Koran dated to before Muhamad birth.

[Augustus]

My interest is in historicity only.

Which is why you should stop thinking about dogmatically using the word plagiarised as it is clouding your judgement and preventing you from understanding the historical reality.

If you understand why calling it plagiarism is inaccurate then you can see things with the nuance required in an opaque area of history such as this.

I fully understand no muslim would never accept this no matter how well defined.

Or a non-Muslim with an interest in the history rather than anti-Islamic rhetoric.

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source...

#1 Who's ideas or work did these traditions belong to originally?

#2 Does islam claim these are the true traditions received from the man?

Source was credited to God was it not? So they went from God's ideas to God's.

You are also treating culture, and the fuzzy ground between real history and religion/mythology, as if it has an owner and a copyright like Micky Mouse or Goofy.

Traditions evolved from other traditions, which evolved from other traditions. Cultures, religions and mythologies overlapped, integrated, assimilated and evolved. You make the common mistake of viewing religion as a top-down construct, something imposed on the people based on the ideas of a single person. What becomes religious 'truth' is the product of countless people and millennia of history, it has no 'owner', it is part of culture.

Plagiarism rests on the concept that ideas have owners; do you think that culture and history has an owner? How can you plagiarise history?

If I wrote a story about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins using his magic ring to slay a dragon in Moria and rescue the wizard Gandalf it would be plagiarism.

You can see the difference between religion/mythology, which is cultural heritage and much of which is seen to actually represent genuine factual history, and a fiction book can't you?

Alternatively, did Tolkien 'plagiarise' the ideas of dwarves, dragons, elves and magicians?

And therein lies the rub.

 

[Augustus]

If I repeat E=mc2 as if it were my own work without any external information except from the divine I am plagiarizing by not giving credit to the people

Specific ideas that have an identified 'founder' are very different from cultural history.

More so repeating stories which themselves are plagiarized is to double down as it takes the first form of plagiarism as anything but plagiarism. Then it goes on to repeat these claims with no reference to the plagiarized sources or the original.

Culture has no founder, ideas grow and adapt. plagiarism implies theft rather than evolution and integration.

Yes. However the Abrahamic version are known to be plagiarized as it takes the common story, reinterpreted, adds, subtracts, modifies, etc the source story to conform to a specific religion rather then following the originals. The Flood myth within 3 religions is a prime example plagiarism.

No, it is a prime example of the evolution of cultural history.

The flood was likely a real event, one that became mythologised and aggrandised over time. It was history.

In the past history was not like history today.

History wasn't about objective truth, it was about explaining contemporary realities with recourse to real and imagined history. Over time cultures spread, mythologies spread, histories spread and became adapted. Gods were adopted, these gods evolved and changed over time. New histories emerged.

This whole 'plagiarism' claim rests on thinking about the past as if it was the same as the present and overestimating the role of specific individuals creating a top-down process.

 

[Augustus]

As I have said from the beginning, those who cry 'plagiarism' are creating an anachronism.

Just a short excerpt from an article about the history of the ownership of ideas:

Kearney (1988) identifies three dominant paradigms, the mimetic (premodern),the productive (modern),and the parodic (postmodern).In the premodern, mimetic era (biblical,classical, and medieval), the image stood as a representation of reality, as a means through which nature, and especially God, could be worshiped. For both Aristotle and Plato, imagination remained "largely a reproductive rather than a productive activity, a servant rather than a master of meaning, imitation rather than origin"... The great monotheistic religions are still tied to a position that it is divine, not human, inspiration that produced their texts... It was not until the great shift of thinking in Europe that became known as the Enlightenment that this view of imagination shifted and was replaced by the productive paradigm of the modern. In this view, the imagination was no longer viewed as a mimetic capacity but as a productive force: "As a consequence of this momentous reversal of roles, meaning is no longer primarily considered as a transcendent property of divine being; it is now hailed as a transcendental product of the human mind"...

But it was the development of print, Ong (1982) argues, that "created a new sense of the private ownership of words" (p. 131).Tracing back the history of the development of the notion of the author, Foucault (1984) suggests that there was, in the 17th or 18th centuries, a reversal of the need for authorial attribution. Prior to this, he suggests, literary work was generally accepted without a notion of an author, an observation that accords with Kearney's (1988)that the premodern imaginative work was generally unauthored because it was the representation of reality or the creation of a religious icon through which God could be worshiped that was of importance, not the image-making itself...

