This paper presents a review article of Creating the Qur’an by Stephen J. Shoemaker, a monograph that is highly critical of Quranic studies as practised in the Western academy today, arguing, among other things, that Islamic studies scholars need to learn from scholarship in other fields, namely history of religions and biblical studies, and that the Quran as we know it today, in both form and content, is a product of the early eighth century, and was propagated by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik. The article discusses these claims and puts them in the context of methodological issues concerning the study of early Islam and the origins of the Quran in particular.

Roman identity and legitimisation of imperial rule were closely connected to the mythological motive of divine descent. In this context, the myth of Romulus with the encounter between the god Mars and the virgin Rhea Silvia developed its own significance that was available for broader circles within the population of the Roman Empire. It is against this background that Luke 1.26–38 may be read as an alternative foundation narrative that assimilates essential features of the Roman myth of origin in order to reinterpret it christologically.