not clear how that suffering relates to something that could be called “antisemitism.” It is not particularly useful to use the term in relation to the medieval Muslim world, though it is relevant in the modern period when antisemitism enters Muslim discourse with the rise of Western colonial power and influence
Marife Dini Araştırmalar Dergisi, 2014
Peygamber Muhammed, M.S. 632 yılındaki vefatına kadar, İslam'ın Arabistan'daki başarısına tanıklı... more Peygamber Muhammed, M.S. 632 yılındaki vefatına kadar, İslam'ın Arabistan'daki başarısına tanıklık etmiştir. Bununla birlikte, başlangıçta doğduğu putperest şehir olan Mekke'deki Arapları İslam'a davetinde başarısız olmuştur. Şu bir gerçek ki Hz. Muhammed'in 1 , peygamber(e özgü) faaliyetleri ve davranışları, doğ- Tercüme ettiğimiz Reuven Firestone'un "Jewish Culture in the Formative Period of Islam" adlı makalesi editörlüğünü David Biale'nin yaptığı 2002 yılında yayınlanan Cultures of Jews: A New History adlı kitabın yedinci bölümünde (s. 248-276) yer almaktadır.
This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological relationsh... more This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological relationship between the Qur’an and Judaism (the Qur’an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur’an toward Judaism (the Qur’an on Judaism). The former includes perspectives offered by pre-modern and contemporary non-Muslim researchers regarding the Qur’an and its relationship to the religion and culture of Judaism; the latter considers how the Qur’an itself appears to evaluate Judaism. Both are considered within an explicit evaluative framework of assessment that reflects on the problematic of tension inherent in the relationship between established religion and emergent religion
Rabbi - Pastor - Priest, 2013
A history and development of Islamic religious leadership
Judaism
The Qur'an contains a number of enigmatic references to Jews. One such reference in 4:46 accu... more The Qur'an contains a number of enigmatic references to Jews. One such reference in 4:46 accuses the Jews of twisting the well-known biblical declaration of Israel, "We hear and obey" to "We hear and disobey." This, along with a number of other citations of alleged Jewish statements directed to Muhammad and the early Muslim community of Medina, clearly derive from a polemical context. While many such references have been considered by Western scholars to be exaggerations or distortions of the historical record, taking them as possibly accurate statements allows for a new assessment of the brief but extremely important period of the early 620s in Medina when, according to the Islamic record, Muhammad first courted the local Jews and then competed with them over the religious authority of the city. Some of the difficult citations from the Qur'an and Hadith, including 4:46, suggest that the Jews employed bilingual Hebrew-Arabic punning and other forms of dou...
Choice Reviews Online, 2009
... the meaning of chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam / Reuven Firestone. ... If we li... more ... the meaning of chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam / Reuven Firestone. ... If we lived entirely within our religious commu-nities and with no interaction with people of other faith traditions, we would most likely not give the notion of being chosen a second thought. ...
Encyclopedia of the Bible Online
Encyclopedia of the Bible Online
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1993
Miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the expulsion of Jews from France in 11... more Miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the expulsion of Jews from France in 1182 The ancestors of the biblical Israelites, like all the other communities of the ancient Near East, were idol worshippers. We know quite a bit about their religion from the great number of archaeological finds, including writings, that have been unearthed in what are today's Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. It appears that all the peoples of the ancient Near East practiced essentially the same religion. This religion functioned in a world believed to be populated by intangible powers (or deities) that ran nature and protected the tribal communities who lived there. Certain powers controlled important aspects of nature, such as the
Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity, 2019
The large number of references to Jews and their ancestors, the Israelites, demonstrates the impo... more The large number of references to Jews and their ancestors, the Israelites, demonstrates the important status Jews held in the region from which the Qur’an emerged in late antiquity. It also attests to the literary complexity of the use of these references, for it is likely that the different ways of referring to Jews carry different cultural meanings that might be recovered with further in-depth research. The Qur’an cannot avoid the Jews, nor does it wish to, yet it nevertheless expresses a clear ambivalence. In some contexts it expresses admiration and esteem: “Surely We sent down the Torah, containing guidance and light. By means of it the prophets who had submitted (al-nabīyūn al-ladhīna aslamū) rendered judgment for the Jews, and [so did] the rabbis and the teachers (wal-rabbāniyyūn wal-aḥbār), with what they were entrusted of the Book of God, and they were witnesses to it” (5:44). More often, however, the Qur’an is highly critical of Jews. This essay teases out the complexity of the Qur'anic polemic toward Jews.
CCAR Press, 2020
Reflections on the second commandment prohibiting idolatry.
Critical Reflection on Interreligious Education: Experiments in Empathy
Because seminaries are designed to further the goals of the religious communities that fund and s... more Because seminaries are designed to further the goals of the religious communities that fund and support them, interreligious learning may not be generally accepted as fulfill¬ing their institutional needs. This perspective derives from the history of interreligious polemic and competition between and within monotheist traditions, based on the as¬sumption that God represents a single Truth that cannot be compromised, and that our expression of religion represents that Truth. This essay interrogates these assump¬tions and argues that true understanding must transcend the limits of religious institu¬tion and offers an instructive way to understand the distinctiveness of one’s particular spiritual tradition in relation to other attempts to understand the Infinite.
Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, 2020
This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological re lations... more This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological re lationship between the Qur'an and Judaism (the Qur'an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur'an toward Judaism (the Qur'an on Judaism). The former includes perspectives offered by pre-modern and contemporary non-Muslim researchers regarding the Qur'an and its relationship to the religion and culture of Ju daism; the latter considers how the Qur'an itself appears to evaluate Judaism. Both are considered within an explicit evaluative framework of assessment that reflects on the problematic of tension inherent in the relationship between established religion and emergent religion
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Papers by Reuven Firestone