1

God Among the Gods

Divine Plurality in the Quran in the Light of Biblical

and Ancient Near Eastern Mythic Tradition

Professor Wesley Williams, PhD.

Lecture delivered at the Milwaukee Public Museum as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the

Bible Exhibition Series, April 15, 2010

(Work in Progress. Please note that this paper is only a summary of a

larger work on the subject currently being prepared. This presentation is

therefore not to be taken as representing my case for divine plurality in

the Quran. My actually case will be made in that larger work.)

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Gerald Hawting, in taking up and elaborating upon John Wansbroughs insistence that

emergent Islam be seen as a continuation of the Near Eastern Semitic monotheistic tradition,

makes an important observation:

That Islam is indeed related to Judaism and Christianity as part of the Middle Eastern, Abrahamic or Semitic tradition of monotheism seems so obvious and is so often said that it might be wondered why it was thought necessary to repeat it. The reason is that although it is often said, acceptance of Islam as a representative of the monotheist religious tradition is not always accompanied by willingness to think through the implications of the statement.1

While both Muslim tradition and Western scholarship articulate a recognition of Islams

place within the Semitic monotheistic tradition, not only is there often an unwillingness to

embrace the implications of this recognition, but there is also in practice the tendency to distance

Islam from that tradition.2 This is particularly the case regarding the Islamic doctrine of God.

Reflection upon the theological implications of Islam as a Semitic religion might highlight some

pretty radical discontinuities between Islam, or at least the normative formulation and

articulation of Islam, and the pre-Quranic Semitic tradition. Not that one can essentialize with

such a diverse tradition that is the Semitic tradition; but there are some common characteristic

features that transcend the linguistic and ethnic groups designated Semitic.

Take for example what Hawting refers to as the Semitic tradition of monotheism. As the

historical-critical and philological studies have shown us, this is not the same as the signature

Muslim doctrine of tawhid, proclaiming Gods Unity. tawhid, in its normative articulation, is

much more than the declaration: L ilha illallah There is no god but God. The Quran

considers shirk, associating (others) with God, as the greatest of sins. But the normative

doctrine of tawhid goes beyond the Qurans polemic against the worship of other gods; it also

involves the recognition of a radical divine transcendence and ontological simplicity or unicity.3

God is khilf al-#lam, the absolute divergence from the world and this characteristically

1 G.R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (Cambridge, 1999), xi-xii. 2 See Gerald Hawting, John Wansbrough, Islam, and monotheism, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 9 (1997),

special issue, Islamic Origins Reconsidered: John Wansbrough and the Study of Early Islam, ed. Herbert Berg, 23-38; Chase F.

Robinson, Reconstructing Early Islam: Truth and Consequences, in Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins,

ed. Herbert Berg (Leiden, 2003),102-134. 3 William A. Graham, Transcendence in Islam, in Ways of Transcendence; Insights From Major Religions and Modern

Thought, ed. Edwin Dowdy (Bedford Park, South Australia, 1982), 7-23; Gary Legenhausen, Is God a Person? RelS 22 (1986): 307-323; W.M. Watt, Some Muslim Discussions of Anthropomorphism, in idem, Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh, 1990), 87.

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Islamic doctrine of mukhlafa (divine) otherness precludes divine corporeality and

anthropomorphism, for these inherently would involve the divine essence in a multiplicity,

which is the very antithesis of tawhid as currently understood.4

This articulation of tawhid and it is but one of several pre-modern articulations of Gods

oneness - diverges significantly from what we know of the Semitic tradition of monotheism.

Ancient Israel stood in linguistic, cultural and religious continuity with her neighbors in the

Levant.5 Morton Smith suggested in a classic article in 1952 that Israel participated in what he

called the common theology of the ancient Near East.6 However ill-defined this concept of an

ANE common theology, it is clear that the God(s) of Israel and the gods of the ANE actually

differed less than has been supposed.7 The ANE model of divine transcendence in general

embraced both otherness and corporeality/anthropomorphism: the gods were transcendently

anthropomorphic, to use Ronald Hendels term.8 That is to say, while the gods possessed an

anthropoid or human-like form, this form was also in a fundamental way unlike that of humans

in that it was transcendent, either in size, beauty, the substance of which it was composed, or all

4 Muhammad Ibrahim H.I. Surty, The Conception of God In Muslim Tradition, IQ 37 (1993),127ff; J. Windrow

Sweetman defined the principle of mukhlafa, to which the majority (of Muslims) adhered, thus: all that is said of God is said with a difference and it has become proverbial that nothing the mind can devise can convey anything about Allah there can be no doubt that the rejection of the corporeality of God is essential. Islam and Christian Theology, 3 Parts, 4 vols. (London, 1947)1. II:34, 36. 5 Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2

nd edn (Grand Rapids,

Mich., 2002) 19-31; Michael David Coogan, Canaanite Origins and Lineage: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient Israel, in Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride (eds), Ancient Israelite religion: essays in honor of Frank Moore Cross (Philadelphia, 1987) 115-124; John Day, Ugarit and the Bible: Do They Presuppose the Same Canaanite Mythology and Religion? in George J. Brooke, Adrian H.W. Curtis and John F. Healey (eds), Ugarit and the Bible: proceedings of the International Symposium on Ugarit and the Bible,

Manchester, September 1992 (Mnster, 1994) 35-52. 6 The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East, JBL 71 (1952): 135-147.

