Quran Preservation & Compilation -1 (Prophet’s lifetime)

 

Quran Preservation & Compilation -1 (Prophet’s lifetime)

نشرت بواسطة: Waqar Akbar Cheema 2:20 AM في Abu Bakr , islam , Muhammad , prophet , Qur'an Preservation and Compilation , Quran compilation , Zaid 4 تعليقات

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله وحده و الصلاة و السلام على من لا نبي بعده و على آله و أصحابه أجمعين

A concise and comprehensive response to the lies and misgivings about Qur’an preservation and compilation during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet- may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

1. Introduction

Many Orientalists and Christian missionaries have spoken against Qur'an in their bid to create confusions about its impeccable preservation. In this series we shall study in brief the whole process of Qur'an preservation and compilation. Naturally, first to discuss is phase that covers the life of the Holy Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

2. Memorization: The Primary Means of Qur’an Preservation

One thing that ought to be kept in mind regarding the preservation of the Qur'an is that it was done more through memory than through writing. There was and is great wisdom in this. We see that in the case of earlier Prophets whose teachings were not committed to memory were lost. Sometimes the invaders destroyed the manuscripts and sometimes the scribes intentionally or intentionally made mistakes. So to avoid the same to happen to the Qur'an more emphasis was laid on its memorization though it was put into writing as well.

Therefore we read in Sahih Muslim that Allah Almighty said to the Holy Prophet:

وأنزلت عليك كتابا لا يغسله الماء

“And I sent the Book to you which cannot be washed away by water."[1]

This meant that Qur'an will not be preserved only on scrolls but through some other medium as well. So Muslims right from the beginning gave special attention to memorizing the Qur'an so not only the Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- himself but scores of his companions learnt the complete Qur'an by heart. They include Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman, 'Ali, 'Abdullah bin Masud, Talha, Sa'd, Huzaifa, Ubayy bin Ka'b, Abdullah bin Abbas, Abdullah bin Zubar, 'Abdullah bin Sai'b, Zaid bin Thabit, Abu Hurairah, Abu Darda, Ma'az bin Jabal, Anas bin Malik, Abu Musa Al-'Ashari, Mu'awiyyah, Sayyidah 'Aisha, Sayyidah Umm Salmah, Sayyidah Hafsa and many more.[2]

3- Preservation in writing during the life of the Holy Prophet

But nevertheless Qur'an was also written down and this was done right during the life time of the Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And all the later masahif were based on what was dictated by the Holy Prophet himself. We shall see the details shortly.

Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- had more than 40 companions who usually worked as scribes. The names of these companions have been mentioned in various authentic works.[3] Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- made special arrangements for the Qur'an to be written. How the Qur'an was written and how it was was checked by the Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- is evident from the following example:

عن زيد بن ثابت قال: كنت أكتب الوحي لرسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم، وكان «إذا نزل عليه أخذته برحاء شديدة، وعرق عرقا شديدا مثل الجمان، ثم سري عنه» ، فكنت أدخل عليه بقطعة الكتف أو كسرة، فأكتب وهو يملي علي، فما أفرغ حتى تكاد رجلي تنكسر من ثقل القرآن، وحتى أقول: لا أمشي على رجلي أبدا، فإذا فرغت قال: «اقرأه» ، فأقرؤه، فإن كان فيه سقط أقامه، ثم أخرج به إلى الناس

Zaid bin Thabit, one of the chief scribes relates: "I used to write down the revelation for the Holy Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. When the revelation came to him he felt intense heat and drops of perspiration used to roll down his body like pearls. When this state was over I used to fetch a shoulder bone or a piece of something else. He used to go on dictating and I used to write it down. When I finished writing the sheer weight of transcription gave me the feeling that my leg would break and I would not be able to walk anymore. Anyhow when I finished writing, he would say, 'Read!' and I would read it back to him. If there was an omission or error he used to correct it and then let it be brought before the people."[4]

This is a categorical proof that Companions used to write Qur'an in the supervision of the Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- and got it checked from him before making it public.