What is of significance in the description of these shifts of creativity and authorship is the need to see a stress on "new" meaning, on originality, on individual creativity, as very much an aspect of Western modernity, and thus both a very particular cultural and a very particular historical emphasis, albeit one with a great deal of salience in the world today. It is with the rise of such individualization that the history of literary plagiarism started to emerge" Borrowing Others' Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism - Alastair Pennycook

 

[Shad]

Specific ideas that have an identified 'founder' are very different from cultural history.

There are specific ideas within Christianity and Judaism. The fact that these ideas have spread out does not make these ideas grounded any less in a specific group of people.

Culture has no founder, ideas grow and adapt. plagiarism implies theft rather than evolution and integration.

Sure but I am talking about specific ideas from religion not culture

No, it is a prime example of the evolution of cultural history.

No as the event did not happen to these specific people. It is assimilation and adaptation of foreign ideas for a specific group from other people.

The flood was likely a real event, one that became mythologised and aggrandised over time. It was history.

Not history for the people changing the stories to suit their religion.

In the past history was not like history today.

Irrelevant in regards to the issue at hand as Islam is not presenting a history of but claims of.

History wasn't about objective truth, it was about explaining contemporary realities with recourse to real and imagined history. Over time cultures spread, mythologies spread, histories spread and became adapted. Gods were adopted, these gods evolved and changed over time. New histories emerged.

Sure however that does not make assimilation, adaption and modification of foreign ideas anything less than it is. Which is taking ideas from another nation while making claims that these ideas are not from the foreign culture

This whole 'plagiarism' claim rests on thinking about the past as if it was the same as the present and overestimating the role of specific individuals creating a top-down process.

No as plagiarism existed since Plato at the very least. You seem to ignore the history of plagiarism within Roman and Greece literature

 

[Augustus]

Sure but I am talking about specific ideas from religion not culture

They are not separate things though. Religion is culture.

The religious and the secular distinction is largely a Western creation.

Religion was inseparable from 'not religion' in the ancient world.

Not history for the people changing the stories to suit their religion.

History explained the present, not the past. 'Academic' history is of the modern world.

God favours the victors and abandons the losers, if you lost it is because your god abandoned you. He favours the victors, and their history.

Irrelevant in regards to the issue at hand as Islam is not presenting a history of but claims of.

Of course it is presenting a history.

Sure however that does not make assimilation, adaption and modification of foreign ideas anything less than it is. Which is taking ideas from another nation while making claims that these ideas are not from the foreign culture

What 'nation' would this be? The Westphalian kind?

Things were a lot more fluid in those days. For example, you could be a Roman if the Romans controlled your territory. If they didn't, you couldn't.

Identity was fluid.

No as plagiarism existed since Plato at the very least. You seem to ignore the history of plagiarism within Roman and Greece literature

Not in the sense it is used today.

 

[Shad]

They are not separate things though. Religion is culture.

No, these are separate. Hence one be part of a national culture while no religion or any religion. Of course religion can influence culture but this it not to be bound by it.

The religious and the secular distinction is largely a Western creation.

You forget there is also a difference between natural religion as it was with Rome and organized religion such as Islam

Religion was inseparable from 'not religion' in the ancient world.

Sure however that is not the same "religion" as say Judaism or Islam in comparsion to say Greek or Roman

History explained the present, not the past. 'Academic' history is of the modern world.

It can. However history is also used as a basis for a history of a people such as the Exodus/Conquest narratives.

God favours the victors and abandons the losers, if you lost it is because your god abandoned you. He favours the victors, and their history.

You forget that the other site had it's own God(s). So it could be that a lose is not due to losing favour but that X god is more powerful than Y god. Or that said god has a weakness like iron.

Of course it is presenting a history.

If the history is fictional then it is not history regardless of how it is presented.

What 'nation' would this be? The Westphalian kind?

Israeli to be specific

Things were a lot more fluid in those days. For example, you could be a Roman if the Romans controlled your territory. If they didn't, you couldn't.

I do not agree that idea were more fluid. However this does nothing to ignore the charge at hand.

Your knowledge of Rome is lacking. Being Roman at different points in time was very restrictive. So one living in a province could not become Roman due to where they lived. At one point being Roman was based on bloodline. Later on it was granted for military service and/or to people that acted for the benefit of the state. Most people were "Freemen" not Roman for centuries. It was not until 212 that citizenship was Empire-wide, and this was done for tax purposes. Which is during the last 2 centuries of the entity we call Rome, and the start of the Empire phases decline when the Silver era ended.

