Ahmad al-Jallad has found an inscription in common Safaitic, next to a cluster of fine Safaitic. Here one Wahbel bin Gyz bin (etc.), who had married into that cluster's clan, made his mark. Where other contemporary Arabs might invoke for their aid Allat or (like Wahbel's dad) El, Wahbel asks aid from one "ʿsy". Against those who deny (kfr) Thee.
This is new in Safaitic - not just ʿsy, but the concern against kufr. The Qurân which Juan Cole has read doesn't quite use kafara as the verb for disbelief with bare object, preferring kafara bi- in parallel with amana bi-. Al-Jallad sees a Qâric parallel with "Syriac"; although Marijn van Putten might prefer extending this to Aramaic in general, starting with Nabati. Anyway noncanon protoclassical Arabic texts do omit the bi-; most dramatically Ubay's sura.
The next time we see an ʿsy venerated nearly as highly, as al-Jallad notes, is the sura 3/10 complex. These suwar and beyond write it ʿÎsey, now the famous ʿÎsâ - it's Jesus, but as a mortal this time. I do not see this name in suwar 17, 30, 47 &c. Wahbel's graffito proves that the Qurân did not simply make this name up, midstream.
Given the concerns new to the Safaitic mind which this author brought to ʿsy, al-Jallad argues that this name was ʿÎsey then too.
We still have the problem of why not, er, Îshôʿ like the Nestorians - or Yashûʿ like other Aramaeans, or like the Melkite Arabs for that matter. Now we know this was not the Prophet's problem. One old theory was that the qurrâ introduced a deliberate metathesis so as not to sully the Divine Name; but this never worked for sura 3, arguing against exactly that. It might, by contrast, work for Wahbel bin Gyz.
Al-Jallad sees, further, an old calque for "redeemer" like good ol' Syriac paroqa. Although: Wahbel spoke a ha- Arabic; so, why this is not *ha-ʿÎsey, like "al-Farûq" in a later time for a later Divine hero, I know not.
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