Also there are proofs that during the life time of the Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- the written manuscripts of Qur'an were there. In fact writing of the Qur'an was in practice from the early days of Islam as evident from the incident leading to conversion of one of the closest companions, ‘Umar bin al-Khattab, when he found his sister and brother-in-law with a parchment on which the verses of Surah Taha (chapter 20) were written.[5]

There are some other traditions which indicate that Companions had written copies of complete or incomplete Quran. For example;

عن عبد الله بن عمر رضي الله عنهما: أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم نهى أن يسافر بالقرآن إلى أرض العدو

Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: “Allah's Messenger forbade the people to travel to a hostile country carrying (copies of) the Quran.”[6]

Obviously these traditions are categorical evidence that the Companions used to have written copies of the Qur’an even during the life time of the Holy Prophet- may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- and that it was not something unusual.

Likewise, there is evidence for the manuscripts of the Qur’an in the instruction of the Holy Prophet –peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- to Hakim bin Hizam when he sent him to Yemen as a governor. He said:

لا تمس القرآن إلا وأنت طاهر

“Do not touch the Qur’an except when you are in the state of purity.”[7]

4- Prophet’s encouragement for writing the Qur’an

The Holy Prophet –may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- only arranged for getting every revelation written in front of him he also encouraged the people to write the Qur’an for themselves and leave it after them for their children besides giving them instructions about the manuscripts. Mark the following narration;

عن أبي هريرة، قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «إن مما يلحق المؤمن من عمله وحسناته بعد موته علما علمه ونشره، وولدا صالحا تركه، ومصحفا ورثه، أو مسجدا بناه، أو بيتا لابن السبيل بناه، أو نهرا أجراه، أو صدقة أخرجها من ماله في صحته وحياته، يلحقه من بعد موته»

It was narrated that Abu Hurairah said: “The Messenger of Allah said: ‘The rewards of the good deeds that will reach a believer after his death are: Knowledge which he taught and spread; a righteous son whom he leaves behind; a copy of the Qur’an that he leaves as a legacy; a mosque that he built; a house that he built for wayfarers; a canal that he dug; or charity that he gave during his lifetime when he was in good health. These deeds will reach him after his death.’”[8]

It is thus clear that Holy Prophet –may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- had the clear motive of not only having the complete Qur’an written but also to get the people make and acquire Qur’anic manuscripts and leave it behind them as heir-looms. Such an arrangement had to be made to see what is now achieved. The following needs to be considered in this backdrop;

Once a number of companions were with the Holy Prophet –may the peace and blessings of Allah. One of them reports;

قلنا: يا رسول الله هل من أحد أعظم منا أجرا، آمنا بك واتبعناك، قال: «وما يمنعكم من ذلك ورسول الله بين أظهركم، يأتيكم بالوحي من السماء؟ بل قوم يأتون من بعدكم يأتيهم كتاب بين لوحين فيؤمنون به ويعملون بما فيه أولئك أعظم منكم أجرا»

We said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! Is there anyone greater than us in earning reward, we believed you and followed you.’ He said: “And what is there that to stops you from it while the Messenger of Allah is amongst you and comes to you with the revelation from the heavens? In fact, there will come a people after you, whom the book will reach [only] in two bindings. They will believe in it and follow whatever is in; they are greater in reward than you.”[9]

5- Claim that Qur’an was not written completely during the Prophet’s time

Orientalists claim that Qur’an was not written in full during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. This is false and the fact is that whole of the Qur’an was indeed written in the supervision of the Holy Prophet but it was not compiled into one collection. This is testified by the statement of Zaid bin Thabit, one of the chief scribes. He said:

قبض النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم ولم يكن القرآن جمع في شيء

“The Prophet passed way while the Qur’an was yet not gathered in anything.”[10]

Clearly the word used here is jumia’ which means ‘gathered’ and not ‘written’. And the wisdom behind the fact that Qur’an was completely written but not compiled at one place during the life of the holy Prophet -may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- is explained by Al-Khattabi. He said;

إنما لم يجمع القرآن في المصحف لما كان يترقبه من ورود ناسخ لبعض أحكامه أو تلاوته فلما انقضى نزوله بوفاته ألهم الله الخلفاء الراشدين ذلك وفاء بوعده الصادق بضمان حفظه على هذه الأمة فكان ابتداء ذلك على يد الصديق بمشورة عمر

“The Messenger of Allah –may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- did not gather the Qur’an in a mushaf because he had to wait if there was some abrogation of some commands or recitation but when he died and the revelation ceased (and thus abrogation as well); Allah, to fulfill his True Commitment of preservation (of Qur’an) for this Ummah, put this thought into the hearts of the Righteous Caliphs. Then this great task was undertaken by Abu Bakr on the advice of Umar.”[11]

Truly, there is not even an iota of truth in the rant of the missionaries about Qur'an preservation and compilation during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet- on him be the peace and blessings of Almighty Allah.

