Koran older than Mohammed?

bnt

Well, I honestly didn't see this coming:

Keith Small, of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, cautioned that carbon dating was done only on the Koran’s parchment and not its ink, but he said the dates were probably accurate.

“If the dates apply to the parchment and the ink, and the dates across the entire range apply, then the Koran — or at least portions of it — predates Mohammed, and moves back the years that an Arabic literary culture is in place well into the 500s,” he said.

Small said that would lend credibility to the historical view that Muhammad and his followers collected text that was already in circulation to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than receiving revelations from heaven.

“This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition and the history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised, somehow accounting for another book of scripture coming into existence 50 to 100 years before, and then also explaining how this was co-opted into what became the entity of Islam by around AD700,” Small said.

Cabaal

What?
god isn't real and didn't talk to anyone?
Thats shocking!!

I can't believe its all made up and its all about control, politics and power :eek:

SSLguru

Older than mohammed or his bird ( 6 year old girl or boy )

robindch

If this gets out, the guy's going to need police protection.

James Forde

Carbon dating is wrong, science is the devil..........

silverharp

je suis boards.ie

blindside88

I wouldn't like to be going to the boards staff Christmas party this year.... Although it's not like Muslims to take a joke badly......

Nodin

Altering texts to suit your agenda and getting caught? What kind of amateur religion is this?

Wanderer78

carbon dating was created by infidels so i guess its void!

recedite

According to Muslim tradition, Mo's companions started writing down the scriptures on scraps of parchment and old camel bones from 610 CE.

According to the carbon dating, this scrap of parchment dates from around the same time. I'm inclined to agree with the Muslim scholars then...

“If anything, the manuscript has consolidated traditional accounts of the Koran’s origins,” said Mustafa Shah, from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

What makes them believe its from "a book" anyway?

Carbon dating of a fragment from a Koran stored at a Birmingham library suggests that the book was produced between 568 and 645 A.D

The fragment could have been from a single parchment or a scroll.

Heres a more balanced article on the same subject.

Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
"The person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him preach. He may have known him personally - and that really is quite a thought to conjure with," he says.

Somebody should carbon date some of the stuff in the Chester Beatty library. Maybe we have material of equal historical significance sitting in a box in Dublin.

130Kph

Professor Thomas seems fairly certain it’s from the Koran where he says that

the parts of the Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad's death

I think the earlier report was reasonable too in that, if for example, the range is 568 – 609 it would throw the accepted tradition (i.e. dates) about Mo receiving the revelations into doubt.

Reading between the lines, Prof Thomas would seem to like the range to be 610 – 645 but can’t assert that yet – so, we’re left with the wider range (568 – 645).

One of the translation snippets on the BBC page (above) is interesting.
Allah and Moses were having a bit of a chat with some someone else looking on.


Allah: whats that thing you have there?
Moses: it’s my staff. I lean on it & I have other uses for it.
Allah: Throw it on the ground man!
Moses threw it on the ground and |!!| Whoosh!|!| it turned into a snake slithering around the place.


Besides this being a bit of a cringey, stilted conversation, this is a pretty nifty illusion :pac: But how could Allah not know what a staff is? Is it possible that the creator of all things has the memory of a goldfish?

Moses certainly did get around the 3 different desert books and maybe other books that were lost to history.

pauldla

Very interesting article; thanks, OP.

Small said that would lend credibility to the historical view that Muhammad and his followers collected text that was already in circulation to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than receiving revelations from heaven.

Not the only religion that this can be said of, I'm willing to wager.

Overheal

OP, we have a global network of dinosaur fossils and still can't rule out Intelligent Design.

To say people will be the least bit swayed from their religion by carbon dating parchment is a bit silly

Peregrinus

Many of the stories in the Koran are clearly older than the Koran itself could possibly be. This is not controversial.

Subject as noted below, this evidence suggests that at least parts of the Koranic text were written down before the complete text as we know it was compiled in about 650 CE. Again, that's not going to be controversial.

The carbon-dating of the parchment suggests that it could be older than the prophet; not that it is. So those who have faith-based reasons (or, for that matter, historically-based reasons) for believing that no part of the text was written down before 610 CE are not going to find themselves challenged by this.

