In the previous post you provided a pretty precise chronology of events, why do you consider this even loosely accurate though?
Early Sources didn't even know when Muhammad was born giving wildly varying answers and the Quran clearly doesn't reflect the pagan backwater of the traditions. The later the biography the more 'accurate' and the more detailed
Pretty major things seem to have been 'forgotten', like who the Sabeans were and what the 'mysterious letters' mean, yet we have a very precise detailed account of Muhammad's life.
It doesn't matter, if the sources are earlier or later. History can be distorted at any point of time. The problem is knowing and recognising when it become distorted, exaggerated, redacted, invented.
Studying history, often involved in sorting and judging the various sources, on how much that can be confirmed by external sources (in this case, non-Islamic sources vs Islamic sources), how much have been distorted or exaggerated or redacted. Biases can often be introduced by patriotism, or being in the presence of charismatic leader, or any other possibilities.
That's why historiographers preferred to acquire as many external and independent extant sources, and finding archaeological evidences are more objective than written history or oral traditions.
I don't think it is really possible to get the complete picture of Muhammad, even with all the sources we have, and each one are suspected of bias. The historians and biographers, and other authors near Muhammad's time, often tell a one-sided story, not only about his involvement in religion itself, but also in Muhammad's politics and military actions.
The first three years, when I have joined RF, I really didn't know much about Muhammad's life, and when it come to wars that took place while he was still alive, often I hear the arguments from Muslims that is everyone else's faults, not Muhammad's, like it is always the other side who broke treaties or promises, or the other side had committed treasons, or the other side started the wars, or that they only fought the wars in self-defence.
But the more I read about Muhammad in Islamic history or biographers, the more I can see that the whole stories are not being told.
Take for instance, one of the events before Muhammad supposedly met Muhammad, like childhood. His uncle take him to Syria, in which they have met Bahira, who supposedly foretold that Muhammad would one day be a prophet.
Each of the sources come from three 9th century biographers/historians. So what are the likelihood that these versions was true or invention? The later is most likely.
Just like what you said about when Muhammad was born - that no one can agree with date - no one can agree with Muhammad's age with this supposed encounter with Syria hermit.
I could find no sources earlier than these sources. And there are no sources that I could find from Christian or Syrian sources that this Bahira ever existed.
Everything about Muhammad's life before being a prophet, are questionable. The Qur'an make no mention of this Bahira; in fact, I don't think that I have ever recall that the Qur'an ever mention his childhood. But that's really no biggie, because the Qur'an itself is not a book of history, and not reliable.
So what does really tell us about the authors (e.g. historians, biographers, scholars, etc)?
That they are prone to exaggerate or make up stories. That's too, is no biggie, because it happen often in western history or eastern history.
