Parts of Koran found to be older than the Prophet

[Eriol]

I'll just post the article here: Carbon dating suggests early Quran is older than Muhammad
Slashdot Article with more links: Carbon Dating Shows Koran May Predate Muhammad

So... ya. Islam is different than the other Abrahamic religions in that they claim their Holy Book came from one place and is the direct words of God. Only the most fringe of Christianity say that the Bible is 100% sacred, and even they acknowledge through necessity that there was more than one author (Gospels according to M, M, L, & J + Paul's letters for example). While other Islamic texts are more "fuzzy" as to the degree of divinity (the Hadiths at a minimum), the Koran (or whatever spelling you like best in English) is supposed to be 100% infallible word of God, revealed to the Prophet, by my understanding.

And now some the paper is provably older than the Prophet himself. No word yet on the ink. So how could it be from the Prophet if it is older?

Some have suggested this copy was written on old paper. OK, possible I'll grant, but the timeframes are not favorable. Possible, but very very iffy, especially with something that was supposed to be so important. Other scholars say (in the linked articles) this puts more weight to the idea that Islam's writings have much of their origins in older works, even lifted whole in some cases. This discovery gives that theory greater weight, but is also heresy to Islam.

 

[drawn_inward]

While this data is interesting, it won't sway the faith of the masses. It might knock some folks over who are already on the fence. Religious folks explain away science all the time.

 

[Bubble181]

"It's a miracle"

"Carbon dating is clearly fallible; Word of God is not"


Choose your poison, either works. Sadly.

 

[Dave]

God can do anything! (*Except have a Facebook account. That guy is a fake god and will burn in hell.)

 

[drawn_inward]

Parchment necromancer!

 

[PatrThom]

Someone obviously kept that copy of the Q'ran too close to the X-ray machine.

--Patrick

 

[Thread Necromancer]

Parchment necromancer!

That's a name I haven't heard in a long long time.

But no seriously, I go by Thread Necromancer now, you know, changing times and all.

 

[Gruebeard]

Thread? That's just another word for yarn.

*purrs*

*pounces*

 

[strawman]

Food for thought: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann

 

[Necronic]

Well, its only a 30 or so year delta, so it may very well be that it was old parchment. I guess the next step would be to carbon date the ink itself. It's a bit hard to believe that they cribbed the entire Koran from an existing work (that was a complete Koran), and no other examples or references of that can be found of it. A major religious extant text like that would have multiple generations and whatnot (like the Dead Sea scrolls for The Bible) that dated back centuries beforehand. It wouldn't just exist in a vacuum unless it was written entirely by a single author. This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test tbqh.

This is significant not just religiously but also historically. Also, lets be fair on the leaps of faith here, if it does turn out that this was a pre-existing work then its still a pretty far cry from believing the earth is only 5k years old.

 

[Ravenpoe]

Food for thought: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann

American counterfeiter, forger [. . .] Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, Hofmann is especially noted for his creation of documents related to the history of the Latter Day Saint movement.

The snarky part of me wants to say "Isn't that how the Latter DAy Saint movement got started to begin with?" because I like and respect stienman and don't want to insult his religion or have him sic his baby army on me.

But I've also been awake for over 24 hours and my filter is gone.

 

[Eriol]

This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test tbqh.

What doesn't pass the smell test is a document that's this old, that survives UNCHANGED for more than 20 years (first written down in 653) from ORAL traditions. Even a small section as this is (remember the tested parchment is only a few sections of it, not a complete book) would get "morphed" by oral tradition over 20 years.

The best example of this IMO is this skit/section:


So right there the claim that the Koran was an oral tradition, but has text back this far written down, and it is unchanged for a while, is the higher level of disbelief.


And the articles linked put forth the idea that the Koran wasn't cribbed whole from somewhere, but is piecemeal from a number of other sources that fit the political/theological aims of the Prophet and those near him. So that point Necronic isn't being asserted, as the document tested is only a piece anyways.

 

[Necronic]

It just doesn't make sense to me. There are three options:

1) The Koran tested was written on old parchment at a later date

2) the Koran section tested was written before the Prophet lived. This means either:

a) the Koran took pieces from existing texts, in this case physically

or

b). This entire Koran was written before the prophet was born


The first problem with 2.a is that this would be incredibly obvious to the naked eye that a part of the book came from a totally separate manuscript. Moreover, even if there was a separate manuscript that somehow magically fit in with the rest of this book how come no other versions of it exist anywhere? And, let's say this one section of the book existed somewhere else, and it magically fit into the book, but all other copies were destroyed, are we to assume that's true for the rest of the book? That it was physically piecemealed together from existing manuscripts that magically all for together and no other copies of them exist?