Identity was fluid.

Irrelevant to the charges at hand.

Not in the sense it is used today.

Yes it was. The major difference is that people are held accountable more so now than in the past.

 

[Augustus]

No, these are separate. Hence one be part of a national culture while no religion or any religion. Of course religion can influence culture but this it not to be bound by it.

Religion was part of reality, not separate from it. It was not like a work of literarature.

You forget that the other site had it's own God(s). So it could be that a lose is not due to losing favour but that X god is more powerful than Y god. Or that said god has a weakness like iron.

Not when they are fighting for the same god.

If the history is fictional then it is not history regardless of how it is presented.

Wasn't seen as fictional at the time.

Israeli to be specific

Why stop there? They 'plagiarised' others. No culture is original, why choose an arbitrary cut off point?

Christianity had largely split the mythology from the Israelites anyway, and Judaism was not linked to any territory either. Christianity and Judaism, in their many forms and offshoots, heresies, etc. had permeated the Hijaz.

What remains is as a result of survivorship bias, much more has disappeared. 'Plagiarism' assumes theft, it is more curation, translation and interpretation.

I do not agree that idea were more fluid. However this does nothing to ignore the charge at hand.

Your knowledge of Rome is lacking. Being Roman at different points in time was very restrictive. So one living in a province could not become Roman due to where they lived. At one point being Roman was based on bloodline. Later on it was granted for military service and/or to people that acted for the benefit of the state. Most people were "Freemen" not Roman for centuries. It was not until 212 that citizenship was Empire-wide, and this was done for tax purposes. Which is during the last 2 centuries of the entity we call Rome, and the start of the Empire phases decline when the Silver era ended.

No, you misinterpreted what I said. I said you could be, not automatically were. It was ambiguous though admittedly

Irrelevant to the charges at hand.

Far from it, it is a key point. The artificial separation and reification of 'nations' is the reason for the artificial concept of 'ownership' of tradition and mythology.

Yes it was. The major difference is that people are held accountable more so now than in the past.

Modern plagiarism is linked to ownership. Concepts of 'ownership' regarding gods and mythology are not in any way comparable to the modern concept of plagiarism.

Again, why do no serious scholars use the term?

 

[outhouse]

Again, why do no serious scholars use the term?

Non sequitur.

Scholars don't call creation mythology pseudoscience, but I factually is.

 

[outhouse]

Source was credited to God was it not?

No.

The source is credited to the warrior and an angel who delivered the true version of someone else's beliefs.

So they went from God's ideas to God's.

No, the concept doesn't exist scientifically. To make this argument work you would have to prove god is real.

Then you would have to ask yourself why are gods versions different from one another.


The original source was factually Judaism and Christianity, AS STATED is the credible links I provided. NOW your going against academics to try and redefine the origins of islam

 

[Shad]

Religion was part of reality, not separate from it. It was not like a work of literarature.

You switched to reality from culture. Religion is still about reality in an attempt to answer major questions. Culture is reality in a specific area, people and time.

Not when they are fighting for the same god.

There is an alternative. That claims to fighting for X god is sophistry in order to gain authority but in no way is actual favour of X itself.

Wasn't seen as fictional at the time.

Which does not make it any less fiction regardless of what people believed.

Why stop there? They 'plagiarised' others. No culture is original, why choose an arbitrary cut off point?

I never stated a cut off point. I am merely pointing out some cultures acknowledge previous origins rather than adapting it as their own origin. It is re-labeling of ideas as one's own I take issue with.

Christianity had largely split the mythology from the Israelites anyway, and Judaism was not linked to any territory either. Christianity and Judaism, in their many forms and offshoots, heresies, etc. had permeated the Hijaz.

Judaism is linked to a specific people in a specific area as the foundation. The foundation of which is found in Canaan and Canaanite religions. There is zero evidence of Judaism prior to the emergence within this area, these people and a set time. The off-shoots are still based on the foundation of the basic religion.

I do not argue that neither was in Arabia, it is a fact it was. However Islam does not state the sources were these people but from a divine one. That is the difference between theology and academia which is my own point.

What remains is as a result of survivorship bias, much more has disappeared. 'Plagiarism' assumes theft, it is more curation, translation and interpretation.

Repeating stories while claiming to have gained knowledge of the very ideas being spoken from the divine is plagiarism. Theology vs academia.

