Jewish-Christianity and the Origins of Islam

Jewish Christianity and the Origins of Islam, consisting of seven essays, is the result of a two-day seminar that was organized by the volume’s editor, Francisco del Rio Sanchez, during the 2015 annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), which was held in Washington, DC. Contributors were asked to study and test the hypothesis that the earliest form of Islam and its holy book are influenced by a specific form of Christianity, namely Jewish Christianity. The hypothesis looks attractive but is not without its own problems. Guillaume Dye critically examines three core concepts of the hypothesis and finds them wanting in various respects. The central question looks simple: “Is there a Jewish-Christian influence at the core of the most primitive Islam?” (11). The answer is complicated by the fact that all three notions in this citation pose problems. Scholars do not agree on how to define “Jewish-Christianity”; the notion of “influence” has long been problematized in various disciplines; and it is unclear how to define “primitive Islam.”

Robert Hoyland seems to hold a more positive view but actually remains quite uncommitted on the double question of whether there existed a written Arabic translation of the Bible at the time of Mohammed and whether to assume that Jewish-Christian communities were responsible for transmitting biblical material in Western Arabia.

Simon Mimouni contributes an essay on the notion of the “True Prophet” that is usually linked to Jewish-Christian (Ebionite?) circles and similar notions on the “Seal of the Prophets” in Manichaeism and Islam. He argues that Jewish Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam are basically independent from each other, but somehow may be linked. Mimouni tentatively suggests that such a link may be found in their common interest in misleading potential enemies about the identity of “their” prophet (an example of taqiyya, or “tactical dissimulation”). The suggestion is not without interest, but it remains to be seen why Jewish-Christians would have needed this strategy.

del Rio Sanchez offers a survey of the (modified) reception of the old thesis of John Toland about the influence of Jewish-Christian doctrine and praxis on early Islam. He also addresses the possible counterargument that can be made from Patristic evidence about the decline of Jewish-Christianity in the 4^th and 5^th century. The latter leads him to embrace attempts at offering  “a reformulation of the meaning of  the concept ‘Jewish Christianity’” (82). That is a viable option but it means that we should no longer be interested in establishing links that run from the 2^nd (or even 1^st?) to the 7^th century.

Carlos Segovia focuses on a concrete case, the situation of Jews and Christians in pre-Islamic Yemen, and in particular on a Christological formula found in a number of inscriptions from the time of the former-army-commander-turned-usurper Abraha, around 535, that speak not of “God’s son,” but of “God’s messiah,” a formula Segovia takes as evidence of the Yemeni Jews and Christians’ intended distancing from Miaphysitism, as witnessed in Ethiopia.

Stephen Shoemaker dismisses the term “Jewish Christianity” as vague and outdated, and proposes as an alternative to focus on forms on “non-Trinitarian” Christianity (in Ethiopia and South Arabia) as a possible frame in which Islam could feel at home in borrowing from Christian doctrine. The evidence for this type of Christianity is scanty and currently limited to the inscriptions from Abraha’s time mentioned above.

Holger Zellentin takes a different approach, one focused on a practice that is commonly said to be of concern above all to Christians of Jewish descent—gentile purity rules (see Lev 17). He traces the handling of this practice in the Hebrew Bible, in early Christianity and the Judaism of that time, in later Gentile Christianity (distinguishing between what he calls an “appreciative, dismissive, and expansive” approach, 132), and in the Qur’an, noting a tendency to interpret this practice in an expansive way.

As one can expect, the book offers suggestions and explores new venues rather than giving solutions that can be accepted by all. But that is in itself not a bad thing. The essays also show that, as before, opinions on what constitutes Jewish Christianity remain up for debate, but also that some contributors continue to use it (del Rio Sanchez, Zellentin). One aspect of the question of clarifying the origins of Islam that is sometimes brought to the table is how much place should be given to the efforts made in earliest Islamic circles in appropriating for themselves what was originally Christian doctrine or teaching. It is one thing to trace the existence of particular Christian teaching, it is another to draw a direct line from there to what is read in the Qu’ran.

Joseph Verheyden is a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium.  

Joseph Verheyden

Date Of Review:

September 27, 2022