Then what about option 2.b, what if the entire book was cribbed? It would explain the physical uniformity of it. But then how does a complete, very expensive frankly, copy of this book come into existence in a vacuum? It's not like the Bible which obviously and admittedly had many authors over centuries. There is no archeological evidence of any previous diverse authorship, it's still clearly a single author. Basically the only way it would make sense would be if there was another prophet 50 years ago who wrote the entire thing.

So you can either accept one of these two very convoluted options, because maybe it fits the current anti-Islamic narratives that seem to be growing more commonplace, or you can say "huh, this is really weird. Old parchment would explain this, but we should investigate further. Let's test the ink and other old Korans"

Those previous two options sound like a pretty irresponsible leap of faith.

As for the oral tradition, it probably wasn't entirely an oral tradition, you have evidence of written copies that can be traced back to at least Mohammed's time. But I'm not sure how that's relevant.

 

[Eriol]

Necronic, read the articles more closely. What was tested was NOT a complete book. The "manuscript" they have is only a few sections of the Koran, not a complete one. And some pages of THAT were tested. So your statement "The first problem with 2.a is that this would be incredibly obvious to the naked eye that a part of the book came from a totally separate manuscript" is an indication you may not have actually read the article!

The Quran held by the Birmingham Library is believed to be the oldest known copy in the world. It should be noted, however, that the documents held at the library are not a complete copy of the holy text, instead containing text only for suras (chapters) 18 to 20.

The point is that according to Islamic dogma, the Koran came directly from God, through the Prophet, and was then written down, in (at least) two parts, one in Mecca, and one later when he was living in Medina. What's controversial is how can there be any part of it that's older than him? That itself is the heresy. So as you said there's a few possibilities:

1. The paper this particular section was written on was older, but the message is newer. Ink tests MAY prove this, but I don't know the science of old/new ink, and if you can tell when it was written vs when manufactured. This would be a non-controversial finding if it could be proven. This is your number (1)
2. The dogma of Islam is wrong, and at least some the text of the canonical Koran is taken whole from older texts. Other texts found from the era and dated accurately could support this. This is your number (2a)

Does that make sense? There's nothing terribly convoluted here IMO. Your 2a is what is suggested by the evidence, and 2b doesn't make sense, as it's only a fragment in that library that was tested, not the whole book.

 

[Necronic]

Ok. I decided to look this up more because it's pretty interesting. Here's what I found:

-The parchment tested WAS actually from an older section found inside an existing Koran. It's a distinct section.

-The carbon dating puts the time frames for the parchment between 568AD and 645AD.

-Mohammed lived between 570 and 632AD

-The first Koran was supposedly put together by the first Caliph, after Mohhamads death. He did this by assembling together oral tradition, and written scraps of parchment from during his lifetime.

First off, when you hear ranges like that, and you see overlaps like that, it is immediately suggestive to me that you can't say which came first. It really depends on what kind of probability distribution you are dealing with, but my guess is the chance for type I error here (saying there is a difference when there really isn't) is through the goddamned roof. If this was normally distributed and the range represented 95% confidence intervals you would never make this claim.

My guess, based on the information presented, is that this may actually have been a scrap of parchment used to preserve Muhammad's words during his actual life, which frankly is pretty damned cool.

Ed: Eriol Ninja'd me

 

[Eriol]

My guess, based on the information presented, is that this may actually have been a scrap of parchment used to preserve Muhammad's words during his actual life, which frankly is pretty damned cool.

Ed: Eriol Ninja'd me

Perfectly reasonable explanation as well. Unless they can narrow the gap to before he was born and/or childhood. Then it goes other places.

 

[jwhouk]

Problem is, not everyone had writing and written language forever. And the definition of what makes for an "original" manuscript has changed over the years; newer copies were thought to be better if they were exact copies of older, well-worn and well-used manuscripts.

I'm not arguing for the Q'uran here; I'm just pointing out that there's a reason why we don't have a lot of "original" manuscripts from antiquity.

 

[sixpackshaker]

How old was the sheep when it was slaughtered to make the parchment?

1500 years seems very recent and 20 years seems like a very small window or accuracy. I am used to seeing things much older dated, without such a specific time frame.