No, you misinterpreted what I said. I said you could be, not automatically were. It was ambiguous though admittedly

Noted. No major issue as I think I made my point in that citizenship is more than province location.

Far from it, it is a key point. The artificial separation and reification of 'nations' is the reason for the artificial concept of 'ownership' of tradition and mythology.

No the environment in which specific ideas, religions, culture, etc arose signify ownership. It is not nation based as many such groups which are seen as "owners" were not a united nation. The Greeks for example.

Modern plagiarism is linked to ownership. Concepts of 'ownership' regarding gods and mythology are not in any way comparable to the modern concept of plagiarism.

So was plagiarism in antiquity. Read the charges against Plato. Again Islam present the idea of knowledge from other than which is found in the environment it is within. Theology vs academia.

Again, why do no serious scholars use the term?

Since the term is granted by the very ideas of cultural assimilation and adaptation.

 

[outhouse]

Traditions evolved from other traditions,

THANK YOU

You finally admitted to something.

And who's traditions who who's before they evolved??????????????????????????????


So we had traditions in Canaanite mythology that Israelites Plagiarized. We had traditions in Judaism that Christianity plagiarized. And we have traditions in islam plagiarized from the bible.


Biblical traditions were plagiarized, period.


YOU ONLY HAVE TWO CHOICES HERE

#1 An angel told the warrior biblical verse almost word for word

#2 The warrior compiled biblical traditions and rewrote them into a new theology he thought was more acceptable for his people.

 

[outhouse]

However Islam does not state the sources were these people but from a divine one. That is the difference between theology and academia which is my own point.

Exactly why it is plagiarism.

They attribute EVERY WORD in the book to the warrior as a so called prophet who had divine intervention. And their version is self proclaimed as the only true version.

 

[outhouse]

#1 Who's ideas or work did these traditions belong to originally?

#2 Does islam claim these are the true traditions received from the man?

Let me show you an example of how to answer with integrity and honesty.

#1 these traditions factually belonged to Judaism and Christianity. The korans prophets are factually those of Judaism. Moses and Abraham are factually traditions from Judaism.

The words in the book are almost verbatim to the words of Judaism.

#2 the central foundation to islam is that the warrior was a prophet who received the true version from an angel.

islam claims these are not traditions from Judaism or Christianity

 

[Augustus]

THANK YOU

You finally admitted to something.

And who's traditions who who's before they evolved??????????????????????????????

Finally admitted to what I've been saying since the beginning of the thread including posting numerous links and specific examples of similarities explaining the Surah and the Christian source/myth it closely relates to?

Thank you. You finally read what I've actually been saying rather than what you assumed I had been saying

Scholars don't call creation mythology pseudoscience, but I factually is.

Debatable. I wouldn't view Genesis as pseudoscience, as it doesn't pretend to be scientific in any way. Pseudoscientific forms of creationism are indeed called pseudoscience. repeatedly.

Surely, with the amount written about the similarities between Islam and other religious scripture/myth, someone must have used the term if it is self-evidently plagiarism? (Some) academics like to use precise language, why beat around the bush if plagiarism is indeed the best and most accurate term?

Why do only anti-Islam websites tend to use the word, and not academics?

The source is credited to the warrior and an angel who delivered the true version of someone else's beliefs.

God's eternal and uncreated word is not credited to God? Interesting...

No, the concept doesn't exist scientifically. To make this argument work you would have to prove god is real.

Then you would have to ask yourself why are gods versions different from one another.

The original source was factually Judaism and Christianity, AS STATED is the credible links I provided. NOW your going against academics to try and redefine the origins of islam

You previously stated you were interested in the historiography, however you are referring to Islamic (mythical) tradition when it suits you and then denying it when it suits you.

You don't trust the Islamic tradition when it talks about splitting the moon or winged donkeys, but you do accept it regarding details of Muhammed's life which are not contained in the Quran.

So if we are talking historiography, then we have to think about how the Quran emerged in reality, rather than how the tradition sees it.

Going back to 'credible sources', which you tend to ignore if I post:

"a good number of Qur’ānic pericopes look like Arabic ingenious patchworks of Biblical and para- Biblical texts, designed to comment passages or aspects of the Scripture, whereas others look like Arabic translations of liturgical formulas.

