Despite the striking parallel of such passages to the events...

Despite the striking parallel of such passages to the events, there are many barriers to their acceptance as evidence of Biblical support for Islam. The liberal denial of prophecy altogether aside, the psychological resistance to such an interpretation is prodigious. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibilities of more objective evidence. The weakness of linguistic evidence does not mitigate structural evidence.

Obviously structural evidence in itself is insufficient, but it provides a schema that greatly strengthens the objectivity of the evidence of content and context. What must be examined is the many series of twelve that exist in the Bible for evidence of characteristics for each of the twelve slots in the series, and whether or not those characteristics parallel those of the twelve Shi’ite Imams (as) and correspondingly of Imam Hussein (as) in particular.

These series are specifically the twelve reigning patriarchs of the Book of Genesis, the twelve sons of Ishmael (as), the twelve sons of Jacob (as), the twelve judges of the Book of Judges, the twelve righteous kings of Judah, and the twelve apostles of Jesus (as). Aside from series of human figures, there are many series of twelve to be found in the Bible. Among these are passages containing twelve sections, and passages containing twelve references to a particular word.

The former type is particularly fruitful. There are a number of such passages in the Book of Psalms, including many Psalms of twelve verses each, and most notably the series of twelve Psalms entitled Psalms of Asaph. A careful comparison of the twelve Psalms of Asaph to the names of the twelve sons of Ishmael, which give the clues to the characteristics of each of the twelve slots, shows that these Psalms reflect the character of each of the twelve Imams.

We shall focus specifically on Psalm 74, which is, within this schema, prophetic of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (as). It is the third of the Psalms of Asaph. 1 ¶ O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? The maschil is a didactic Psalm, one for instruction. The instruction is not necessarily in the wisdom genre, nor even law. It can be instruction in prophecy in the sense of future events.

The content of this Psalm appears strange as a subject of instruction, since it is couched in words of appeal to God to intervene in a difficult situation.