-- by Waqar Akbar Cheema

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[1] Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Hadith 6853

[2] Names of these and other companions who had rendered complete Qur'an to their memory can be found in An-Nashr fil Qira'at al-'Ashr of Al-Jazri and Al-Ittiqan fi ‘Uloom al-Qur’an of Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti

[3] Muhammad Mustafa Al-A’zmi’s book, Kuttaab al-Nabi is comprehensive work on the subject. In it he has given good deal of information about 48 scribes of the Holy Prophet -May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all.

[4] Mu'jam Al-Tabarani Al-Awst, Hadith 1913. Dar al-Haramain, Cairo, 1415 AH
Authenticated by Al-Haithmi in Majma’ Al-Zawaid 8/257, Hadith 13938

[5] Sunan al-Darqutni, Hadith 441, Al-Resalah Publications, Beirut, 2004

Al-Zayl’i said it is a good (jayyid) narration. See Nasab al-Raya (vol.1 p.199 Muhammad 'Awwama ed.)

[6] Sahih Bukhari, Book 52, Hadith 233

[7] Mustadrak al-Hakim, Hadith 6051, Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyya, Beirut, 1990

Al-Hakim classified it as Sahih. Al-Dhahabi agreed with him.

[8] Sunan Ibn Majah, Book 1, Chapter 20, Hadith 242. Classified as Hasan by Albani

[9] Al-Bukhari, Khalaq Af’al al-‘Ibad, Dar al-M’arif al-Saudia, Riyadh, 1398 AH vol.1 p.88

Classified as Sahih by Albani in Silsala Sahiha No. 3310

[10] Fath al-Bari, Dar al-Ma’rifah, Beirut 1379 AH vol.9 p.12

[11] Al-Itiqan fil Uloom al-Quran, Haeya al-Masriya al-‘Aamah lil-Kitab, Egypt 1974 vol.1 p.202

Can a False Prophet Perform Miracles?

According to Deuteronomy, a false prophet who has no message from God, and advocates worshiping other gods, can still successfully perform miracles and predict the future.  

Prof. Rabbi

Marty Lockshin

In Deuteronomy 13, Moses warns the people about the possibility of false prophets, who are attempting to steer the Israelites toward the worship of other gods:

דברים יג:ב כִּי יָקוּם בְּקִרְבְּךָ נָבִיא אוֹ חֹלֵם חֲלוֹם וְנָתַן אֵלֶיךָ אוֹת אוֹ מוֹפֵת. יג:גוּבָא הָאוֹת וְהַמּוֹפֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדַעְתָּם וְנָעָבְדֵם. יג:ד לֹא תִשְׁמַע אֶל דִּבְרֵי הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא אוֹ אֶל חוֹלֵם הַחֲלוֹם הַהוּא כִּי מְנַסֶּה יְ-הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֶתְכֶם לָדַעַת הֲיִשְׁכֶם אֹהֲבִים אֶת יְ-הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בְּכָל לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁכֶם.

 

Deut 13:2 If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner—and he gives you a sign or a portent, 13:3and the sign or portent that he named to you comes true—saying, “Let us follow other gods—whom you have not known—and worship them,” 13:4 do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For YHWH your God is testing you to see whether you really love YHWH your God with all your heart and soul.

The text suggests that a false prophet could perform a miracle or predict the future.  He gives a “sign or portent” and “the sign or portent . . . comes true.”

This implication troubled R. Akiva, as we see from his debate with R. Yossi the Galilean about this verse (Sifre Devarim84:3):

ובא האות והמופת, אמר רבי יוסי הגלילי ראה עד היכן הגיע הכתוב סוף עובדי עבודה זרה ינתן להם ממשלה אפילו על חמה ולבנה כוכבים ומזלות אל תשמע להם מפני מה כי מנסה ה’ אלהיכם אתכם לדעת הישכם אוהבים, אמר רבי עקיבה חס ושלום שמעמיד המקום חמה ולבנה כוכבים ומזלות לעובדי עבודה זרה הא אינו מדבר אלא במי שהיו נביאי אמת מתחילה וחזרו להיות נביאי שקר כחנניה בן עזור.

