Syriac Infancy Gospel - Dating and Disbursement

Dating and Disbursement

The text was originally written in Syriac, possibly during the fifth-sixth century, but later became translated into an Arabic text, which has since been lost. Its earliest known mention was by Isho'dad of Merv, a ninth-century Syrian church father, in his biblical commentary concerning the Gospel of Matthew. The narrative of the Arabic Infancy Gospel, particularly the second part concerning the miracles in Egypt, can also be found in the Qur'an. According to some critical scholarship, its presence in the Qu'ran may be due to the influence the Gospel had amongst the Arabs. It is not known for certain that the Gospel was present in the Hejaz, but it can be seen as likely. However, Islamic Scholars claim that the Gospel was translated into Arabic in the post-Islamic period due the difficulty that 16th century Europeans would have in translating early Arabic's defective script into Latin as well as the extreme rarity of written texts in Pre-Islamic Arabia..