7 Bernhard Lang, The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity (New Haven and London, 2002); Nicholas Wyatt,

Degrees of Divinity: Some mythical and ritual aspects of West Semitic kingship, UF 31 (1999): 853-87; Edward L Greenstein, The God of Israel and the Gods of Canaan: How Different were they? Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29-August 5, 1997, Division A (Jerusalem, 1999): 47-58; J. J. M. Roberts, Divine Freedom and Cultic Manipulation in Israel and Mesopotamia, in idem, The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays (Winona Lake, Indiana, 2002) 72-85; E. Theodore Mullen, Jr. The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (Harvard Semitic Monographs 24; Chico, 1980). On biblical

monotheism and divine plurality see: Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the meaning of "monotheism"

(Tbingen, 2003); Smith, Early History of God; idem, Origins of Biblical Monotheism; John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (JSOT Supplement Series 265, Sheffield, 2000); Samuel Shaviv, The Polytheistic Origins of the

Biblical Flood Narrative, VT 54 (2004): 527-548; David Noel Freedman, Who is Like Thee Among the Gods?

The Religion of Ancient Israel, in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, eds. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson and S. Dean McBride (Philadelphia, 1987), 315-335. 8 Ronald S.Hendel, Aniconism and Anthropomorphism in Ancient Israel, in The Image and the Book. Iconic Cults,

Aniconism, and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Karel van der Toorn (CBET 21; Leuven, 1997), 205-228.

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of the above.9 Thus, the oft-invoked bipolar opposition between divine transcendence on the

one hand and anthropomorphism on the other is artificial and inapplicable here. So too is the

dichotomous pair monotheism and polytheism. Both of these terms, with their origin and

context in Enlightenment rationalism,10 lack any real value when discussing ANE and Semitic

religious tradition. Recognition of this fact has therefore spawned new scholarly terms such as

henotheism and monolatry in an attempt to more accurately describe the religious situations

reflected in the texts.

Like the gods of the ANE, the god of Israel and biblical tradition was transcendently

anthropomorphic.11 No doubt the signature feature of this transcendent anthropomorphism is a

dazzling radiance, a brilliant and dangerous luminosity that is the morphic manifestation of

Gods holiness.12 In the Priestly materials of the Hebrew Bible this dazzling divine body is

9 On transcendent anthropomorphism in ancient Near Eastern and Classical tradition see Hendel, Aniconism and

Anthropomorphism; Jean-Pierre Vernant, Dim Body, Dazzling Body, in Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part One, eds. Michel Feher, Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi (New York, 1989), 19-47. On ANE/Semitic anthropomorphism generally see J. Hamori, When Gods Were Men: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature (BZAW 384; Berlin and New York, 2008); Tallay Ornan, The Triumph of the Symbol: Pictorial Representations of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical Image Ban (OBO 213; Fribourg, 2005); Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israels Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford, 2001), 27-35; Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, 3rd edn

(London and New York, 1992), 85-98; Maryo Christina Annette Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine (Mnster, 1990; but on Korpels forced attempt to impute metaphoric intentions to the Canaanites see the review by Marvin H. Pope in UF 22 [1990]: 497-502); James B. Pritchard, The Gods and their Symbols, in idem, The Ancient Near East in Pictures, Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1954), 160-85; Stephen Herbert Langdon, Semitic Mythology (Boston, 1931). 10

See MacDonald, Deuteronomy, Chapter 1. 11

Wesley Williams, A Body Unlike Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and

Early Islam, JAOS 129 (2009): 19-44; Hendel, Aniconism and Anthropomorphism, 223, 225; van der Toorn,

God (1) , 361f. On biblical anthropomorphism and an anthropomorphic deity see further Frank Michaeli, Dieu a lImage de lHomme. Etude de la notion anthropomorphique de Dieu dans lAncien Testament (Neuchtel-Paris, 1950); James Barr, Theophany and Anthropomorphism in the OT, VTSup 7 (1960): 31-38; Edmond LaB. Cherbonnier, The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism, HTR 55 (1962): 187-206; Binyamin Uffenheimer, Biblical Theology and Monotheistic Myth, Immanuel 14 (Spring 1982): 7-25 (= Myth and Reality in Ancient Israel, in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. S.N. Eisenstadt, [Albany, 1986] 135-168); Jacob Neusner, Conversation in Nauvoo about the Corporeality of God, BYU Studies 36 (1996-97): 7-30; Stephen Moore, Gigantic God: Yahwehs

Body, JSOT 70 (1996): 87-115; Karel van der Toorn, God (1) , in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, eds. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter W. van der Horst, 2nd edn (Leiden and Boston, 1999; hereafter DDD), 361-365; J. Andrew Dearman, Theophany, Anthropomorphism, and the Imago Dei: Some Observations about the Incarnation in the Light of the Old Testament, in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God, eds. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald OCollins (Oxford and New York, 2002), 31-46;

James L. Kugel, the God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York, 2003), 5-107; Ulrich Mauser, God in Human Form, Ex Auditu 16 (2000): 81-100; idem, Image of God and Incarnation, Int 24 (1970): 336-356; David J.A. Clines, Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology, Theology 83 (1980): 323-330; Hamori, When Gods Were Men. 12

Smith, Origins, 93-97.