 

“And the sign or portent comes true” – R. Yossi the Galilean said: “See how far the verse goes: in the end the idolaters will be given power over the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, but do not listen to them since the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love Him.” R. Akiva said: “Heaven forfend that God would stop the sun, moon, stars, or constellations on behalf of idolaters! Rather, the verse is speaking of those who were once true prophets but then turned to become false prophets, as was the case with Hananiah ben Azzur.[1]

Rabbi Akiva’s problem is clear: How could someone who was not sent by God, in fact someone who is trying to undermine proper belief in God, have such super-human powers? Nevertheless, R. Akiva’s answer does not really solve the problem, since it begs the question: Why would God allow treacherous former prophets to maintain their supernatural powers?

The medieval peshat commentators likewise had trouble accepting the implication of the verse at face value, and came up with a number of alternative meanings.

Ibn Ezra’s Three Explanations

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1167), the Bible commentator and philosopher, offers three explanations, two from earlier commentators[2] and the third, his own. 

1. Plagiarized Prophecy

The first position ibn Ezra quotes is that the false prophet may have stolen the sign from a real prophet:

ויש אומרים, כי יתכן להיות הנביא ממגנבי דבר השם. ופי’ שאמר נביא האמת שיהיה אות כך להצדיקו, ושמע השומע, והגידו להיות אות לנפשו.

 

Some say that this [false] prophet may be stealing[3] [i.e., plagiarizing] the words of God.  In other words, a true prophet offers a specific prediction in order to establish his credibility.  He [the false prophet] hears this prediction and then offers it himself to establish his own credibility.

According to this explanation, a false prophet could successfully predict the future only by plagiarizing from a true prophet who legitimately predicted the future.  The theological problem thus disappears.  The Torah is telling us that it may look as if a false prophet has been told the future by God, but this is not so.

2. Unreasonable Claims

The second solution ibn Ezra cites is that the prophecy is rejected because it is unreasonable:

ויש אומרים, כי אפילו בא האות והמופת אין להאמין בו, כי הוא דבר הפך שקול הדעת.

 

Others say that even if the prediction comes true, we should not believe it, because it = [message conveyed by the false prophet] is against reason.

According to this second explanation, miracles of all sorts—those performed by the prophets of God or by false prophets—are never determinative.  Reason trumps miracles.  Since the message of the prophet—to worship false gods—is inherently counter to reason for ibn Ezra, no amount of proof from miracles can compel someone to worship those gods.[4]

In the 14th century, this same point was made forcefully by another philosophically inclined Bible commentator, Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles.  After discussing the same two possibilities ibn Ezra quoted above, Nissim goes on to explain why God would perform such a test and why a false prophet with powers would fail to influence true believers:

בזה תבחן תבונתכם ותקנו לכם מזה מדה חזקה להחזיק באמת מפני שהוא אמת. גם בזה ידעו כל העולם שאתם מחזיקים באמונתכם אמונה חזקה. ויהיה זה ראיה ונסיון אם ישכם אוהבים האמת בכל לבבכם ונפשכם. ר”ל אם תחזיקו באמת ותאמינו בו מפני שהוא אמת ותדעוהו ידיעה שכלית לא מפני הקבלה לבד מנהג אבותיכם בידיכם. כי מי שידע האמת . . .  לא יתרשל בו ולא יסופק בו בעבור אות ומופת שיעשה כנגדו נביא שקר.

 

With this [test of the false prophet] your wisdom will be tested, and you can develop through it a strong character trait, namely, following truth because it is the truth.[5] Furthermore, through this the whole world will know that you hold firmly to your beliefs. And this will be a proof and a test, whether you love the truth with all your hearts and all your souls, in other words, whether you hold firmly to the truth, and believe in it because it is the truth, and know it with intellectual knowledge, not merely because of tradition or because you are following  the custom of your fathers. For one who knows truth . . . will not grow indolent about it and will not have doubts on account of a sign or wonder that a false prophet performs to discredit it.[6]

According to this, the man of reason should pay no attention to miracles. This position does not take a stand about whether a false prophet can perform a miracle, only that the question does not matter.

