A number of passages in the Qur'an criticize Jews and Christians, from claims of exclusive salvation and charges of Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation to cautions against the taking of Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates. Mun'im Sirry offers a novel exploration of these polemical passages, which have long been regarded as obstacles to peaceable interreligious relations, through the lens of twentieth-century tafsir (exegesis). He considers such essential questions as: How have modern contexts shaped Muslim reformers' understanding of the Qur'an, and how have the reformers' interpretations recontextualized these passages? Can the Qur'an's polemical texts be interpreted fruitfully for interactions among religious communities in the modern world? Sirry also reflects on the various definitions of apologetic or polemic as relevant sacred texts and analyzes reformist tafsirs with careful attention to argument, literary context, and rhetoric in order to illuminate the methods, positions, and horizons of the exegeses. Scriptural Polemics provides both a critical engagement with the tafsirs and a lucid and original examination of Qur'anic language, logic, and dilemmas, showing how the dynamic and varied reformist interpretations of these passages open the way for a less polemical approach to other religions.

Mun'im Sirry explores polemical passages in the Qur'an, examining the interpretation of those passages by reformist exegetes of the first half of the twentieth century.

Forgery and Counter-forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics is the first major contemporary work on forgery in early Christian literature. It examines the motivation and function behind Christian literary forgeries.

What is the relationship between the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern mythology? Currid examines the evidence, arguing that the Old Testament is highly polemical as he stresses differentiation over continuity.

In Interpreting the Qurʾān with the Bible, R. Michael McCoy III examines the reception of the Arabic Bible in tafsīr literature by analyzing Ibn Barraǧān’s (d. 546/1141) and al-Biqāʿī’s (d. 885/1480) methods of scriptural engagement.

Back cover: Kai Akagi considers what the speeches in Acts 10 and 17 say about Jesus when they speak of him as a judge. This historical and literary study reveals that Jesus' role as a judge both suggests that he judges with divine authority and expresses his identity as Jewish messiah.

This book examines literary analogies in Christian and Jewish sources, culminating in an in-depth analysis of striking parallels and connections between Christian monastic texts (the Apophthegmata Patrum or 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers') and Babylonian Talmudic traditions. The importance of the monastic movement in the Persian Empire, during the time of the composition and redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, fostered a literary connection between the two religious populations. The shared literary elements in the literatures of these two elite religious communities sheds new light on the surprisingly inclusive nature of the Talmudic corpora and on the non-polemical nature of elite Jewish-Christian literary relations in late antique Persia.