Islam critiqued reveals a source of the Quran; wise companion of Moses copied from the rabbis?

In answer to the video "Quran, Alexander and Studies in Surah 18"

Some have claimed that the Quran in 18:60-82 is inspired by Joshua ben Levi's encounter with Elijah. The event is mentioned under the title Hibbur Yafeh me-ha-Yeshua. This actually is an Arabic work by the 10th century Tunisian rabbi Jacob ben Nissim ibn Shahin. The original Arabic is called Al-Faraj Ba'd al-Shiddah. A literal translation would be, "the opening following difficulty". This was a Muslim genre, which dealt with relief after distressful times. Ibn Shahin wrote in the same genre, in an Islamic environement, inspired by both the Quran and its commentaries. He simply replaced the Muslim themes with Jewish and biblical characters. This story of Elijah and Joshua ben Levi, which isnt attested in any Jewish source prior to that time, is one of those reshaped stories.

In fact seven other stories in that book have no rabbinic precedent, with three among them having Islamic parallels including in style. In some places, Ibn Shahin quotes passages with close parallels to verses from the Quran (Wheeler). It is in ignorance of these facts that subsequent critics have continued drawing parallels between the unnamed wise companion of Moses in the Quran, with depictions of Elijah in rabbinic texts predating the Quran. These muddled attempts are taken a step higher when parallelisms are drawn between these rabbinic traditions, and the later commentaries of the Quran, passed off as part of the Quran itself and having no basis in the prophetic traditions.

Another alleged source of the story is the Alexander Romances. This is due firstly to the identification of the fish with a certain fish story that comes back to life in "the sermon on Alexander" allegedly written by Jacob of Serugh. Scholarship suggests it is an edited work that probably initiated towards the mid 7th century, casting doubt even on its attribution to Jacob de Serugh.

More damning to this weak attempt at undermining the authenticity of the Quran, is the fact that the opponents very often confuse the Quran itself, with its later commentaries. For example it is in the the Quranic commentaries that the servant of God whom Moses encounters is named "al-Khidr". And it is based on these very commentaries that "al-Khidr" was used instead of "Alexander" in the Arabic, Ethiopic, and Persian versions of the Alexander stories, that were all redacted after the advent of Islam. As to the the Syriac version of the Alexander stories, scholars have disputed its dating, from between the 6th and the 10th centuries. But what is more important is that the fish episode, which is the key point in the argument that Quran 18:60-65 was derived from the Alexander stories, does not occur in the Syriac version.

Some have tried to parallel the story with that attributed to the 7th century Byzantine monk John Moschus. The passages with similarities arent found in authoritative manuscripts (4 in total dating from the 10th to 12th centuries) of the “Spiritual Meadow”, but in a secondary manuscript, among other supplementary stories. Most importantly, reconstructing the original work of John Moschus is impossible given the vast differences between existing manuscripts. In contrast, we do have manuscript proof of the story of Moses and Khidr circulating in the 1st century of Islam. Here again as in other similar cases, the burden of proof is not on Muslims, but on critics to prove that the source they allege influenced the Quran, wasnt in fact copying from it.

Since that youtuber is amused by seamonsters, let him open the passages of his Bible that parallel with unsophisticated legends floating in the region and predating it. The oldest and original account of creation in the Bible isnt found in Genesis but in Isaiah, Job or the Psalms. God in these crude stories divides the seas and fights off aquatic monsters. The same is found in the Ugaritic tablets and in a language very similar to Hebrew, with the myth that creation began when the storm god Baal vanquishing the god of the sea Yam and his sea monster-serpent-dragon helpers. Isa27:1 has a very close wording to what a Canaanite says about Baal

"When you killed Litan, the fleeing serpent, annihilated the twisty serpent, the potentate with seven heads".