3. “Signs and Portents” Are Symbolic Actions

Finally, ibn Ezra offers his own explanation:

ולפי דעתי, שיש אות גם מופת כמו סימן. והעד: דברי ישעיה, שאמר: הנה אנכי והילדים אשר נתן לי ה’ לאותות ולמופתים (ישעיה ח, יח), ואות הנביא, כאשר הלך עבדי ישעיה ערום ויחף (שם כ, ג), ואותות בניו שמותם על דבר המקרה שיהיה בימיהם והם: עמנואל (שם ז, יד), מהר שלל חש בז (שם ח, ג), ושאר ישוב (שם ז, ג), ובמכות – והיו בך לאות ולמופת (דברים כח, מו), וכן רבים.

 

In my opinion, the Hebrew words אות and מופת here have the sense of “sign” [and do not refer to anything supernatural]. The words of Isaiah provide evidence for this interpretation. He said “Behold, I, and the children whom God has given me, are לאותות ולמופתים—for signs and for portents” (Isaiah 8:18).  Another example, the prophet’s אות—sign: “…just as my servant Isaiah walking naked and barefoot… [is an אות ומופת—a sign and a portent]” (Isaiah 20:3).  Furthermore, the names of his sons are signs (אותות) about an event which would occur in his lifetime: “Immanuel”[7](Isaiah 7:14), “Maher-Shalal-Ḥash-Baz” (Isaiah 8:3), and “Shear-Yashuv” (Isaiah 7:3). Similarly, concerning the plagues [that God said He would inflict upon the sinning Israelites, Scripture says,] “They will serve you as signs and proofs” (Deut 28:46). Many similar examples exist.

According to ibn Ezra, the words אות and מופת (signs and portents) here do not refer to anything supernatural but to symbolic actions. Isaiah’s walking naked and barefoot involved no supernatural element; it was a symbolic action.  Similarly, when God told Isaiah that the baby that would soon be born should be called Immanuel (“God is with us”), the naming of the baby was not a miraculous occurrence.  The name was purely symbolic.

Following this explanation, a false prophet is never able to perform a miracle or predict the future.  He might perform a compelling symbolic action that could tempt you to follow him, but the Torah is telling you not to.

What Is the Test?

Ibn Ezra’s explanation has several weaknesses.  First, he does not address the question of how to interpret the phrase ובא האות והמופת, which suggests that the false prophet made a prediction about the future that came true.  Another weakness, which ibn Ezra recognizes, is that our passage says that false prophets constitute a test of the Israelites’ loyalty by predicting the future in order to test the Israelites.  But if the false prophet simply performed a symbolic action, what is the test?

To this ibn Ezra answers:

וטעם כי מנסה – בעבור שעזבו[8], ולא המיתו

 

The meaning of “test” here is that He [God] left him [the false prophet] alone and did not kill him.

God, according to ibn Ezra, tests us with false prophets by allowing them to live.  God could make things easier for us by killing off the false prophets.  But since He does not, we must resist the temptation of listening to them.  With this unusual explanation, ibn Ezra is able to insist that false prophets have no supernatural powers and nevertheless constitute a test for the Israelites.[9]

False Prophets Have Power Too: Rashbam

Ibn Ezra’s Northern French contemporary, Rashbam (R. Samuel ben Meir, c. 1080-c. 1165) was not bothered by the verses about false prophets, since he believed that false prophets were able to perform miracles and/or predict the future:

ובא האות והמופת – שיודעים עתידות על ידי רוח טומאה ותרפים ואוב וידעוני

 

[The sign of such false prophets could come true] because they know the future, since they make use of the forces of impurity or teraphim, or [they consult] ghosts or familiar spirits.

In Rashbam’s understanding, the world is filled with effective ways to predict the future.  Some, like biblical prophecy, are legitimate, but many of the other methods are not.  Sorcery is forbidden not because it does not work, but despite the fact that it does. The simple understanding of the story of Saul and the woman from En-dor who consults spirits (בעלת אוב) in 1 Samuel 28 supports this claim.

