Posted on 04/14/2005 6:56:06 PM PDT by abu afak
That's what I like about you. You're the best BSer on the site.
Sumerian records!
Recall, if you will, these are the guys who invented writing!
For a number of reasons their language and writing style lingered on in Semitic Babylon for many centuries after they, themselves, disappeared.
Not sure why you'd think it BS for scrolls and tablets written in Sumerian to have been buried at the holy site in Mecca. You must have a good reason for this, so speak up!
In the meantime this site has a reference to just how late in history folks were using Sumerian cuneiform: http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Games/cuneiform.html
All this is ignoring the article, which gives some good reasons for thinking Mohammed was never at Mecca.
Cuniform wasn't in use nearly late enough for Mohommed to read it. And Mohammed couldn't read anyway. And nobody anywhere in the world had known Sumerian for hundreds of years. So unless we're dealing with an Arabian Joseph Smith, Sumerian records have exactly nothing to do with it.
Now, a question for you. What is it in the Koran which suggest Mohammed had access to anything more than muddled retellings of Bible stories?
Jack Chick is a liar.
End of discussion.
BTW, the religious authorities at Mecca (where they kept all the idols and ancient scriptures) most likely maintained the knowledge of how to read those ancient sciptures. We just don't know enough about what was going on in the pre-Islamic period to say yea or nay at this late date. A major archaeological expedition is in order ~ now, if we can just clear the place of all those religious fanatics so we can dig it up ~ we'll get all the answers we need.
BTW, the last "known" writing in Sumerian was 65 AD.
Oh, and the other thing ~ Mohammad had 12 disciples initially. It's a magic number, of course, so he maybe had half a dozen or a dozen followers. We don't know everything we need to know about those gentlemen to say if any of them could read ancient documents. However, as his group grew (and after relocating to Medina) he attracted intellectuals and military engineers (if we can believe the Moslem stories).
When the Moslems created the Koran in Damascus it's quite clear they had access to sources of which we are not now aware. I would imagine they simply destroyed anything that didn't conform to their point of view.
It's pretty clear that Mohammad did not have a Bible, or not a complete Bible at any rate, and what he did have available was at some variance with the Bible version itself.
Remember that the way Jewish traders came to have a Torah was to have copied one ~ presumably they followed the ancient Jewish custom of treating a worn out Torah after the manner of a deceased human ~ they wrapped them appropriate and buried them!
Some places in the Middle East are dry enough to preserve such items for thousands of years ~ just like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Jews weren't the only people with ancient scriptures, and ancient stories. Babylonians had them too. In any case, the provenance of many of the Jewish and Babylonian stories can be traced back to the Sumerians quite easily, particularly those that refer to a place called "Eden". After all, that's the Sumerian name for the land between the Tigris and Euphrates!
It's also pretty obvious that many Sumerian stories were translated into Semitic languages, e.g. Babylonian and Hebrew. Why this should happen and the same stories not have been translated into Arabic would be a good question!
So she taught him languages and scripts nobody knew anymore?
Taking your unlikely speculations as fact and presenting them as such is a bad habit.
You can stay with the thread ~ to wit, that the Koran has something other than divine origins, and that among its sources are texts other than those we find in the Bible, but which are contemporaneous to the Bible, and may derive from other materials which the Bible itself references.
You have argued that Mohammad was illiterate (and that was his reputation, but we do not know it for a fact) and therefore was unable to directly read ancient texts. I merely asserted that Mohammad probably could read (and he most certainly could read after his encounter with the angel), and that he had associates who could read, and that there were other people at Mecca who could read pre-dot Arabic, and most likely a variety of other writing systems and languages.
Mecca was, after all, a major stop on a major trade route in the Middle East. Such places attract knowledgeable and talented people.
Your final argument, to wit: "take your unlikely speculations" to someplace else, pretty clearly identifies you as an Islamist who's not willing to face up to the fact that God didn't deliver the Koran to anybody named Mohammad!
Yep, you got me.
With such razor-sharp reasoning, no wonder you're always so good at figuring out the secrets of the past.
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