Where scholars disagree
Eighteen disagreements Sage flagged while merging the bridge. Each row keeps both sides and links to the nodes in the chain.
| Topic | Nodes | One side | The other side |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jewish-Christian survival into Muhammad's Arabia | Pines; Crone 2015/2016; de Blois 2002; Zellentin 2013 (Didascalia-type law) | Stern 1967; Griffith (Syriac mainstream churches are enough) | |
| Meaning of naṣārā | de Blois: Nazoraeans | Griffith: the ordinary Syriac/Persian term for Christians | |
| Pre-Islamic Arabic Bible | Shahîd (as cited); Kashouh 2012 (early Arabic gospel families) | Griffith 2013: oral and liturgical only before the 8th–9th century | |
| Q 4:157, it was made to appear so | Substitution reading (classical tafsir; parallels with Basilides and 2 Seth) | Reynolds 2009, Mourad 2011: denies that Jews killed Jesus, not that he died; no Docetic borrowing needed | |
| Kathisma and the Q 19 palm | Shoemaker 2003; Dye 2012 (Palestinian setting) | Neuwirth (Meccan setting; intertext with Protevangelium and Pseudo-Matthew) | |
| Alexander legend and Dhu al-Qarnayn | van Bladel 2008, Reinink: Syriac text c. 629–636 shared with Q 18 | Tesei 2014 (earlier core layer); traditional Meccan dating | |
| Year of the Elephant = 570? | Tradition | Conrad 1987 (a symbolic date); Robin (Abraha's Mecca campaign is 552 per the Murayghan inscription) | |
| Seal of the prophets | Stroumsa 1986: a Manichaean metaphor | Rubin 2014: finality, read in its Qur'anic context | |
| Who were the Sabians | de Blois 1995: Manichaeans | Chwolsohn and others: Mandaeans (and Harranians, a later claim) | |
| Muhammad's death in 632 | Islamic tradition | Shoemaker 2012: early non-Muslim sources have him alive at the conquest of Palestine (634+) | |
| Birmingham folios' date | Birmingham team 2015: parchment 568–645 | Shoemaker 2022 and others: the radiocarbon date of the parchment does not fix when the text was written or canonized | |
| Q 85, People of the Ditch | Exegetes link it to Najran in 523 | Silverstein 2019; Horovitz (as cited): eschatological, about hellfire | |
| Q 112 as anti-Nicene | Neuwirth: a reversal of the Nicene begotten, not made | Traditional reading: a general statement of tawhid | |
| Third of three (5:73) | Griffith 2007: Syriac title one of three | Older view: a Christian Trinity of Mary (Collyridian-type), with no named modern advocate found | |
| Flight to Pella | Koester 1989: a historical core | Lüdemann (as cited): a later legitimizing legend | |
| Paul's Arabia | Wright 1996: Sinai/Arabia as a retreat to Mount Sinai | Hengel and Schwemer (as cited): mission in Nabataea | |
| Waraqa as Muhammad's teacher | Azzi (polemical, fringe) | The scholarly mainstream treats the Waraqa story as legitimation in the sira; no evidence for any teaching role | |
| Najashi's identity | Traditional Armah (1895 identification) | Hahn (coin evidence; as cited): ruler uncertain |