For Rashbam, the “test” from God in these verses is explained simply:

כי מנסה י”י וגו’ – נתן כח בכשפים לדעת נולדות, לנסות ולזכות ישראל שהתרה בהם: לא ימצא בך מעונן ומנחש ומכשף וגו’ עד תמים תהיה עם י”י אלהיך (דברים י”ח:י’-י”ג). ואם לא יאמינו לאותות נביאי עבודה זרה, זו היא זכותן.

 

“Because YHWH is testing you” – God granted powers to the forces of sorcery to be able to predict the future in order to test the Israelites and to increase their merit. He warned them (18:10-13), “Let there not be among you … a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer…. You must be wholehearted with YHWH your God.”[10]If the Israelites refrain from believing in the signs of idolatrous prophets, it will be to their merit.

The fact that God created a world where sorcerers and other diviners have real powers constitutes a test for the Israelites. In this way, Rashbam has, indirectly, softened the text a little.  The Torah is not suggesting that God endowed any specific false prophet with powers in order to test us, an idea that already bothered the likes of Rabbi Akiva, as discussed above. Rather, according to Rashbam, God created a world where false prophecy is possible and actually happens; accordingly, the Israelites can be tested through it.

Urim and Thummim vs. Impure Divination

Rashbam makes his belief in magical powers and divination clear in another passage, his comment on the Urim and Thummim (Exod 28:30):

את האורים ואת התומים – כעין השבעות על שמות בדבר הק’ שהיה נותן בחשן להגיד משפטן וצורכיהם.אם האומות מגידים להם תרפים וקסמים שלהם ברוח טומאה להבדיל כמה הבדלות בין טומאה לטהרה קל וחומר לקדושה שמגדת:

 

“The Urim and the Tummim” – A type of conjuring using divine names to determine God’s words. They were placed inside the breastpiece and were used to provide [answers for] the decisions required by the Israelites and [information required in order to fulfil] their needs. If the other nations have teraphim and magic that tell them the future through the forces of impurity, how much more so may it be done through the forces of holiness; although one should hardly be comparing the forces of impurity and the forces of purity at all!

Rashbam assumes that his readers know that teraphim and magic work and he builds on this assumption to sustain his claim that the Urim and Thummim worked that way, too.[11]

Is Rashbam Being Polemical?

Rashbam’s interpretation reflects his belief that our world contains forces of good and forces of evil, and that supernatural powers can be found in both. Nevertheless, as he lived in a Christian world, it might be tempting to connect the dots between the “false prophet with magical powers” and the stories about Jesus in the New Testament.

Whether Rashbam had these in mind or not, Rashbam’s younger Northern French contemporary, Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor makes this connection explicit:

וכל שכן אם יעשה על ידי מכשפות כגון ישו שהוציא כשפים ממצרים או על ידי אחיזת עיניים או על ידי גניבה.[12]

 

How much more so [should we never listen to the words of] someone who performs [miracles by using] magic, as Jesus did, who [performed signs by using magic that he first learned in Egypt and then] brought [that] magic out from Egypt; or if the sign is performed through sleight of hand[13] or through theft.[14]

As was his wont, Bekhor Shor is explicitly anti-Christian.[15]  On the other hand, there is no hint in Rashbam’s words that he is alluding to Jesus.

Much has been written about the extent to which Rashbam concerns himself with Christianity.[16]   Rashbam makes critical comments from time to time about Christian Bible commentaries,[17] and he defends Judaism against Christian claims.[18]  He refrains from the type of insulting vituperation about Jesus that characterizes Bekhor Shor here and in other passages.[19]  Of course one cannot rule out the possibility that he was thinking about Jesus when he commented on our verse.  But it seems more likely that he is simply explaining the verse.[20]  

Polemic Against ibn Ezra

Nevertheless, I believe it is possible Rashbam is polemicizing here, only not against Christianity, but against ibn Ezra. Itamar Kislev has argued that Rashbam’s Torah commentary reflects knowledge of ibn Ezra’s “short commentary” on the Torah,[21]part of which is his commentary on Deuteronomy.  If so, Rashbam may be emphasizing here his belief in the powers of sorcery in order to distance himself from ibn Ezra’s philosophical approach.