It's also worth noting that while the parchment has been carbon-dated, the ink has not. All the carbon-dating tells us, ultimately, is when the goat died. Since parchment was a valuable resource and was sometimes scraped clean and re-used, it's possible that this manuscript is a post-645 manuscript written on recycled parchment. I haven't seen any report discussing this possibility, or saying whether it has been ruled out. But in this context it's worth noting that some reports have made the point that the calligraphy of the manuscript is characteristic of a later [i.e. post-645] style.

Every few years the newspapers give us breathless accounts of discoveries that are supposed to refute some aspect of religious faith, from the James Ossuary to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. They're fun, but they rarely live up to the hype.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

....

Every few years the newspapers give us breathless accounts of discoveries that are supposed to refute some aspect of religious faith, from the James Ossuary to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. They're fun, but they rarely live up to the hype.

Newspapers are divils for that, it has to be said. Religion sells, perhaps? And surely wouldn't the James ossuary have supported an important aspect of Christian faith i.e. the existence of Jesus?

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

Newspapers are divils for that, it has to be said. Religion sells, perhaps?

Undoubtedly. Second only to sex.

pauldla wrote: »

And surely wouldn't the James ossuary have supported an important aspect of Christian faith i.e. the existence of Jesus?

Well, yes. On the other hand, there was an attempt to link it to the Talpiot Tomb, which contains an ossuary allegedly marked "Jesus, son of Joseph". Obviously, if you believe accounts of the resurrection, then you believe that that ossuary doesn't belong to the Jesus, but another bloke of the same name (which was a common name. As was Joseph. Both are in the top ten names from the period.) But if you have a tomb which contains brothers Jesus and James, the sons of Joseph, you are beginning to strain the possibilities of coincidence. And that would have implications for belief in the resurrection.

pauldla

Peregrinus wrote: »

Undoubtedly. Second only to sex.

And sports stars. And sports stars having sex.

Well, yes. On the other hand, there was an attempt to link it to the Talpiot Tomb, which contains an ossuary allegedly marked "Jesus, son of Joseph". Obviously, if you believe accounts of the resurrection, then you believe that that ossuary doesn't belong to the Jesus, but another bloke of the same name (which was a common name. As was Joseph. Both are in the top ten names from the period.) But if you have a tomb which contains brothers Jesus and James, the sons of Joseph, you are beginning to strain the possibilities of coincidence. And that would have implications for belief in the resurrection.

Well, the ossuary may have been made for the Jesus, it just wasn't used.

Wonder if they did refunds.

Peregrinus

pauldla wrote: »

And sports stars. And sports stars having sex.

Royalty trumps sports stars, I believe.

"Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace" seems to tick all the boxes, headline-wise.

MrPudding

Peregrinus wrote: »

Royalty trumps sports stars, I believe.

"Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace" seems to tick all the boxes, headline-wise.

You forgot immigrant, or more specifically, the illegal variety. A small suggestion, "Sex-change vicar in mercy dash to Palace hit by illegal immigrant driving a car he got for free from the dole" might work better

MrP

Trent Houseboat

The right tone, but nowhere near long enough to be a Daily Fail headline.

endacl

Overheal wrote: »

OP, we have a global network of dinosaur fossils and still can't rule out Intelligent Design.

To say people will be the least bit swayed from their religion by carbon dating parchment is a bit silly

Yes we can.

Overheal

endacl wrote: »

Yes we can.

I should say eliminate it from common thought.

Michael OBrien

Yeah, like facts ever get in the way of faith.

Considering that science showed quite conclusively that the shroud of turin is a fake from around the 12th Century and not the 1st Century, a discrepancy of over 1100 years, and most christians still think it is genuine despite this and claim conspiracies to explain it away.

There are muslims that think Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse type magical creature to met Jesus and Moses and God and argued him down from 50 prayers a day to five, and see no reason to question this story (that seems to show their all powerful god made a mistake, and a illiterate merchant educated him on the matter), I sincerely doubt they will pay any serious attention to when the parchment was dated, which in no way demonstrates when the text was written, as the standard story never claimed the full quran was written down on parchment during his life anyway, bits of it probably were on anything they could find, including bits of bone, leaves and other garbage.

recedite

pauldla wrote: »

Well, the ossuary may have been made for the Jesus, it just wasn't used.

