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

[rellimpank]

—the reason I eagerly await the “Rapture” is to see if any of those driverless cars careening down the highway collide with any with a “If It Ain’t the King James, It Ain’t the Bible” bumper sticker-—

[usurper]

Luxenburg's thesis became notorious for explaining that the "virgins" provided to Islamic jihadis in paradise were only raisins.

Some people are going to be very disappointed.

[horse_doc]

From the article:

The Islamic world is forced to adopt an openly irrational stance, employing its power to intimidate scholars and frustrate the search for truth.

Golly, we'd hate for them to adapt an openly irrational stance, for the first time, wouldn't we?

[rellimpank]

--I doubt that there has been a rational stance taken by an Islamic scholar in about a thousand years--but of course, Islam is not the first religion to "intimidate scholars and frustrate the search for truth."--

[SuziQ]

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

So true. If these archives show that the Koran has, in fact, been changed over time, it will be difficult for the more fundamentalist Muslims to accept. As you pointed out, just asking them to be reasonable brought out the worst in them.

[Alouette]

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

Common knowledge among whom?

[aruanan]

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.

There are fragments of Mark that are older than that.

[aruanan]

Most of the truly ancient copies of the Koran and other related writings were destroyed by the Muslims themselves.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Islam is bound by the simple fact that it is completely made up.
A group who hated Christians and Jews, fabricated their own religion.
Mohamed was a fiction writer who didn’t go on strike.

[wideawake]

There are fragments of Mark that are older than that.

Indeed. But these Koran texts are more than just fragments - they are close to being an entire manuscript.

[aruanan]

A group who hated Christians and Jews, fabricated their own religion.

Actually not at first. The Christian and Jewish societies of the Arabian Peninsula were the high tech societies and the founders of the first permanent cities of that region. The wandering nomads who hired themselves out as mercenaries to both Rome and Persia in their wars against each other used both Christian and Jewish elements in proto-Islam to attract adherents from both religions. It didn't work. Both Christians and Jews told them to pound sand. It was after that rejection that they became implacable toward Christians and Jews. Besides, by that time the Black death had reduced both Rome and Persia to the point that they didn't need the services of the nomads, so they had to turn to other pursuits--they started to prey on other nearby societies, the Jewish and Christian kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula.

[Perdogg]

ping

Related thread

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1956567/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Perdogg.

Ancient Islamic Texts Resurface
(Impugning The Legitimacy of the Koran,Islam)
The Third Eye Concept | January 14, 2008 | Staff
Posted on 01/19/2008 5:38:36 AM EST by america4vr
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1956189/posts

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Note: this topic is from 1/14/2008. Blast from the Past. Thanks rellimpank. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.