L’auteur

Holger Michael Zellentin est Maitre de Conférence à l’Université de Nottingham (GB)

Présentation personnelle : Je suis un spécialiste du Proche et Moyen-Orient antique, avec comme centre d’intérêt le judaïsme de l’époque d’Alexandre le Grand jusqu’au début de l’Islam. Mes projets de recherche actuels comprennent une préhistoire religieuse de l’Islam et une étude de la manière dont les rabbins du Talmud intègrent les récits chrétiens. Je bénéficie d’une subvention de la British Arts and Humanities Research Council. Je travaille aussi sur le judaïsme hellénistique et sur la sociologie et l’anthropologie des religions antiques.

(Source : University of Nottingham)

Presentation

The Qur’ān, emphasizing ritual purity and the role of Jesus as giver of God’s positive law, preserves aspects of an earlier Jesus movement that most Christian groups diluted or rejected. The Didascalia Apostolorum , a late ancient church order, records a significant number of the laws promulgated in the Qur’ān, but does not fully endorse them when it comes to purity. Likewise, the Didascalia’ legal narratives about the Israelites and about Jesus, as well as the legal and theological vocabulary of the Syriac (Eastern Christian Aramaic) version of the Didascalia, recurrently show kinship with the Arabic Qur’ān, amplifying the apparent affinities between the two texts. The Qur’ān, however, is not "based" on the Didascalia in any direct way ; detailed comparison of the two documents illustrates the absence of textual influence in either direction. Both texts should rather be read against the background of the practices and the oral discourse shared by their respective audiences : a common legal culture.
In this volume, Holger M. Zellentin offers new insights into Late Antique Judaism and Christianity, into the continuity of Judaeo-Christian law and narrative within Jewish and Christian mainstream communities past the fourth century, and into the community that the Qur’ān first addressed. Understanding how the Qur’ān parts ways with contemporaneous forms of Christianity and Judaism, both in the initial and in subsequent phases of the internal development of its legal culture, allows for a more precise appreciation of its message. (Source : http://www.mohr.de/)

Table des matières

Foreword

Introduction : Late Antiquity Legal Culture, Judeaeo-Christianity, and the Qur’an

• Chapter One : The Didascalia’s Laws and the Qur’ans Abrogations
• Chapter Two : Ritual Law in the Didascalia, the Clementine Homilies, and in the Qur’an
• Chapter Three : Narratives of Law in the Disdascalia and in the Qur’an
• Chapter Four : Jesus, Muhammad, and the Judaeo-Christian Food Laws
• Conclusion : Judaeo-Christian Legal Culture as a point of Departure for the Qur’an
• Epilogue : The Qur’an between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism

Bibliography
Citation Index
Author Index
Subject Index

Extraits (Foreword)

"The following pages contextualize the Qur’ân’s legal aspects within the religious culture of its time, the early seventh century of the Common Era. I hold that a majority of the laws promulgated in the Qur’ân, as well as its legal narratives about israelites and about Jesus, have close commonalities to the laws and narratives of the Didascalia Apostolorum. The legal and theological vocabulary of the Arabic Qur’ân likewise shows much affinity with that of teh Syriac (Eastern Christian Aramaic) version of the Didascalia ; This shared vocabulary corroborates the legal and narrative commonalities between the two texts ; That said, the Qur’ân is not "based" on the Didascalia in any direct way. Detailed comparison of the two documents will illustrate the absence of textual influence in either direction ; Both should rather be read against the background of the oral discourse shared by their audiences." (p. vii).