Surah 2:259:
Or as the one who passed by a township which had fallen into ruin. He said, "How will Allah bring this to life after its death?" So Allah caused him to die for a hundred years; then He resurrected him. He said, "How long have you remained?" The man said, "I have remained a day or part of a day." He said, "Rather, you have remained one hundred years. Look at your food and your drink; it has not changed with time. And look at your donkey; and We will make you a sign for the people. And look at the bones - how We raise them and then We cover them with flesh." And when it became clear to him, he said, "I know that Allah is over all things competent."
This presents the story of a man who doubts or questions how God can bring a ruined city back to life. In response, God causes him to die for 100 years and then resurrects him, alongside a miraculous demonstration involving his unspoiled food and the resurrection of his donkey's bones.
To the historical-critical scholar and Christian polemicist, this verse is a textbook example of haggadic syncretism—the blending of popular, extra-biblical Jewish folktales into a single narrative, which is then codified as historical revelation.
The most striking parallel is found in the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Ta'anit 23a), which records the legend of Honi ha-M'agel (Onias the Circle-Maker), a Jewish scholar from the 1st century BC.
The Jewish Legend:
Honi was troubled by Psalm 126:1, "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream."
He wondered how someone could "sleep" or dream for 70 years (the duration of the Babylonian exile). One day, he saw a man planting a carob tree (which takes 70 years to bear fruit).
Honi sat down, fell asleep, and was hidden by a rock. He slept for 70 years. When he awoke, he saw a man picking from the tree (the planter's grandson) and discovered that his donkey had birthed a whole herd.
The Quranic Adaptation:
Surah 2:259 takes the core elements—a man questioning God's restorative timeline, falling into a decades-long supernatural sleep, waking up disoriented, and the specific presence of his donkey—but alters the timeline from 70 to 100 years and changes the donkey's fate from breeding to becoming mere bones.
The Quranic story contains a detail absent from the Honi legend: the man's food and drink remained perfectly fresh despite the passage of a century. Where did this come from?
The Jewish Legend:
We find this in 4 Baruch (also known as the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah), a Jewish pseudepigraphal text written in the early 2nd century AD. In this story, Jeremiah’s servant, Abimelech, falls asleep under a tree with a basket of fresh figs just before the destruction of Jerusalem. He sleeps for 66 years. When he wakes up, he thinks he only slept a little while (sound familiar?), but is shocked to find that the city has been ruined and rebuilt. Miraculously, his basket of figs is still perfectly fresh and dripping with juice.
The Quranic Adaptation:
In Surah 2:259, God tells the resurrected man: "Look at your food and your drink; it has not changed with time." Furthermore, when the man wakes up, he says, "I have remained a day or part of a day"—the exact reaction of Abimelech.
| Narrative Element | Jewish Folklore Sources | The Quran (Surah 2:259) | Scholary Conclusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Protagonist's Doubt | Honi wonders how God restores Zion over 70 years (Talmud, Ta'anit 23a). | A man passes a ruined city and asks, "How will Allah bring this to life?" | The Quran adopts the exact theological premise of the Talmudic legend of Honi the Circle-Maker. |
| The Long Sleep | Honi sleeps 70 years. Abimelech sleeps 66 years (4 Baruch). | The man is caused to die/sleep for 100 years. | The Quran rounds up the timeframes of the Jewish legends into a flat century. |
| The Waking Reaction | Abimelech wakes up and thinks he slept only a short while. | The man wakes and says, "I have remained a day or part of a day." | A direct literary lift from the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah (4 Baruch). |
| The Unspoiled Food | Abimelech's basket of figs remains perfectly fresh and dripping with juice after 66 years. | God says: "Look at your food and your drink; it has not changed with time." | Conclusive evidence of literary dependency on 2nd-century Jewish apocrypha. |
| The Donkey | Honi wakes up to find his donkey has birthed a herd over the 70 years. | The man's donkey is reduced to bones, which God then resurrects before his eyes. | The Quran keeps the specific detail of the donkey from the Honi story but changes its fate to serve as a literal proof of bodily resurrection. |
When viewed together, the author of the Quran did NOT receive a divine revelation of a historical event, but rather spliced together two famous Jewish fables circulating in Medina:
From Honi (Talmud): The questioning of the ruined city/restoration, the long sleep, and the donkey.
From Abimelech (4 Baruch): The ruined city of Jerusalem, waking up thinking only "a part of a day" had passed, and the miracle of the unspoiled food.
The author of the Quran took the theological musings of these Jewish parables (which were meant to teach about God's faithfulness over generations) and turned them into a literal, physical demonstration of bodily resurrection (watching the donkey's bones reassemble in real-time).