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called kavod.13 It is for this reason, we are given to understand, that humans cant see God. Not

because God is invisible, but because humans are unholy, and unholy beings are in great

danger in the immediate presence of Gods consuming, morphic holiness.14 This tradition of

transcendent anthropomorphism evident in the HB is even presupposed in the NT, for example

with Pauls inaugural Christophany experience and the Gospel narratives of the transfiguration

of Christ.15

Likewise did Israelite and Biblical religion solve the problem of the One and the Many with

the use of a characteristically ANE tradition: the Divine Council. In the religious world of the

ANE, the cosmos was understood to be ruled by gods who convened in a council or assembly to

deliberate and make decisions about the world and its inhabitants.16 Of particular significance

seems to have been a group of twelve great gods, associated with the signs of the Zodiac, who

served as a sort of executive board over which sat the Supreme God of the pantheon.17

Similarly, Semitic monotheism, we now know, was anything but monotheistic in the strict

sense.18 Monolatrous at best, this Semitic tradition acknowledged the existence of other deities

who sat encircled around the God of Israel as a divine court, praising Him, serving Him, and

13

TDNT 2:241 s.v. : C. in the OT by G. von Rad. On the luminous, anthropomorphic kbd of P and priestly tradition see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972) 191-209, esp.

200-206; idem, TDOT 7:31-33 s.v. ; Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (CWK Gleerup, 1982), Chapters Three and Four; J. E. Fossum, Glory, DDD 348-52; A. Joseph Everson, Ezekiel and the Glory of the Lord Tradition, in Sin, Salvation, and the Spirit, ed. Daniel Durken (Collegeville, Minnesota, 1979), 163-176; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 The Anchor Bible (Garden City,

New York, 1983), 52f; idem, Ezekiels Vision: Literary and Iconographic Aspects, in History, Historiography and Interpretation, eds. H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1983), 159-168. 14

See Wesley Williams, Tajall wa-Ruya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and Visio Dei in the Hebrew

Bible, the Qurn and Early Sunn Islam, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of Michigan, 2008), Chapter II. 15

Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Pauls Gospel (Tbingen, 1981) 137-267; Alan F. Segal, Paul and the Beginning of Jewish Mysticism, in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, eds. John J. Collins and Michael Fishbane (New York, 1995) 95-122; idem, Paul the Convert. The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven/London, 1990) 35-71. 16 Lowell K. Handy, Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1994); E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Assembly of the Gods, Harvard Semitic Monographs 24 (Chico, Cal.: Scholars Press, 1980); Thorkild Jacobsen, Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia, JNES 2 (1943): 159-172; idem, Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven andLondon: Yale Univesity Press, 1976) 86-91. 17 Twelve deities were responsible for making the various elements of the larger Sumerian world order function properly and efficiently. They constituted a higher order of deitiesbut not the highest. Richard E. Averbeck, Myth, Ritual and Oder in Enki and the World Order , 771. See further: Charlotte R. Long, Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome (The Origins of the Twelve Gods; Greece and the Near East to ca. 350 B.C.) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987) 139-144; J Gwyn Griffiths, The Order of Gods in Greece and Egypt (According to Herodotus), Journal of Hellenic Studies 75 (1955) 21-23. 18 Michael S. Heiser, Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward and Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible, Bulletin for Biblical Research 18 (2008): 1-30.

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fighting along side Him in battle, but also deliberating with Him in important matters, such as

the creation of man (Gen 1:26) or over the best means by which an errant king of Israel might be

enticed into his own destruction (I Kings 22).19

Characteristic of the biblical world view a view, I argue, that lies behind the Qurans

polemic against associating other gods with God is Deut 32 and Psalms 82.20

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, he

fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God [ ].21 But the Lords portion is His people, Jacob His allotted heritage.

The view of this passage and others from the book of Deuteronomy such as 4:19-20 and 29:25 is

that God divided the peoples of the world up according to the number of the sons of God, the

divine beings recognized as surrounding Yahweh,22 and he allotted to the Gentile nations one of

those divine beings as a god of that nation, to whom worship for those nations was

legitimate. Israel, however, was retained by Yahweh himself and she, Israel, was to worship and

serve him alone.23 These gods of the nations were real, according to the Deuteronomist and

19

On the divine council in biblical tradition see Michael S. Heiser, The Divine Council in Late Canonical

and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004); DDD 204-208 s.v. Council ; Smith, Origins, 41-53; Lowell K. Handy, The Appearance of the Pantheon in Judah, in Edelman, Triumph of Elohim, 27-43; idem, Among the Host of Heaven; idem, The Authorization of Divine Power and the Guilt of God in the Book of Job: Useful Ugaritic Parallels, JSOT 60 (1993): 107-18; idem, Dissenting Deities or Obedient Angels: Divine Hierarchies in Ugarit and the Bible, Biblical Research 35 (1990): 18-35; Timothy M. Willis, Yahwehs Elders (Isa 24,23): Senior Officials of the Divine Court, ZAW 103 (1991): 375-85; P.D. Miller, Cosmology and World Order in the Old Testament: The Divine Council as Cosmic-Political

Symbol, HBT 9 (1987): 53-78; Mullen, Jr., Assembly of the Gods; Richard J. Clifford, The Tent of El and the Israelite

Tent of Meeting, CBQ 33 (1971): 221-27. 20 On which see Heiser, Divine Council, Chapter Three. 21 4QDeutj. See Patrick W. Skehan, A Fragment of the Song of Moses (Deut. 32) From Qumran, BASOR 136 (1954): 12-15 22

DDD 794-800 s.v. Sons of (The) Gods () by S.B. Parker; Gerald Cooke, The Sons of (The) God(s), ZAW 76 (1964): 22-47. 23