Wonder if they did refunds.

Seems to have been used alright.

Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by Amos Kloner. The tomb may have been multi-generational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_Tomb
Check out the symbols on the entrance to the tomb. Chevron and circle.. precursor to the freemason/illuminati pair of compasses and the all seeing eye. I'm starting off that CT, if nobody else has already

Also the name Miriam (Mary) seems to be there, on one sarcophagus.

Israelis are always reticent about researching these sort of things, the last thing they want to do is pi$$ off Christian fundies in USA and Europe. They would not like to make their current security situation worse by annoying their allies.

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

Eugene Norman

recedite wrote: »

Seems to have been used alright.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_Tomb
Check out the symbols on the entrance to the tomb. Chevron and circle.. precursor to the freemason/illuminati pair of compasses and the all seeing eye. I'm starting off that CT, if nobody else has already

Also the name Miriam (Mary) seems to be there, on one sarcophagus.

Israelis are always reticent about researching these sort of things, the last thing they want to do is pi$$ off Christian fundies in USA and Europe. They would not like to make their current security situation worse by annoying their allies.

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

Jesus son of Joseph tells you nothing much, as the names were common. James brother of Jesus is unusual as its unusual to list a sibling.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Its not beyond the bounds of possibility that a rebellious Jewish preacher went too far in annoying both the Jewish elders and the Roman army of occupation, ended up being executed, and was buried there.

The main drawbacks to this theory are (a) if someone was executed by the Roman authorities, they tended not to end up in the family tomb afterwards, and (b) this is the tomb of a very high-status family, which doesn't fit with anything we have about Jesus of Nazareth from any source.

None of which makes it impossible that this should be the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. But there are no indications in the tomb itself that the person buried here was rebellious, or a preacher, or executed, and if we rely on the gospels and other early texts to establish these things then we have to cherry-pick. If the gospels are not reliable in identifying Jesus as a carpenter, why would we assume they are reliable in identifying Jesus as a preacher?

Notavirus.exe

Seems to be no mention of this in the Islam forum...

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The main drawbacks to this theory are (a) if someone was executed by the Roman authorities, they tended not to end up in the family tomb afterwards, and (b) this is the tomb of a very high-status family, which doesn't fit with anything we have about Jesus of Nazareth from any source.

Supposing we assumed the biblical sources were vaguely based on fact, but written as if seen through the rose tinted glasses of his most ardent and gullible followers, then....

If the executed person was a wandering criminal vagrant, then they would probably be left to rot. But if a celebrity preacher, then the body would be recovered.
AFAIK there is some stuff in Mark where Jesus says his followers are his family. So perhaps he was somewhat estranged from his father. Not surprising if he abandoned the family business and went off on some fool's errand. He could read and write, and debate religion and philosophy with the high priests, so some money must have been spent on his education. And there is very little mention of Joseph in the scriptures, except to say he was a "tektron". Back in the day, a technical or skilled person was fairly respectable. He could have been a carpenter, but equally a stonemason, engineer, architect or stonemason. He could have built the family tomb himself, or with his employees. He could have built whole housing estates for all we know.
Jesus' followers may have been in competition with the family to collect the body. Maybe the family got there first, and the followers chose to believe the body had disappeared.

Peregrinus

The general inference from the disappearance of Joseph from the gospel stories is that he had died before Jesus reached adulthood. (He only appears in nativity and infancy stories.) Mary, by contrast, turns up repeatedly, right to the end, as do (though with less frequency) Jesus' brothers and sisters, so if Joseph were still around it's hard to explain why nobody ever mentions him. Plus, the story of Jesus on the cross asking John to care for his mother Mary strongly points to Joseph not being around.

There is evidence that Jesus was estranged from his family early on in his ministry, but he clearly reconciled at least with his mother. And, after his death, his brother James was leader of the Jerusalem Christians, a position he would hardly have been accepted in if he had been at odds with Jesus. So let's say he, too, reconciled with Jesus before his death.