Rashbam and ibn Ezra

Ibn Ezra and Rashbam were two of the greatest advocates of peshat, the plain or contextual interpretation of the Bible, in medieval times.  Rashbam was just a few years older than ibn Ezra.  At one point, they both lived in Northern France.  It is tempting to imagine them meeting and talking about Bible interpretation, but most scholars doubt that that happened.[22]  Both  of them were daring Bible commentators who were often willing to buck traditional exegesis.  But the differences between them are significant.[23] 

Rashbam was a leading Talmudist and expert in halakhah.  Ibn Ezra is not known for any contributions to those fields.  Aside from his Bible commentaries, he wrote poetry and works of grammar, philosophy, and astrology (science).  He was a proud Spanish Jew, a product of the so-called Golden Age in Spain. 

Ibn Ezra spent the last decades of his life in Christian Europe and, as Uriel Simon has argued, looked down on his Ashkenazic brethren, viewing them as culturally backward.[24]  In particular, he had disdain for their lack of knowledge of Hebrew grammar and philosophy—two areas that he felt were crucial for educated Jews.

Peshat or Philosophy

Their respective attitudes towards Greek/Arabic style rationalist philosophy undergird the difference between ibn Ezra and Rashbam’s approaches to this passage. For ibn Ezra, “finding” that the Torah is saying something philosophically valid is more important than uncovering the plain meaning, the peshat of the biblical text. Or, to put it differently, since the text is divine, it must be in line with philosophical truth, even if the words need to be stretched to make them fit with this truth.[25]

Rashbam, on the other hand, generally does not place limits on his search for peshat, and felt that the plain meaning of the text may contradict halakhah.  Moreover, he believed in magic, as we saw above, and was not interested in Greek/Arabic style philosophy, as was the norm in his community.

Nowadays, we do not believe in magic or sorcery, and thus may be inclined to prefer ibn Ezra’s understanding of the world. Nevertheless, to try to interpret the Torah to fit with 21stcentury conceptions of reality would be forcing the text to say something it does not, just as ibn Ezra did by trying to read the Torah as a document reflecting medieval Greco-Arabic rationalism. Instead, it would seem that Rashbam’s more natural approach to the text comes closest to the modern academic way of reading it, even if some of his premises about how the world works are starkly different than ours.

View Footnotes

Published

August 7, 2018

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Last Updated

December 22, 2023

1.  B. Sanhedrin 90a.   The story of the false prophet Hananiah ben Azur is found in Jeremiah chapter 28.

2. Ibn Ezra does not identify whose ideas he is referring to, and scholarship, to the best of my knowledge, has not identified his sources.

3. An allusion to the phrase מגנבי דברי הנביאים “the prophets who steal My [God’s] words from one another” (Jer 23:30).

4. A similar argument was later offered by Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah 8:1. Maimonides argues there that miracles are not a reason to believe and that even the miracles that Moses performed were not what caused him to be believed.

5. An allusion to the language of Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 10:3 (10:2 in some editions).

6.  Ma’aseh Nissim: Commentary on the Torah, ed. by Howard Kreisel (Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 2000), p. 453.

7. Which is called an אות in that same verse.

8. The impressive Mikraot Gedolot on the website alhatorah.org prefers reading here שעזרו, not שעזבו, and cites some manuscript evidence for this reading.  Nevertheless, the reading שעזבו is also attested in manuscripts and is found in most standard texts and in Mikraot Gedolot Ha-keter, edited by Menahem Cohen. Moreover, the suggestion that God is helping the false prophet (שעזרו), does not fit well with ibn Ezra’s interpretation.

9. Already five hundred years ago Abarbanel dismissed ibn Ezra’s understanding of the test involved in false prophets – that even though they have no special powers we can still say that they constitute a test from God since God allows such people to live – using two different trivializing terms: וכל זה איננו שוה (all of this is worthless) and הוא טענה בטלה (this explanation is null). 

10. Rashbam is explaining that Deut 18:13 clarifies the idea behind the previous verses.  The reason to avoid soothsayers, diviners etc… is to remain wholehearted with God.

11. Editor’s note: For more on “permissible divination” in the Torah, see Jonathan Stökl, “Ancient Israelite Divination: Urim Ve-Tummim, Ephod, and Prophecy,” TheTorah.com (2017); Yoel S., “The Urim Ve-Tummim,” TheTorah.com (2014).

