Do visit Mel’s YouTube site ‘Origins’ at: https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsofIslam/videosThe Qur’an contains a verse, Surah 5:116, where Allah seems to ask Isa (Jesus) whether it was true that he and “his mother” are worshiped alongside God.Most Christians have always assumed that this verse was questioning Jesus’ divinity and also the trinity, but that it had a glaring error in that it assumed that Mary was included within the Trinity, which she certainly is not, and historically has never been within Christianity.Mel, using the research of the french scholar, Edouard Marie Gallez, looks at this verse and comes up with another more interesting interpretation.To begin with, an interesting footnote by the Arab scholar Al Jallad who suggests that the name ‘Isa’ was possibly as ancient Arabic term which had the meaning “redeemer”, or “someone who pays”, which is the correct application for Jesus, who is our redeemer. Thus, the name is not a misnomer in the Qur’an but actually has a correct connotation.If that were the case, in this instance, the question god is asking of Isa also is possibly a correct question, in that he is not questioning the trinity itself, but asking ‘Isa’ whether he and “his mother” are two distinct and separate Gods besides the Father. But he isn’t suggesting the “his mother” has anything to do with Mary, but the Holy Spirit.How do we know this is what this verse meant? By simply returning to the historical context of that time and that place; namely, the 6th to 7th centuries, and to the Syriac Gnostic environment where this verse was most likely borrowed from.In the Nag Hammadi gospels, which were Greek/Coptic Gnostic texts from the 2nd – 4th centuries, we find the “Acts of Thomas”, verse 39, which at the end says “thine holy spirit, the mother of all creation”, suggesting that the holy spirit was feminine and referred to as a ‘mother’.This is not unique. There are other references in earlier Gnostic, Christian, and even Muslim texts, written in both Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic where the Holy Spirit is considered female, and referred to as a ‘mother’.1) The Gnostic “Odes of Solomon” does2) Origin in Alexandria (185-253 AD) refers to the Holy Spirit as feminine3) Aphradate in Mosul (280-345 AD) also refers to the Holy Spirit as feminine4) Jerome in Jerusalem (342-420 AD), quoting Origin, does likewise5) At Tabari, Al Baydawi, Zamakshari and al Jalalayn all refer to the Holy Spirit as feminine.Gallez, therefore, suggests that this reference in Surah 5:116 is nothing more than an early 7th century (616 AD) internecine dispute between Christians living in Alexandria (Egypt today), where the Trinitarian position is the orthodox view, against other Christians living further north in Antioch (Turkey today), who took a more ‘tri-theistic’ view, emphasizing the 3 separate and distinct natures of the godhead.Thus, it was a question, or a sort of mocking, posed by the Alexandrians to those in Antioch, questioning whether they believed that Jesus and the Holy Spirit (his mother) were both worshiped distinct from the Father.Ironically, if this were true, and this verse was not referring to Mary the mother of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit himself, than the question we find in Surah 5:116 is the same we as Christians today would pose as well.What is important, however, is that when we look at verses like these, we need to try and exegete them correctly, which means rather than imposing our own views onto them, we need to try instead find out what the author of the text was trying to say.A verse like this one can really only be understood once we note where it was borrowed from, which in this case was much further north, in what is today Egypt and Turkey.Interestingly, by putting this verse into its proper 7th century context, it proves once again what we have been intimating for quite some time, that much of the Qur’an was created much further north, and in a context of debates and polemical discussions which were happening between different sects and groups within Christianity, but were then later incorporated into what eventually became Islam by the Abbasids, sometime in the later 8th – 9th centuries.© Pfander Centre for Apologetics – US, 2022(69,710) Music: “New Beginning” by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io