See e.g. Michael S. Heiser, Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God, Biblical Sacra 158 (January-March 2001): 52-74; MacDonald, Deuteronomy, 89-94; Paul Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32 (Outestamentische Studien 37; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996) 363-364. On the gods of the nations see Daniel I. Block, The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Baker Academic, 2000 [1988]); DDD 662-664 s.v. Prince by J.J. Collins; Ioan P. Culianu, The Angels of the Nations and the Origins of Gnostic Dualism, in R. van den Broek and M.J. Vermaseren

(edd.), Studies in Gnosticsm and Hellenisic Religions presented to Giles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981) 78-91; David E. Stevens, Daniel 10 and the Notion of Territorial Spirits, Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (October-December 2000): 410-31; Guardian Angels and Angelic National Patrons in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, in Friedrich V. Reiterer, Tobias Nicklas, and Karin

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other biblical authors, and as such were a real threat to Israels fidelity, for she was constantly

tempted to follow after gods not allotted to her. Neither the first commandment nor the Shema,

assumed to be the signatures of biblical monotheism, in any way denies the existence of these

other deities, as Nathan Macdonald and others have convincingly demonstrated.24 Neither does

the Deuteronomist in general nor Deutero-Isaiah.25 These only affirm that Yahweh is

incomparable and is Israels only God, to whom she is obligated to exclusively and faithfully

serve and worship. The duty of these gods of the nations was to maintain the welfare and

prosperity of their subjects and uphold justice in their respective lands. Failure to do so

threatened cosmic order, and eventually resulted in these gods dethronement.26 This is no

doubt the significance of Psalms 82, the first eight verses: God judges the gods of the nations to

have failed in this duty and he thus depotentiates them. For their mal-governance these gods

are busted from their post, if you will, and sentenced to the fate of mere mortals. God himself is

then called to universalize his rule: he is called to take over the inheritance of all of the nations,

not just Israel.27 From the Apostle Pauls perspective, the setting down of the gods of the nations

or rulers of this world as he called them, is associated with the Christ event. In other words, it

is the coming and exaltation of Christ that effectively disenfranchises these powers; from that

point on all human beings are to worship God alone, not the inferior beings around him.28

Schpflin (edd.), Angels: The Concept of Celestial Beings - Origins, Development and Reception (Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2007; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007) 413-435. 24 MacDonald, Deuteronomy, 60-77. 25 On the Divine Council in Deutero-Isaiah see Heiser, Divine Council, Chapter Four; Christopher R. Seitz, The Divine Council: Temporal Transition and New Prophecy in the Book of Isaiah, JBL 109 (1990): 229-247; R.N. Whybray, The Heavenly Counsellor in Isaiah xl 13-14: A Study of the Sources of the Theology of Deutero-Isaiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1971); Frank M. Cross, Jr., The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah, JNES 12 (1953): 274-277. 26 Block, Gods of the Nations, 151; Mullen, Assembly of the Gods, 237. 27 Heiser, Divine Council, 74-89; Simon B. Parker, The Beginning of the Reign of God Psalm 82 as Myth and Liturgy, RB 102-4 (1995): 32-559; Kenneth M. Craig, Jr., Between Text and Sermon: Psalm 82 Interpretation 49 (1995): 281-284; Patrick D. Miller, Jr., When the Gods Meet: Psalm 82 and the Issue of Justice, Journal for Preachers 9 (1986):2-5; Matitiahu Tsevat, God and the Gods in Assembly: An Interpretation of Psalm 82, HUCA 40 (1969): 123-37. On the mythological background see Cyrus H. Gordon, History of Religion in Psalm 82, in Gary A. Tuttle (ed.), Biblical and Near Eastern studies : essays in honor of William Sanford LaSor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978)129-131; Julian Morgenstern, The Mythological Background of Psalm 82, HUCA 14 (1939): 29-126. 28 E.g. Col 2:15; (cf. I Pet 3:22); I Cor 15:24. See further: Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz and Reimund Bieringer, Guardians of the Old at the Dawn of the New: The Role of Angels According to the Pailine Letters, in Friedrich V. Reiterer, Tobias Nicklas, and Karin Schpflin (edd.), Angels: The Concept of Celestial Beings - Origins, Development and Reception (Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2007; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007) 325-355; DDD 866 s.v. Thrones by M. de Jonge; Clinton E. Arnold, Returning to the Domain of the Powers: Stoicheia as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4:3, 9, NovTest

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Again, I suggest that the Qurans insistence that no other gods are to be associated with God is

to be understood in this context: the disenfranchisement of the old gods of the nations.

This ancient Near Eastern/Semitic transcendent anthropomorphism and monolatry stand in

stark contrast to normative Islamic notions of tawhid. But this, as Fazlur Rahman well pointed

out, does not emerge from the Quran, but from later theological development in Islam.29

This later theological development included the appropriation of Hellenistic concepts and

terms in order to interpret the Qur"an and the Sunna, particularly the statements about God.30 In

a paper published recently in the Journal of the American Oriental Society entitled, A Body Unlike

Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and Early Islam (129

[2009]: 19-44), I document a long tradition, beginning no doubt with the Quran, of Islamic

transcendent anthropomorphism similar in many ways to that articulated in ANE and biblical

sources. Being considerate of the time I will cite but one example. Muhammad b. Khuzayma,

one of the most prominent traditionalist scholars in Nishapur who died in 924, wrote an

important book, appropriately entitled Kitb ut-tawd, The Book on Divine Unity. In this

work the scholar takes up the charge that he and his traditionalist colleagues, by affirming the

literal meaning of the Divine Attributes as found in the Quran and Sunna, were guilty of

tashbih, likening God to His creation. Now pretty much all schools of thought rejected tashbih

as a theological error, including the traditionalist scholars represented by Ibn Khuzayma, but

there were differing opinions on exactly what constituted likening God to his creation.31 From

the perspective of Ibn Khuzaymas theological adversaries, affirming the literal significance of

scriptural anthropomorphisms qualified as tashbih and was considered the antithesis of

mukhlafa, divine otherness, that principle so fundamental to the current orthodox articulation

