The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam

by Michael E Pregill

This book explores the story of the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf in its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim contexts, from ancient Israel to the emergence of Islam. It focuses in particular on the Qur'an's presentation of the narrative and its background in Jewish and Christian retellings of the episode from Late Antiquity. Across the centuries, the interpretation of the Calf episode underwent major changes reflecting the varying cultural, religious, and ideological contexts in which various communities used the story to legitimate their own tradition, challenge the claims of others, and delineate the boundaries between self and other. The book contributes to the ongoing reevaluation of the relationship between Bible and Qur'an, arguing for the necessity of understanding the Qur'an and Islamic interpretations of the history and narratives of ancient Israel as part of the broader biblical tradition. The Calf narrative in the Qur'an, central to the qur'anic conception of the legacy of Israel and the status of the Jews of its own time, reflects a profound engagement with the biblical account in Exodus, as well as being informed by exegetical and parascriptural traditions in circulation in the Qur'an's milieu in Late Antiquity. The book also addresses the issue of Western approaches to the Qur'an, arguing that the historical reliance of scholars and translators on classical Muslim exegesis of scripture has led to misleading conclusions about the meaning of qur'anic episodes.

514 pages, Hardcover

First published July 29, 2020

Reviews

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was going to serve as an exegesis of the Qur'an and double as a reception history of the Bible. Well, it was that, PLUS everything in between. It exegeted the Exodus 32 golden calf story from the Bible, then did some source criticism on Deuteronomy 9 to show that it was already heavily redacted. Then it examined the golden calf tradition among the church fathers, rabbinnics, Syriac Christianity, the whole enchilada. THEN it exegeted the Qur'an. Then it examined the main lessons from the story, in an almost devotional way. That's why it's 450 pages without footnotes or index.

And it's fascinating. The consensus among Qur'anic scholars is that "Samaritan" in the Qur'an's golden calf story was supposed to be someone from the Northern Kingdom (Samaria is its capital), likely Jeroboam who led his people into golden calf worship. Pregill's thesis is that it's actually Aaron. It wasn't until I was almost finished with the book before I realized the two didn't contradict.

The most interesting piece of evidence he put forward was that shomer (samar in Arabic) means to guard, and Aaron was Moses' khalifa (deputy) with guardianship of the people while Moses was up on Mt. Horeb (Sinai). Chuck Schumer always claims his name meant shomer because he's the guardian of the Jewish people. What a bunch of crap.