The Greek term euangelion, ‘good news’ originally referred to any positive message, but became in New Testament writings a technical term for a ‘royal victory announcement’ (synoptic gospels) and for ‘Christian doctrine’ (Paul). Subsequently it came to be used in Greek and other languages to refer to a text, a ‘biography of Jesus’. And then the Qur’ān uses it in the form ʾinjīl to refer to ‘divine revelation’ and a corpus, likely such as that which we know as ‘the New Testament’. These shifts in meaning across times, languages and scripts follow normal linguistic processes with no apparent polemic motivation. Only in later times, in contrast with the Qur’ān’s high view of the ʾinjīl, was the doctrine of taḥrīf, ‘corruption’, developed and applied to the written text of the New Testament. Translators of the Qur’ān and the Bible, conscious of both synchronic and diachronic considerations, can be seen to typically make inclusive rather than exclusive choices, building bridges rather than walls, generally equating the ʾinjīl affirmed by the Qur’ān with the Christian New Testament, even where their audiences may have considered the latter muḥarraf, ‘corrupted’.
This presentation will summarise the published article, with illustrations of the ancient manuscripts referred to there, and ask the question ‘So what?’. Historical and other comparative study may have given us a better understanding of ourselves and each other as Muslims and Christians, but how can that impact the broader societies which we doubtless all seek to influence for the good?

Reference
Warren-Rothlin, Andy, ‘Good News: Greek euangelion, Arabic ʾinjīl and modern Qurʾan and Bible translations in Islamic Contexts’, in Georgina L. Jardim, Ida Glaser and Shirin Shafaie (eds), The Gospels in Islamic Context: Function and Content doi.org/10.4324/9781003500193 (Reading the Bible in Islamic Context; London: Routledge, 2025) 21-37.