38 (1996): 55-76; idem, owers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Pauls Letters (Downers Grove, Il; InterVarsity Press, 1992); John Koenig, Christ and the Hierarchies in First Corinthians, Anglican Theological Review 11 (1990): 99-113; Pierre Benoit, Pauline Angelology and Demonology: Reflexions on the Designation of the Heavenly Powers and the Origin of Angelic Evil According to Paul, Religious Studies Bulletin 1 (1983): 1-18;Jung Young Lee, Interpreting the Demonic Powers in Pauline Thought, NovTest 12 (1970): 54-69. 29

Fazlur Rahman, The Qur"nic Concept of God, the Universe and Man, IS 6(1967): 2 [art.=1-19]. 30

Morris S. Seal, Muslim Theology: A Study of Origins with Reference to the Church Fathers (London, 1964); R.M. Frank, The Neoplantonism of >ahm Ibn afwn, Mus 78 (1965): 395-424; idem, The Divine Attributes According to the Teachings of Abu L-Hudhayl Al-Allaf, Mus 82 (1969): 451-506; Binyamin Abrahamov, #Abbb ibn

Sulaymn on Gods Transcendence, Some Notes, Isl 71 (1994): 109-120; idem, Far al-Dn al-Rz on the Knowability of Gods Essence and Attributes, Arabica 49 (2002): 204-230; Ian Richard Netton, Allh Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology (London, 1989). 31 See EI2 10: 341-344 s.v. Tashbh wa-Tanzh by Josef van Ess; EI14:685f s.v. Tashbh by R. Strothmann.

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of tawhid. Ibn Khuzayma and those for whom he wrote had a very different conception of

tawhid however, and of tashbih. In his book the many anthropomorphisms attributed to God in

the Quran and Sunna are catalogued, discussed and affirmed.32 Discussing their affirmation

that God truly has a face (wajh), against those who claimed that Gods face in the Qur"n is only

a metaphor for His essence (dht), Ibn Khuzayma writes:

God has affirmed for Himself a Splendid and Venerable face, which He declares is eternal and non-perishable. We and all scholars of our madhhab from the Hijaz, the Tihama, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt affirm for God (the) face, which He has affirmed for Himself. We profess it with our tongues and believe it in our hearts, without likening (qhayr an nashabbiha) His face to one from His creatures. May our Lord be exalted above our likening Him to His creatures We and all our scholars in all our lands say that the one we worship has a faceAnd we say that the face of our Lord

(radiates) a brilliant, radiant light (al-nr wa al-iy" wa-bah") which, if His veil is removed the glory of His face will scorch everything that sees it. His eyes are veiled from the people of this world who will never see Him during this life...The face of our Lord is eternal Now God has decreed for human faces destruction and denied them splendor and venerability. They are not attributed the light, brilliance or splendor (al-nr wa al-iy" wa-bah") that He described His face with. Eyes in this world may catch human faces without the latter scorching so much as a single hair...Human faces are rooted in time (mudatha) and created...Every human face perishesOh you possessors of reason (dhaw al-ijan), could it ever really occur to any one with sense and who knows Arabic and knows what tashbh (means) that this (transient and dull human) face is like that (splendidly brilliant face of God)?

We have here the affirmation of anthropomorphism and the concomitant disavowal of tashbih.

Ibn Khuzayma here adamantly argues for Gods possession of a true face, but one dangerously

radiant and non-perishable, in contrast to mans perishable and dull face: transcendent

anthropomorphism. Gods is a face, unlike faces for he has a body, unlike bodies, as it was said

in these circles. This, according to Ibn Khuzaymah, is how tawhid is to be understood.

Understood thusly, the divine essence can accommodate ontological multiplicities, and this not

threaten His Unity.

Now admittedly this is later Sunnism, or at least one formulation of later Sunnism, and

not the Quran. But so too is the normative articulation of tawhid that we have been discussing a

32

On anthropomorphisms in the Quran see Encyclopedia of the Qur"n (Leiden, 2001) 1: 106 s.v. Anthropomorphism by Richard C. Martin. On anthropomorphisms within the Sunna see also Daniel Gimaret, Dieu limage de lhomme: les anthropomorphismes de la sunna et leur interprtation par les thologiens (Paris, 1997).

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later theological development. What Ibn Khuzayma shows us is that there were multiple ways

of reading the Quran and understanding its message of monotheism, and we scholars must

resist succumbing to the pious fiction that there is only one reading and one such

understanding, an understanding that happens to comport with the Post-Enlightenment Jewish

and Christian understandings of monotheism.

