First of all, it seems that Issa was really how Jesus was called in North Arabia.
An inscription was recently found in North Arabia dating from the 4th CE with the name 'sy in the local dialect of Arabic, see this article "The Pre-Islamic Divine Name ʿsy and the Background of the Qurʾānic Jesus"
https://www.academia.edu/73883276/Al_Jallad_2021_The_Pre_Islamic_Divine_Name_%CA%BFsy_and_the_Background_of_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81nic_Jesus_with_Ali_al_ManaserThen Qur'an narrates in Surah 19 about Issa / Jesus the story of his birth under a palm tree, and in Surah 5 that he could transform birds of clay into real birds.
Likewise it narrates the Mary's childhood in the temple.
Those narrations already existed before in apocryphal gospels, known by some non-canonical Christian traditions.
So clearly Issa in Qur'an, and therefore his mother, Maryam, are related to the Jesus of both canonical and apocryphal Christian traditions.
And Jesus in Christian traditions is attached to the time of Herod and the Roman rule.
In fact, the various stories of Jesus in the different gospels are deeply rooted in the historical circumstances of the 1st CE. There is no way to easily remove that from those narrations.
Qur'an, on the other hand, attaches Issa and Maryam to the time of Moses and Aaron, and Issa is made the nephew of Aaron, and therefore Moses, so Maryam would logically be identified to Miriam in the Torah, who is the sister of Moses and Aaron.
This is an issue about Qur'an because there was no known tradition similar to that of Jesus before the Christian traditions and which would attach him to the time of Moses.
There is a Joshua (more accurately, Yehoshua), known by the Torah and the book of Joshua at the time of Moses, and the names Jesus and Joshua are actually the same, but in is never said that Joshua was the son on Miriam, and the nephew of Moses and Aaron.
And it's a crazy insane theory to claim that of all those books, Torah, book of Joshua, canonical gospels, apocryphal gospels, all are fake and corrupted about Issa / Jesus.
It absolutely makes no sense, there is no proof of that, it's mere plot theory at topmost level that is only based on the fact that narrations are divergent between them and Qur'an.
Does it mean though that Qur'an forged a totally invented story about Issa / Jesus ?
Perhaps not so, either.
There is a sect in Iraq, called the Mandaeans. They are not Christians nor Jews, but their faith is deeply rooted in Judaic culture.
Their main book is the Haran Gawaitha (
http://www.gnosis.org/library/haran.htm).
Their faith is essentially a Gnostic faith, where the messengers are sent from the divine realm to bring Light and knowledge from the invisible world to mankind.
Their main prophet is Yahia (called Yahia-Yuhana), that is John the Baptist.
Regular baptism and ritual baths are the major rituals of the Mandaeans.
And not only do they reject Jesus as False Messiah but in their book, it is written that Mary was the daughter of Moses:
QuoteAnd they (the Nasoraeans) loved the Lord, that is, Adonai , until in the House of Israel there was created something which was not placed in the womb of Mary, a daughter of Moses. It was hidden in her womb for nine months and bewitched her until the nine months were fulfilled and she was in labour and brought forth a messiah.
.. and he called the people to himself and spoke of his death and took away some of mysteries of the (Sacred?) Meal and abstained from the Food. And he took to himself a people and was called by the name of the False Messiah. And he perverted them all and made them like himself who perverted words of life and changed them into darkness and even perverted those accounted Mine. And he overturned all the rites. And he and his brother dwell on Mount Sinai, and he joineth all races to him, and perverteth and joineth to himself a people, and they are called Christians
It should be noted that from this passage, Mandaeans believed that Jesus abstained from the Food.
It is not clear what this Food is (the capital F was added by the translator, there is no capital letter in Aramaic), but Qur'an dismisses the belief that Mary and Jesus abstained from food:
5.75 The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger; messengers have passed on before him. And his mother was a supporter of truth. They both used to eat food (...)
Was Qur'an addressing Mandaeans in the 7th CE when it spoke of Jesus and Mary ?
Likely not, at least not the group that survived until today.
But certainly to groups of people sharing some religious and cultural background with the Mandaeans.
After all, the Mandaeans call themselves "Nasoreans" in their scriptures, and Qur'an mentions the "Nassara".
So like "believers", a lot of people could have called themselves "Nassaras" or "Nasoreans" without being Mandaeans themselves but still sharing some religious and cultural background.
Now it remains to understand of the story of Jesus in the Gospels, be canonical or apocryphal, could have been backported to the time of Moses by those "Nassaras".
This is where the Judaic culture comes on stage.
Moses, Maryam, Jesus, etc. were perhaps real people, but religious scholars in the ancient times saw them first as figures symbolizing some aspects of the people of Israel.
Scriptures, Torah, Gospels, and even Qur'an, were not supposed to be the speech of God in the literal sense, but as a support to expose and teach the divine will.
Whenever they wanted to teach something of the divine will, they composed a symbolic story for the purpose of the expounding.
Those stories had mainly three components:
1. Parables, metaphors, or allegories,that are not arbitrary but forming a code, a lexicon or a dictionary.
E.g. the west alludes to the end of times, the east to the resurrection.
Bread, vine, water, clothes are among the metaphors for the Law.
Etc.
2. alliterations, plays of words, sometimes gematria (mostly in Hebrew), to make an idea heard, insist on it. This is "double entendre".
And when Jesus in the Gospels says "He who has ears to hear, let him hear", this is mostly "double entendre" in fact. It means that what he just said has a double meaning based on some puns, sometimes hidden in an Aramaic or Hebrew substrate.
