medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Bearing in mind that Mohammed lived in the 7th century in a part of the world that was a crossroads between major world cultures, including (but not limited
to) Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism, its not surprising that he drew on some remarkable source material. Islamic prayer today still resembles strongly the
form of prayer Mohammed probably encountered among ancient Christian monks, and some have suggested that his Christian source material has origins in
some very early Gnostic sects (the Koran's account of the Virgin Birth and Mary's life are very different in some regards than the Gospels, but still ancient in
origin).
Modern Christians, particularly in some quarters, tend to think of ancient Christianity as rather monolithic, which it radically was not, particularly in the Middle
East. Same with Judaism. Plus, in the ancient world the oral tradition was often (generally) stronger at a popular level than the written word (unaccessible
to most).
My favorite example of cultural blending is the legend of Barlaam and Ioasaph as told by St. John Damascene (who, incidentially, was an advisor to the
Caliph at the same time he was a leading Iconodule). Barlaam and Ioasaph is pretty clearly a Christianized version of an Islamicized version of the story of
Gautama Buddha.
Great stuff.
George the Less
On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:02:12 +0100, Rosemary Hayes-Milligan and Andrew Milligan wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>Thank you John (and George) I did ask the question before reading the
>links, so will know better next time. I was struck by the depiction of joy
>at the birth of a daughter (cf Isaac and J the B) and, I suppose, at how
>early devotion to Mary might provoke such story telling. It also resonated
>with a recent (Channel 4 I think) TV programme on the Jesus of the Koran.
>Perhaps (and I hope this is not offensive) _Protevangelium Jacobi_ was a
>source of some Muslim tradition?
>Best
>Rosemary
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