With that last point in mind, let us turn to the Quran, in particular what I call Quranic

Problematics. This is a sampling of passages in the Quran which I believe are problematic in

themselves and which problemetizes this normative articulation of tawhid. They therefore invite

a different method of reading the Quran. They invite us to read the Quran not retrospectively

but contextually; not from the perspective of the world in front of the text but from the

perspective of the world behind the text. In other words, instead of looking back at the Quran

from the vantage point of later medieval Islamic exegetical traditions much of which is

haggadic - look at the Quran from a contextual viewpoint, i.e. in the light of the Late Antique

Near Eastern context in which it emerged.33 The very allusive and referential nature of Quranic

discourse, it seems to me, demands the recognition of a subtextual discourse34; a discourse

which was alive already when the Quran developed and in which the Quran inserted itself as

a participant and, in doing so, in a sense legitimized that discourse.35 This pre-Quranic

discourse no doubt took place in the Hejaz arguments for a Mesopotamian or more northern

context fail to convince. This discourse may also be characterized as a biblical discourse in that

33 A. Rippin, The Qur"n as Literature: Perils, Pitfalls and Prospects, BBSMES 10 (1983): 38-47; idem, God, in Andrew Rippin (ed.), Blackwell Companion to the Qur"n (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006) 225. This point was made as well by Umar F. Abd-Allh, The Perceptible and the Unseen: The Quranic Conception of Mans Relationship to God and Realities Beyond Human Perception, in Spencer J. Palmer (ed.), Mormons & Muslims:

Spiritual Foundations and Modern Manifestations (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, 2002) 161 [art.=153-204]:

Accurate understanding of the pre-Islamic background within which Islm arose is essential to the full understanding of the Islmic religion. See also Mondher Sfar, Le Coran, la Bible et lOrient ancient (Paris: Cassini, 1997). For various recent attempts at such a reading see Gabriel Said Reynolds (ed.), The Qurn in Its Historical Context (London and New York: Routledge, 2008). 34

Reuven Firestone makes the point, rightly from my perspective, that Islams scripture could not possibly exist without its scriptural predecessors as subtext. Reuven Firestone, The Qur"n and the Bible: Some Modern Studies

of Their Relationship, in John C. Reeves (ed.), Bible and Qurn: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 2-3. 2-3. 35

As John C. Reeves noted (Preface, in idem, Bible and Qurn, ix) the Qur"n places itself within the biblical world of discourse. See also Daniel A. Madigan, The Qur"ns Self Image: Writing and Authority in Islams Scripture (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001) 193: What is often overlooked in discussing the

relationship of Islam to earlier religious traditions is that the Qur"n in effect chooses to define itself in their terms.

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biblical figures, narratives and motifs play central roles.36 But biblical here must not be

understood as deriving from, anchored in or defined by the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible

or the Canonical New Testament. Rather, these latter texts, along with the Versions and other

para-biblical texts such as the Apocrapha and Midrashic materials, must be seen as aspects of

Bible, if you will. That is to say, they are all the MT included - particular concretizations of

aspects of the oral biblical discourse that was taking place in a shared discourse environment.37

This is certainly the case from the Qurans perspective, for its biblical allusions are often to

these parabiblical materials and sources, rather than to our standard editions.38 I therefore

suggest that the Biblical subtext is as important sometimes more important - to a proper

reading of the Quran as is the later exegetic tradition that grew up around it and tried

sometimes desperately to make sense of it. The particular passages discussed here are

examples.

36 Gabriel Said Reynolds, Reading the Quran Through the Bible, First Things (November 2009) 17-20; Firestone, Qur"n and the Bible, 2-3; Robert Tottoli, Biblical Prophets in the Qur"n and Muslim Literature (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002); Thomas J. OShaughnessy S.J., Gods Throne and the Biblical Symbolism of the Qur"n, Numen 20 (1973): 202-221; Dwight Baker, Islam and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition: The Significance of Quranic and Biblical Parelles (sic), Bangalore Theological Forum 14 (1982): 44-68. 37

S. Talmon Textual Criticism: The Ancient Versions, in A.D.H. Mayes (ed.), Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 157; Eugene Ulrich, The Text of the Hebrew Scriptures at the Time of Hillel and Jesus, in A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Basel 2001 (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 86-108;idem, The Bible in the Making: The Scriptures Found at Qumran, in Peter W. Flint (ed.), The Bible

at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation (Grand Rapids Michigan and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2001) 51-66; idem, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1999). See also Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press and Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1992); idem, Textual Criticism (OT), ABD 6:393-412. 38

Sidney H. Griffith, The Gospel, the Qur"n, and the Presentation of Jesus in al-Yaqbs Tarkh, in Reeves,

Bible and Qur"n,134; Reuven Firestone, Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis (Albany: SUNY, 1990) 156; Bernhard Heller, The Relation of the Aggada to Islamic Legends, MW 24 (1934): 281 [art.=281-86]: The Koranknows less of the Bible than of the Agada-in fact the Koran sees the Bible in the light of the Agada; Julian Obermann, Islamic Origins: A Study in Background and Foundation, in Nabih Amin Faris (ed.), The Arab Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944) 94-6: (Muhammads) recounting of biblical materials in noncanonical literature so often and so closely that his knowledge of this literature, especially of rabbinical Agada, would seem to be astonishingly wide, solid, and versatile. Yet, it is out of the question that

Muhammad had direct access to the written works of the Agada or any other branch of postbiblical literatureTo the extentto which (the Koran) recounts biblical material and embodies a mass of Jewish and Christian lore, the ultimate sources of its substance must be looked for not in Scripture itself but rather in the postcanonical periphery of Scripture: in the Agada, the Targum, the Midrash of the Jews, and the apocryphal, patristic, homiletical and liturgical literature of the Christians.

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1.] Surat al-Ma#rij [70]: 39-41

39. By no means! Surely We have created them out of what they know! 40. But nay! I swear by the Lord of all points in the East and the West that We can certainly 41. Substitute for them better (men) than they; and We are not to be defeated (In Our Plan).