12. This text of Bekhor Shor’s comment on Deut 13:4 is found in Mikraot Gedolot Ha-keter, edited by Menachem Cohen.

13. Theoretically we could read Bekhor Shor as listing the three possible ways that Jesus performed his signs: magic, sleight of hand, or plagiarism.  I consider this understanding unlikely.  I think Bekhor Shor is certain that Jesus’s signs were performed through magic, as claimed in the Talmud (uncensored version of b. Sanhderin 107b) and in the old Jewish parody of Jesus’ life, Toledot Yeshu.  Here he is just listing three kinds of false prophets who must be ignored: those who use magic, as Jesus did, and those who use sleight of hand or theft.

14. As Bekhor Shor explains in the continuation of his remark, he is referring to the possibility of a false prophet plagiarizing from a true prophet, noted in ibn Ezra’s first explanation, above.

15. Similarly, see e.g. his comments on Gen 1:26 (against the belief in the Trinity) and Num 12:8 (against Christian allegorizing).

16. See e.g. Elazar Touitou, Exegesis in Perpetual Motion: Studies in the Pentateuchal Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir [Heb.] (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan Univeristy Press, 2003), esp. pp. 34-45; and the introduction to my Peirush ha-Rashbam al ha-Torah (Jerusalem: Chorev, 2009), esp. pp. 25-29.

17. See e.g. his comments to Gen 49:10 or to Exod 20:13.

18. See e.g. his commentary to Exod 3:22.

19. See similarly Bekhor Shor’s comment to Deut 18:13 where he directly insults Jesus’ allegedly dubious parentage.

20. For more on this subject, see Yedida Eisenstat, “Does Rashi’s Torah Commentary Respond to Christianity,”TheTorah.com (2018). 

21. Itamar Kislev, “‘Exegesis in Perpetual Motion’: The Short Commentary of Ibn Ezra as a Source for Rashbam in his Commentary on the Pentateuch” (Heb.), Tarbiz 79 (2011), 413-438. The term “short commentary” means his standard commentary on the Torah but not his longer commentary on Exodus, the one printed in most versions of Mikraot Gedolot.  According to many scholars, the “short commentary” was written by ibn Ezra in Italy, before Rashbam wrote his commentary on the Torah.

22. The exception is the University of Chicago scholar Norman Golb.  See his The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

23. Thirty years ago, I wrote an article contrasting Rashbam and ibn Ezra: “Tradition or Context: Two Exegetes Struggle with Peshat,” in From Ancient Judaism to Modern Israel: Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, vol. 3 (eds., Jacob Neusner, Ernest M. Frierichs, and Nahum Sarna; Atlanta, 1989), 173-186.  I hope to revisit the topic soon in a new academic article.

24. See Uriel Simon’s epilogue to Yesod mora vesod Torah: An Annotated Critical Edition, by Joseph Cohen and Uriel Simon, second revised and enlarged edition (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2007), pp. 213-230.

25. In this sense, the dispute between Rashbam and ibn Ezra about false prophets has the same underlying principle as the dispute between them about how to interpret the peshat of biblical verses that seem to contradict halakhah.  Despite the fact that ibn Ezra was willing to innovate in many ways in his Torah commentary, he avoided interpretations that would have the Torah saying something that halakhah opposes.  Rashbam has no such qualms and often interprets the peshat in a way that contradicts halakhah. Compare for example their interpretations of Lev 21:2-4.  While the rabbis taught that a kohen (priest) may attend his wife’s funeral (actually claiming that he must), Rashbam does not hesitate to say that the peshat of the verses is that a kohen should not.  Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, writes explicitly that that could not be the peshat of the verses.  For a list of passages that Rashbam interprets in a way that contradicts halakhah, see the index to my Peirush ha-Rashbam al ha-Torah (Jerusalem: Chorev, 2009), pp. 532-533, s.v. פשט: הסבר בצורה שסותרת את ההלכה.  For an analysis of some examples, see Zev Farber, “Can the Torah Contradict Halacha?” TheTorah.com (2014) and the introduction to my Peirush ha-Rashbam, pp. 16-18.