Can we conjecture that Joseph was in fact still alive, but wasn't mentioned because he refused to take sides in the family row/he never reconciled with Jesus/he was a cantankerous old bugger who ended up fighting with everybody? I think we probably can. Though, note, it is just a conjecture; there's no evidence for it.

But that doesn't explain how they all ended up the same tomb, paid for (presumably) by Joseph.

The other problem is that the James ossuary is significant because it's labelled James, brother of Jesus, indicating that Jesus was famous (and therefore must be the Jesus) and James's relationship with him was seen as his greatest distinction. But the only reason Jesus can have been famous at the time of James's death was because he was the focus of the Jesus movement, which of course was proclaiming Jesus's resurrection. So to have James, the brother of Jesus who rose from the dead, placed in an ossuary marked to that effect which is then placed in a tomb next to an ossuary marked as Jesus's own ossuary doesn't really stack up.

The truth is, though, that the evidence that the "James, brother of Jesus" ossuary comes from the Talpiot Tomb is pretty weak, and in fact the better evidence suggests that it didn't. And if the two things are unconnected, then the puzzle disappears. A tomb containing Joseph and his son Jesus is not remarkable, and there is no reason to think it is that Joseph and that Jesus. (We know of at least one other tomb from the period with the same combination of names.) And an ossuary containing the bones of James, brother of Jesus, even if genuine, doesn't in itself tell us anything about the final destination of Jesus.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The other problem is that the James ossuary is significant because it's labelled James, brother of Jesus, indicating that Jesus was famous (and therefore must be the Jesus) and James's relationship with him was seen as his greatest distinction. But the only reason Jesus can have been famous at the time of James's death was because he was the focus of the Jesus movement, which of course was proclaiming Jesus's resurrection. So to have James, the brother of Jesus who rose from the dead, placed in an ossuary marked to that effect which is then placed in a tomb next to an ossuary marked as Jesus's own ossuary doesn't really stack up.

Good point, however the Jesus movement only developed into Christianity much later, under Paul, who probably never even met him.
Whereas Jesus and the brother James were jews, or jewish christians.
Is it written anywhere that James believed in the resurrection? Certainly he seems to have believed Jesus was a martyr and a messiah in the Jewish tradition (ie a great leader who comes to save the jews in their hour of need) And he seems to have held an official position as a jewish high priest after the crucifixion. Does that translate into an indication that he believed in the divinity of Jesus? I don't think so.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Good point, however the Jesus movement only developed into Christianity much later, under Paul, who probably never even met him.
Whereas Jesus and the brother James were jews, or jewish christians.
Is it written anywhere that James believed in the resurrection? Certainly he seems to have believed Jesus was a martyr and a messiah in the Jewish tradition (ie a great leader who comes to save the jews in their hour of need) And he seems to have held an official position as a jewish high priest after the crucifixion. Does that translate into an indication that he believed in the divinity of Jesus? I don't think so.

Paul is not "much later". It's true that (so far as we know) he never met Jesus, but he was a contemporary of Jesus. Paul's letters are earlier than all four gospels, and they are earlier than Acts, which is our source for James and his role as leader of the movement in Jerusalem. Pauline Christianity is very early.

Paul and James had extensive dealings, and there are fairly clear indications of tensions between them. But the evidence doesn't point to tensions in beliefs; rather, to tensions in practice; they argued about whether Christians should observe Jewish ritual law, whether Gentile converts to the movement had to become Jews, etc, etc. But if they ever argued about the resurrection, nobody recorded it.

James was never a Jewish high priest, or a Jewish priest of any kind. All the evidence is that as leader of the Jerusalem Christians he was at odds with the Temple priesthood.

James is thought to have died in the AD 60s, about 30 years after Jesus, and the Jerusalem Church, which he led, survived until the Bar Kokhba revolt in AD 130. And James was signficant enough as a Christian leader that Paul evidently felt he had to be complementary about him, and to validate his own role by saying that James endorsed and approved it. Not that Paul might be above colouring the story a bit to his own advantage, but the point is that James was clearly a leader of significance. And if James had been denying the resurrection for 30 years, and the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem had been denying it for a century, I think we would know, not least because contemporary opponents of Christianity would undoubtedly have mentioned the fact.