Of note here is the varying and suddenly shifting divine self-references: from first-person plural

(hereafter 1PP), Surely We have created them, to first-person singular (1PS), I swear, to third-

person (3P), I swear by the Lord of all points in the East and the West, and back to IPP, We can

certainly; We are not to be defeated. Now these sudden shifts in person are not

necessarily problematic from the perspective of Classical Arabic grammar: the phenomenon is

called iltift, an Arabic rhetorical device proudly proclaimed as the audacity of Arabic, in

which personal pronouns with a single referent will suddenly shift in mid-thought in order to

keep the discourse interesting. Nor is the 3P divine self-reference too troubling. We know it

from the Bible as well. More consequential however are the divine First Person plurals. Because

they are so frequent in the Quran, one might think that they evince a plurality in the godhead.39

Such a suggestion of course does violence to the popular doctrine of tawhid. The common

explanation offered to account for this linguistic phenomenon is the rhetorical plural of majesty,

in which a single person speaks in the plural to emphasize greatness.40 Support for this reading

is often sought through appeal to the divine plurals of the Hebrew Bible, particularly in Genesis

39 According to W. Montgomery Watt, it is an almost invariable rule that the (first-person plurals) are addressed by the angels, or by Gabriel using the plural we, to the Prophet. Bells Introduction to the Quran (Edinburgh: University Press, 1970) 66. So too have some Muslim scholars understood the first-person plurals to signal an actuality plurality of beings. The great Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328) The use of plural forms (in the Quran) is the style of Arabic speech used to refer to one who is of high standing and has helpers who obey him. So if his helpers do something by his command, he says we did it. This is like when a king says, We conquered this land, we defeated this army, and so on. Because he did it through the actions of his helpersSo what He (God) says when He

does something through His angels is: We did it. Majm al-Fatwa, 5:233f. He says elsewhere: Every time Allah uses the plural to refer to Himself, it is based on the respect and honor that He deserves, and on the great number of His names and attributes, and on the great number of His troops and angels." See Al-'Aqidah al-Tadmuriyyah, 109.) 40 Neal Robinson, Discovering the Quran: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text, 2nd ed. (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003 [1996])

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and Isaiah.41 While I agree that these biblical references have heuristic value here, the particular

use made of them must be rejected. Biblical Hebrew had no We of majesty42; nor is it

documented unequivocally in ANE sources in general. Rather, Frank Moore Crosss affirmation

37 years ago has been sufficiently supported by more recent studies:

In both Ugaritic and biblical literature, the use of the first person plural is characteristic of address in the divine council. The formula we of Gen 1:26, Let us make man in our

image; Gen. 3:22, Behold the man is become as one of us; Gen. 11:7, Come let us go

down and let us confound their language, has long been recognized as the plural address used by Yahweh in his council.43

I therefore suggest that, taking the world behind the text into account, the divine plurals of the

Quran may be understood in the light of the ANE and biblical motif of the Divine Council,

called in the Quran the Exalted Assembly (al-Mal al- l;37:8).44 The weakness of the

plural of majesty explanation is, I believe, clearly demonstrated in our second passage,

Surat al-Kahf [18] 79-82.

2.] Surat al-Kahf [18] 79-82

79. "As for the boat, It belonged to certain Men in dire want: They plied on the water: I desired to render it unserviceable, for there was After them a certain king who seized on every boat By force. 80. "As for the youth, his parents were people Of Faith, and We feared that he would grieve them By obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to God and man).

41 On which see David T. Williams, Who will go for us? (Is 6:8): The divine plurals and the image of God, Old Testament Essays 12 (1999): 173-190. 42 Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1994), 145: The plural of majesty dos not occur in Hebrew; Gerhard F. Hasel, The Meaning of Let Us in Gn 1:26,

Andrews University Seminary Studies 13 (1975) 63-64: there are no certain examples of plurals of majesty with either verbs or pronounsthe verb used in Gn 1:26 (#h) is never used with a plural of majesty. There is no linguistic or grammatical basis upon which the us can be considered to be a plural of majesty. 43 F.M. Cross, CMHE, 187 n. 176. 44 EQ 1:462-463 s.v. Court by Khalid Yahya Blankinship.

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81. "So We desired that their Lord would give them In exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) And closer in affection. 82. "As for the wall, it belonged to two youths, Orphans, in the Town; there was, beneath it, A buried treasure, to which they were entitled; their father had been a righteous man: So thy Lord desired that they should attain their age Of full strength and get out their treasurea mercy (And favor) from thy Lord. I did it not of my own Accord. Such is the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience."

Here, the identified figure the servant of the Lord uses the divine 1PP. That this servant of

God could use the divine 1PP is astonishing, unless one has the motif of the Divine Council in

mind.

