Table of Contents – N Otes

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Lines lead from the very first Jewish Christianity to the seventh century, indeed to Islam.. .. The analogies between the Qur'anic picture of Jesus and a Christology with a Jewish-Christian stamp are perplexing. These parallels are irrefutable and call for more intensive historical and systematic reflection. Biblical quotes in the following work, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New King James Version. The reason for selecting this version of the Bible does not relate to the degree of scriptural fidelity, which is debatable, but rather to the popularity of the text. In English-speaking countries, the 1611 edition of the King James Version is the most widely read translation of the Bible. The New King James Version (NKJV) grew from an effort to render the 1611 translation more accessible to modern readers, tossing the thees and thous out the window. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to reconcile differences between the 1611 King James Version and the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus codices, which were discovered two centuries afterward and contain the oldest and most authoritative New Testament manuscripts found to date. Now that they are available, one can reasonably expect to see their influence upon more modern translations, but this is not the case in the New King James Version, which retains verses and passages in conflict with the most ancient and respected New Testament manuscripts. Therefore, while this book predominantly cites the New King James Version in the interest of satisfying the Protestant majority of Western Christianity, a complementary version is employed where greater scholastic accuracy is required. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) fills this gap. Like its predecessor, the Revised Standard Version (RSV), the NRSV is an ecumenical collaboration, reflected in its three separate Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox editions. More importantly, the NRSV reflects modern biblical scholarship hitherto unavailable. Indeed, the dust had barely been blown off the Dead Sea Scrolls when the RSV translation of the Old Testament was first published in 1946. For these reasons, the NRSV has effectively replaced the Revised Standard Version and enjoys the broadest acceptance of all Bible translations. Quotations from the World Bibliography of Translations of the Meanings of the Holy Qur'an (hereafter TMQ), unless otherwise noted, are taken from Abdullah Yusuf Ali's The Holy Qur'an: Translation and Commentary. Where more exacting translation is required, …