Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I: THE LEGEND OF SERGIUS BAḤĪRĀ IN LIGHT OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS VIS-À-VIS ISLAM

Chapter One: Muslim-Christian Confrontation and Counterhistory

Chapter Two: The Islamic Baḥīrā

Chapter Three: The Apocalypse of Baḥīrā

Chapter Four: Baḥīrā’s Teachings

Breaking Crosses

God’s Word and His Spirit— Baḥīrā’s Christology

Protection and recognition – Baḥīrā and Q 5:82

The Physics of Heaven

Chapter Five: The Qurʾan against Islam

Chapter Six: The legend outside the Legend

Baḥīrā the Source

Baḥīrā the Heretic

Baḥīrā the False Witness

Baḥīrā the Victim

Jewish Traditions about Baḥīrā

Baḥīrā the Forecaster

Chapter Seven: Concluding Discussion

PART II: TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Chapter Eight: The Recensions and the Manuscript Tradition

Some Characteristics of the Recensions

Textual Genealogy

Manuscripts

Conspectus Siglorum

Methodological Considerations

Chapter Nine: The East-Syrian Recension

Chapter Ten: The West-Syrian Recension

Chapter Eleven: The Short Arabic Recension

Chapter Twelve: The Long Arabic Recension

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL VERSES

GENERAL INDEX

About the Author

Barbara Roggema (Ph. D 2007, University of Groningen) has taught Arabic, Islam and Middle Eastern History in the Netherlands and Italy and is currenty research fellow at the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Reviews

“[…] the value of the publication lies in the thoroughness of Roggema’s edition of the Legend of Baḥīrā, which is the outcome of an outstanding scholarly effort.”
Alexandros Tsakos in JOAS 20 (2011), 301-302.