The existence of these beings is not unambiguously denied in the Quran, though their

worship is clearly and adamantly proscribed. Passages such as 19:81, 10:28-29, 7:191, and others,

depict at least some of the beings worshipped by the Arabs of Muhammads time as real beings,

servants of God created by God himself, who will either deny their worshipers on the Day of

Judgment, or be punished with them. As Alford Welch observed in his study of the Qurans

doctrine of tawhid:

In these passages the existence of other deities is accepted or assumed, and they are

portrayed as having at least the potential of power to influence the lives and destiny of peopleThe position of the Quran regarding deities other than Allah [during his period] is unmistakable. That these deities are impotent and helpless is staunchly asserted, but their existence is not denied. On the contrary, these verses, taken literally, affirm the existence of deities other than Allah.45

If this is the case and several scholars have made the same observation46 - how does this

comport with or relate to the frequent message of the Quran: Allah is one God (allhu ilhun

45 Alford Welch, Allah and Other Supernatural Beings: The Emergence of the Quranic Doctrine of Tawid, JAAR 47 (1980): 737, 738. 46 Jaakko Hmeen-Anttila, Arabian Prophecy, Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (ed. Martti Nissinen; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 127: the earliest layers of the Qur"n show no Jewish or Christian influence. It is too much even to speak of a monotheistic message in the earliest surahs; more than anything, they are monolatric; J. Waardenburg,

Changes of Belief in Spiritual Beings, Prophethood, and the Rise of Islam, in Struggles of gods: Papers of the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions (ed. Hans Gerhard Kippenberg, H. J. W. Drijvers, Y. Kuiper; New York: Mouton Publishers, 1984) 279 The Koran does not deny the existence of [deities] but declares them to be angels only, just as it denounces any association of the jinn with Allah;

Hawting, Idea of Idolatry, 51, 52: the Koran does not deny the realty or the existence of those beings that

15

whidun) 4:171 and that there is no god but He (l ilha ill huwa) 28:88? I suggest that a

biblical approach resolves the apparent conflict. Take the Shema and the First Commandment,

which are analogous to the Quranic claims: Hear, O Israel: Yahweh, Our God is One (Deut

6:4); You shall have no other gods before me (Exod 20:3). While these passages affirm the

unity and exclusivity of Yahweh, they do not actually deny the existence of the other gods.47

Rather, these are claims of Gods incomparability and his exclusive right to worship. As Nathan

Macdonald notes in his study of Deuteronomy of Monotheism:

to affirm that YHWH is One is commonly understood as a declaration of monotheism.

There is only one God; no other gods exist. [But] the question of the existence of other deities is clearly alien to the contextWhatever is being said about YHWH, it is not a denial of the existence of other godsThe [first] commandment prohibits Israel worshiping other gods. This exclusion of other deities in the first commandment provides a negative expression of the Shemas claim on Israel. In both cases the issue at stake is the devotion of Israel. The existence of other deities is not denied, rather the assumption of Deuteronomys rhetoric is that other deities do exist and are a real temptation for the

affections of the Israelites.

Similarly, it seems that the Qurans position is that these beings do exist around Allah Allah

may even be said to consist of a council of these beings, thus the divine 1PPs; however, these

beings around Allah are no liha or legitimate objects worship48; only Allah himself is.

In closing, I would like to restate and requalify my view of the Qurans relation to

biblical tradition and the latters relevance to a reading of Islams scripture. A number of

Quranic passages (e.g. 4:163; 42:13; 3:84) present the Prophet Muhammad as the legitimate

continuator of the Biblical tradition andthe sole heir of the progeny of the Israelite

(the mushrikn) are said to worship as gods or to put on the same level as God. It denies, of course, that they are gods but not that they existThe gods of (the mushrikn) really do existbut they are not real gods, merely some type of inferior beingSome passages seem to indicate that they were angels 47 Dmitri Slivniak, Our God(s) is One: and the Indeterminacy of Meaning, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 19 (2005) 5-23; Yair Hoffman, The Concept of Other Gods in the Deuteronomistic Literature, in Henning Graf Reventlow, Yair Hoffman, and Benjamin Uffenheimer (edd.), Politics and theopolitics in the Bible and postbiblical literature (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1994) 66-84. 48 As Syed Abul Ala Maududi has pinted out regarding the term ilh (Four Basic Quranic Terms [Delhi: Markazi Maktaba Islami, 1995] 13-14), the verb means the act of worship and the noun the object of worship: (the) connotation of the wordincludes the capacities to fulfill the needs of others, to give

them shelter and protection, to relieve their minds of distress and agitation, superiority, and the requisite authority and powr (sic) to do all these, to be mysterious in some ay or hidden from mens eyes and the turning of men eagerly to him. Thus, an ilh is much more than simply a god in the ANE sense of that concept.

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prophets.49 There should be no talk of the Quran borrowing from the Bible. Rather, it seems

likely that both the Bible and the Quran share and exploit a common layer of discourse50; they

tap and channel a rich reservoir of traditional lore.51 The Quran has as much potential to shed a

clarifying light on the Bible, as the Bible has for the Quran. This point was well-made by Hava

Lazarus-Yafeh in her Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (1992):

it is impossible to understand (Islamic) literature properly without paying serious

attention to its predecessors...One should not think in terms of influences or cultural borrowings only, however. It has been said that the Near East resembles a palimpsest, layer upon layer, tradition upon tradition, intertwined to the extent that one cannot really grasp one without the other, certainly not the later without the earlier, but often also not the earlier without considering the shapes it took later.

49

Tottoli, Biblical Prophets, 7. 50

Vernon K. Robbins and Gordon D. Newby, The Relation of the Qur"n and the Bible, in Reeves, Bible and

Qur"n, 42; Reuven Firestone, Abrahams Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a

Tradition, SI 76 (1992): 5-24; idem, Journeys; Marilyn R. Waldman, New Approaches to Biblical Materials in the Qur"n, MW 75 (1985): 1-16. 51

John C. Reeves, Some Explorations of Intertwining of Bible and Qur"n, in idem, Bible and Qur"n, 43; Tryggve Kronholm, Dependence and Prophetic Originality in the Koran, Orientalia Suecana 31-32 (1982-1983): 47-70.