3.Existing base narratives in the Bible or others, e.g. other stories, apocryphs, etc.
A story made of components expounding the divine will is called a "midrash".
We can now understand why it is not mere coincidence that some key characters around Jesus in the canonical and apocryphal Gospels bear a certain resemblance to other characters in the Old Testament.
This is because the Gospels were initially midrashs themselves where the base narratives are in the Old Testament: the Torah, the Book of Joshua, to Book of Zacharia, etc.
Though both narratives are different, the pattern of the life of Jesus in the Gospels still bears a certain similarity to the life of Joshua in the Book of Joshua.
For example, both characters begin their respective mission by crossing the Jordan river.
Likewise, the pattern of the life of Muhammad in the Sirah is similar to the life of Joshua in the Book of Joshua, including first a victory, and second a defeat.
The role of Joshua in the Torah and the Book of Joshua is to make the people of Israel enter in the Holy Land. But there is a symbolic meaning associated to it: to make the people of Israel enter into the world to come.
So Jesus is the same: his role is to make the people of Israel (whatever is meant under that name, either restrictive or extensive) into the world to come, that is the Messianic era.
So to sum up, we have a first set of narratives in the Torah and the Book of Joshua about conquering the Holy Land to enter into the world to come.
Then a second set of narratives in the Gospels based on the cognate narratives of the Torah and the Book of Joshua, narring the story of Jesus about preaching a new Law to enter into the world to come.
Then a third set of narratives based on the first ones, found Qur'an and somewhat lost traditions, where Jesus is back into the time of Moses, but with characteristics of the Gospels.
So now we can start to answer the initial question to which character is Maryam in Qur'an the closest among similar names in Torah and Gospels.
There are several Mary in the Gospels:
- Mary, the mother of Jesus
- Mary Magdalene
- Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus
- Mary, the mother of James and Joses
By midrash, these Mary derive from Miriam in the Torah, and also partly from Rahab in the Book of Joshua, but I will not speak of that one.
This is a bit complicated to explain in detail, and I don't have sources in English to explain that. I have only sources in French.
Miriam in the Torah has two opposed sides.
On the positive side, she is a prophetess (in the Torah).
On the negative side, she speaks against Moses, she is punished by leprosy for that and must stay out of the camp for seven days, seven days of impurity.
In Hebrew, the name Miriam is close to another one, meri, meaning revolt.
In fact, Miriam is the symbol of the people of Israel, always in revolt, but also bearing the Messianic promise.
Even in the Old Testament, the people of Israel were supposed to carry the teaching of God to the Gentiles.
Miriam speaks against Moses when Moses expressed his wish to marry a Gentile woman.
The meaning of this story is that Moses wanted to carry to word of God to the Gentiles (this is the idea of his marriage with a Gentile woman) and the people of Israel, symbolized by Miriam, rejected that.
Jesus is born in the people of Israel to save him, so logically he is the son of Miriam, because the son is a metaphor for the savior.
Mary Magdalene is by midrash, one facet of Miriam symbolizing the people of Israel, that one inclined to revolt, worked by the seven abominations (the seven demons, like the seven days of impurity), and finally cured by Jesus.
Let's move to Qur'an.
Qur'an says that Maryam was chosen and pure, and she is a the best woman of the creation.
But there are some subtleties in the way Qur'an presents Maryam.
First of all, there is the disappointment of her mother:
3:36 So when she had delivered she said: "My Lord, I have delivered a female," and God is fully aware of what she delivered, "And the male is not like the female, and I have named her Mary, and I seek refuge for her and her progeny with You from the outcast devil."
So she expected a male but delivered a female.
A male in the Arabic version is "dhakar". This is close to "dhikr". Dhikr means reminder, and is an important concept in ancient Judaic thinking: it means that God will remember his people and send them a savior.
So the wife of Imran expected a savior as fulfillment of that the promise of salvation is remembered, but she delivered a female.
But it is through this daughter that the promise of salvation will be remembered.
In Surah 19, we have
19:19 He said: "I am the messenger of your Lord, to grant you a "ghulam" who is pure."
19:20 She said: "How can I have a boy when no "bashar" has been with me, nor have I been unchaste?"
19:21 He said: "It is such that your Lord has said, it is easy for Me. And We shall make him a sign for the people and a mercy from Us. It is a matter already ordained."
Miriam in the Old Testament symbolized the people of Israel, both on positive side and on negative side.
Maryam in Qur'an symbolizes in a more restricted way the community of the pious, that never committed with idolatry --> "nor I have been unchaste", that is I have never committed myself with idolatry.
Qur'an uses the word "bashar" to mean a human male here, but the word bashar means also the good news.
The good news is the announciation that the "dhikr" is going to be fulfilled.
The word is cognate to Hebrew bessora, and is translated in Greek into evangilion, which indicates the Gospels.
So this is really a key concept.
In verse 19.19, there is the announciation of a "ghulam". This means a boy, or a young male slave, but this word is chosen because it sounds like 'alam, which alludes to the world to come.
So in this verse, there is the announciation to the community of the pious that a savior (i.e. a messenger) will come to them.
In verse 19.20, Maryam expresses reluctance and lack of hope
--> I have never committed myself with idolatry, so why should I need a savior ?
--> why I should be with a "bashar", the good news of salvation ?
So here we find again the expression of the revolt that was one of the facet of Miriam in the Torah.
Surely according to Qur'an Maryam was pure, but in Qur'an she still has a defect, the reluctance to bear the good news, like Miriam spoke against Moses.
It symbolizes the reluctance of the pious (likely the true Children of Israel in the spirit of Qur'an) to carry the word of God to the idolaters.