Reading the Qur’an with the Biblical Tradition

The Light Verse (24:35) would have resonated with Jewish audiences by evoking the Temple menorah and the rabbinic concept of the Shekhinah. Through close intratextual analysis, the Light Verse is linked to the Qur’anic accounts of Moses’ theophany (20:10-12; 27:7-9; 28:29-30), highlighting shared motifs of fire, blessed tree, guidance, and celestial radiance. While paralleling the biblical burning bush, the Qur’an reconfigures its imagery in the depiction of a lamp fueled by a blessed oil that shines though untouched by fire. Symbolic correspondences align this imagery with rabbinic portrayals of the Shekhinah and menorah as embodiments of divine light. References to “houses” of remembrance (24:36) further echo Temple symbolism. Moreover, just before the Light Verse (24:34), the Qur’an explicitly states that it is providing a metaphor from a previous tradition. By invoking an established symbol rather than introducing a novel metaphor, the Qur’an situates its message within a recognizable Jewish representation.

The Qurʾān engages in dialogue and debate with the adherents of diverse religions of late antiquity. In particular, Sūrah al-Baqarah (Q 2), with its overarching polemical tone toward the Medinan Jews, notably references Moses’ priestly descendants in Verse 248, raising questions about its use of lineal rhetoric. In this paper, I argue that the qurʾānic discourse rhetorizes Moses’ descendants (āl mūsā), who were marginalized in Jewish sources, by mentioning them along with Aaron’s descendants (āl hārūn) to challenge the exclusive religious authority of the Jewish tribes of Banū Naḍīr and Banū Qurayẓah, who claimed Aaronite priestly descent. By analyzing the qurʾānic allusions to biblical and rabbinic portrayals of Moses’ descendants, this study demonstrates how the qurʾānic rhetoric may have functioned to undermine the exclusive socio-religious authority of the Medinan Jewish tribes. Finally, I contextualize these premises within the Qurʾān’s broader positive discourse on the families and descendants of prophets.

The Book of Job represents a kind of internal critique of the Deuteronomistic theology that dominates most of the rest of the Hebrew biblical canon. Yet its place in the canon is very marginal, as it does not deal with God’s covenant with Israel and has even been taken by many readers since ancient times as a work of fiction. In the Qur’ān, as with other biblical stories that present moral ambiguities, Job’s story is significantly altered and is, if anything, even more marginal than in the Hebrew Bible. This paper argues, however, that the Qur’ān echoes Job’s critique and in fact places it at the heart of the creation narrative, in the mouth of Iblīs. Like Job’s, Iblīs’s critique is tacitly conceded, but the effect is to reinforce rather than destabilize the Qur’ān’s theology.

Typology once occupied a central place in biblical literary criticism, though the term itself has receded as scholars have turned toward approaches emphasizing historical particularity and intertextuality. Yet the phenomenon typology describes—the recognition of recurring narrative patterns across sacred history—remains central to the way many scriptures present themselves. This paper examines typological reasoning in two post-biblical scriptures, the Qurʾān and the Book of Mormon, and compares their use of biblical figures and narrative templates. The Qurʾān repeatedly invokes figures such as Abraham and Moses as paradigms of prophethood, presenting a recurring pattern of revelation, proclamation, rejection, and vindication that culminates in the Qurʾānic message. For its part, the Book of Mormon embeds biblical types within a cumulative covenantal history that anticipates and culminates in Christ. By comparing these two texts, the paper clarifies the Qurʾān’s distinctive non-linear typological logic within a broader late-antique context of biblical reception.