Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code

Asia times ^ | 14 jan 08 | Spengler

[rellimpank]

By Spengler

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

The Da Vinci Code offered a silly fantasy in which Opus Dei, homicidal monks and twisted billionaires chased after proof that Christianity is a hoax. But the story of the photographic archive of

the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, now ensconced in a Berlin vault, is a case of life imitating truly dreadful art. It even has Nazis. "I hate those guys!" as Indiana Jones said

[SuziQ]

Here’s some information about the “Lost Archives” I mentioned I’d read about in the WSJ.

[Ouderkirk]

What’s to debate...Muhammad was a rapist, murderer, child molester, pederast, homosexual, megalomaniac, and all around scumbag.

[wideawake]

To give some idea of how radical these manuscripts are for Islam:

It would be like finding a manuscript copy of the Gospels written in 60 AD - i.e. a copy older than any other existing Gospel manuscript - and discovering that it presented a different chronology of events and that key turns of phrase memorized by Christians for centuries like "only-begotten Son", "blessed are the meek" etc. were originally different.

And even that doesn't give the whole story, because Christians believe that the Gospels were inspired by God, not directly dictated by God verbatim.

[xcamel]

interesting ping (GGG?)

[rbg81]

In the end, people believe whatever they want. Facts, reason, and logic make little difference. Faith will trump the truth every time.

[RobinOfKingston]

What’s to debate...Muhammad was a rapist, murderer, child molester, pederast, homosexual, megalomaniac, and all around scumbag.

I presume your list is meant to be representative, not exhaustive.

[Sacajaweau]

Faith IS the key.

"The Critique of Pure reason" by Emmanuel Kant.

[Fiddlstix]

Ping

[Mrs. Don-o]

Faith is different from credulousness, gullibility. Ultimately it takes Faith (I'll spell that with a capital "F") to accept the inherently un-proveable position that all of this exists, that the phenomenal world is real (and not just maya, not an illusion) and that it has a comprehensible structure that corresponds to the cognitive structures of our minds, and that it actually matters.

Thus it makes sober sense to say, "I believe in order to understand." "I believe that without which nothing else is believable."

The question for the Muslims --- a serious question ---is whether they "believe" that faith must be reasonable -- must follow some interior set of laws which may transcend, but may not contradict, the truths apprehended by reason.

As we saw from Benedict 16's Regensberg address, it's a question which many Muslims find almost intolerably disturbing.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thanks for this. See mine at #10.

[thulldud]

And even that doesn't give the whole story, because Christians believe that the Gospels were inspired by God, not directly dictated by God verbatim.

The contrast is more interesting when you realize that, for instance, the original teachings of Jesus were delivered in Aramaic, and the Gospels render most of them in Greek, of course. (Here and there you find an Aramaic word quoted.) But the Qur'an was supposed to have been transcribed directly from a heavenly original that Muhammad saw in visions; as such, it is essentially Arabic words, which would be blasphemous to translate.

[Sacajaweau]

I take it you never read Kant.

[SlowBoat407]

Muhammad was a rapist, murderer, child molester, pederast, homosexual, megalomaniac, and all around scumbag.

And those are his GOOD points! (rim shot).

[Mrs. Don-o]

Can’t say that I have. ;o)

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

The Virgins and the Grapes: the “Christian” Origins of the Koran

* * *

A. – “I began from the idea that the language of the Koran must be studied from an historical-linguistic point of view. When the Koran was composed, Arabic did not exist as a written language; thus it seemed evident to me that it was necessary to take into consideration, above all, Aramaic, which at the time, between the 4th and 7th centuries, was not only the language of written communication, but also the lingua franca of that area of Western Asia.”

Q. – Tell us how you proceeded.

A. – “At first I conducted a ‘synchronous’ reading. In other words, I kept in mind both Arabic and Aramaic. Thanks to this procedure, I was able to discover the extent of the previously unsuspected influence of Aramaic upon the language of the Koran: in point of fact, much of what now passes under the name of ‘classical Arabic’ is of Aramaic derivation.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1119114/posts

[DonaldC]

That is an interesting article...it will be a while before much can be made of these documents. Telling a Muslim his book may have been altered over time is like telling a King James Only believer that Jesus did not talk in Elizabethan English.

I thought it was common knowledge though that the Islam originated as a group of ticked off Jews trying to put people back on the way, so of course they borrowed Jewish and Christian writings to create their own. I think it was Mohamed himself that really messed things up with his visions.

[SolidWood]

Uhmmm... Islam was not invented by Jews.

[Ole Okie]

Telling a Muslim his book may have been altered over time is like telling a King James Only believer that Jesus did not talk in Elizabethan English.

Say what?

If 'thee' and 'thou' were good enough for Paul and Silas then they're good enough for me.

8-) Hey, I'm kidding.

[DonaldC]

“Uhmmm... Islam was not invented by Jews.”

I did not mean invented by Jews, but an offshoot of them, a sect so to speak.

Personally, I like the theory that the Pope created the Muslims to combat the Anabaptists! hehehe