In the following question-and-answer, Mark Robert Anderson (@seeingislamnow) talks about his book, The Qur’an in Context: A Christian Exploration (IVP Academic, 2016).
[Browse the Understanding Islam section in the Bible Gateway Store]
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, No God but One: Allah or Jesus?—An Interview with Nabeel Qureshi]
Why did you decide there was a need for The Qur’an in Context?
Mark Robert Anderson: To begin, no other scripture makes it into the news on such a regular basis as the Qur’an and yet is so enigmatic, inspiring such wildly contested interpretations. So I wanted to guide readers through the interpretive minefields to a place where they can truly grasp what this immensely important book is saying.
Another reason I wrote The Qur’an in Context is that Christians have been at loggerheads with Muslims for ages now, and the Qur’an stands at the heart of our differences. Most Christians today either join in angrily attacking the Muslim scripture or else try to gloss over our differences with it in an attempt to seek friendship with Muslims.
I believe another approach is needed; one that respects Muslims by taking their distinctives and their humanity with equal seriousness. That’s what I see Jesus doing—with the Samaritan woman, for example. So in my book I attempt to model the way I believe Jesus would have us approach the Qur’an, with grace and truth.
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Loving Our Muslim Neighbors During Ramadan]
Where must we begin in order to move toward a better understanding of the Qur’an?
Mark Robert Anderson: To understand any text, we need to begin with its original context. And that’s a big part of our problem with the Qur’an. Most of us know very little about the world—let alone the hinterland of Arabia—during the early 7th century when the Qur’an originated. Divorced from its historical context—which is how it usually comes to us—the Qur’an can be made to say all kinds of things it never meant to say.
How does the portrayal of Jesus in the Bible compare to how he’s portrayed in the Qur’an?
Mark Robert Anderson: The Qur’an clearly honors Jesus by presenting him as a virgin-born, sinless prophet and miracle worker (in the same sense that the Bible presents Moses and Elijah as miracle workers). But even as the Qur’an honors Jesus, it sidelines him, making him very secondary to Muhammad, whom it calls the Seal of the Prophets. It also reverses Jesus’ ethical teachings on a number of key points and deemphasizes his death and resurrection to such a degree that most Muslims believe the Qur’an denies their historicity.
It does call Jesus the Messiah, but it empties the term of its biblical meaning. It clearly does not view Jesus as God’s last word to humankind, as the New Testament does, nor anything he did as vital to our salvation.
What are two ways in which the teachings of the Bible and the Qur’an are similar? Different?
Mark Robert Anderson: Like the Bible, the Qur’an presents God as the sovereign creator of all that is. But while it would agree with the Bible that God can do anything he chooses to do, it nevertheless would never allow that he could choose to become incarnate and enter his creation as a man. The Qur’an also agrees with the Bible in presenting Adam as God’s vicegerent on earth, but it never says what that role involves. It apparently excludes Eve from that responsibility (indeed, it doesn’t even mention her name) and it generally makes the divine-human relationship far less intimate.
How does the Qur’an claim to be the sequel to the Bible?
Mark Robert Anderson: The Qur’an speaks repeatedly and always very respectfully of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures, acknowledging them as God-given. It specifically mentions, for example, the Torah given to Moses and the Psalms given to David. But its primary purpose in mentioning the biblical Scriptures is to position itself as God’s last word to humankind, or in other words, as the Bible’s sequel.
Briefly describe the Western debate about traditional Islamic origins. How do you hope this book helps in bringing understanding?
Mark Robert Anderson: There’s quite a gap between Muhammad and the first Muslim sources on him—about 200 years. The first non-Muslim sources on Islam narrow the gap to within a few years of Muhammad’s death, but they exhibit non-Muslim biases and tell not the Muslim story per se, but only how it intersects with their (non-Muslim) stories. The resultant messiness is very normal to historical study, and these two sets of sources can be harmonized. But, by capitalizing on their divergence and on contradictions within the Muslim sources, some Western scholars reject the traditional origins narrative and render the qur’anic milieu an open question. They hypothesize radically different narratives, ranging anywhere from denying Muhammad’s existence outright to turning him into a defender of Christian orthodoxy.
The Qur’an in Context guides readers through this debate and helps them appreciate why a scholarly consensus is forming around an approach in basic agreement with the traditional origins narrative, but much more grounded in the world of Late Antiquity in which it played out. Again, this is vital because our understanding of the Qur’an—on everything from Jesus to jihad—is inevitably rooted in our understanding of both its story and its original context.
Bio: Mark Robert Anderson lived and worked in the Middle East for over ten years, teaching in a university and seminary. Anderson has been a member of Jacob’s Well, a faith-based organization seeking mutually transformative relationships with marginalized residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and for two years he was part of a team helping homeless people find sustainable housing and employment. He has an MA in Islamic studies from McGill University and an MA in Christian religion from Westminster Theological Seminary. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
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