This is not unexpected if we have in mind some Late Antique religious practices, namely the well-known fact that Christian Churches followed the Jewish custom of reading publicly the Scriptures, according to the lectionary principle. In other words, people did not read the whole of the Scripture to the assembly, but lectionaries (Syriac qǝryānā, “reading of Scripture in Divine Service”, etymon of Arabic qur’ān), containing selected passages of the Scripture, to be read in the community. Therefore, many of the texts which constitute the Qur’ān should not be seen (at least if we are interested in their original Sitz im Leben) as substitutes for the (Jewish or Christian) Scripture, but rather as a (putatively divinely inspired) commentary of Scripture."

Now, the Quran acknowledges its roots in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity for example:

We gave Moses the Book,
And made it a Guide
To the Children of Israel,
(Commanding): "Take not
Other than Me
As Disposer of (your) affairs."

Surah 17 - Bani Israel

Can you see why people interested in the historiography might wish to avoid the simplistic term plagiarism, and prefer a more nuanced explanation?

 

[Augustus]

I never stated a cut off point. I am merely pointing out some cultures acknowledge previous origins rather than adapting it as their own origin. It is re-labeling of ideas as one's own I take issue with.

Islam clearly acknowledges its cultural origins in Judaism and Christianity. It says people have forgotten the true traditions and moved away from the 'true' message. The degree to which the early believers were specifically Muslim is also a moot point.

Repeating stories while claiming to have gained knowledge of the very ideas being spoken from the divine is plagiarism. Theology vs academia.

The audience was familiar with these stories though, he wasn't saying 'You've never heard of him, but there's this chap called Moses and God told me about the things he did. no one else knows this though'

No the environment in which specific ideas, religions, culture, etc arose signify ownership. It is not nation based as many such groups which are seen as "owners" were not a united nation. The Greeks for example.

Judaism and Christianity in the 7th C were influenced by Greek/Roman religion, Hellenistic philosophy, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, etc.

Just because an idea originated somewhere doesn't lead to perpetual ownership and exclusive rights to it.

The spread of Christianity and its subsequent reification of Jewish history as being part of mankind's history means that people operate within the paradigm of Jewish (pseudo) history.

So was plagiarism in antiquity. Read the charges against Plato. Again Islam present the idea of knowledge from other than which is found in the environment it is within. Theology vs academia.

Specific niche arguments between rival schools of philosophy discussing the originality of specific ideas are not the same as 7th C societal understanding of gods, myths and 'reality'.

 

[Augustus]

Back onto the topic of Old Qurans, there is an argument made by some academics that the Quran was transmitted in written form much earlier than is traditionally believed:

"Whatever we decide regarding the possible scenarios by which this may have occurred, the evidence of the Qur’an text and parallels in the Syriac Bible suggest that Quranic furqan represents a conflation of two Syriac words with different meanings: puqdana, ‘commandment’, in passages dealing with Moses’ receipt of God’s commandment (including but not limited to the Decalogue); and purqana, ‘salvation’, in some other passages, notably Qur’an 8:41, where it is shown that the text probably refers not to the Battle of Badr, as claimed by almost all commentators, but to Moses’ miraculous escape from Pharaoh’s army through the parting of the sea. Although these two etyma sound different, they were conflated, it seems, because they look very much alike in Syriac script (and perhaps also in some hypothetical early Arabic transcription of the Syriac, about the existence of which we can at present only speculate). The implication is that for at least some passages of the Qur’an, no tradition of oral recitation was available to prevent such conflations, which must have been the result of efforts to vocalize a text that was conveyed in purely written form. This example seems to confirm the assumption of other scholars who have subscribed to the idea that the Qur’an text, from its earliest days, was at least in part transmitted in written form."
Quranic Furqan - Fred Donner (Journal of Semitic Studies LII/2 Autumn 2007)
https://www.academia.edu/1013511/Quranic_Furqan

 

[Augustus]

For a passage of the Quran that can be dated with reasonable accuracy to about 630ish, see:

And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about Dhul-Qarnayn. Say, "I will recite to you about him a report."

https://www.academia.edu/10863446/_...Corpus_._Miscellanea_arabica_2013_2014_273-90

 

[outhouse]

Which is why you should stop thinking about dogmatically using the word plagiarised as it is clouding your judgement and preventing you from understanding the historical reality.

Really now. Pleas explain your view of the historicity.

#1 Who's ideas or work did these traditions belong to originally?

#2 Does islam claim these are the true traditions received from the man?

 

[Shad]

Islam clearly acknowledges its cultural origins in Judaism and Christianity. It says people have forgotten the true traditions and moved away from the 'true' message. The degree to which the early believers were specifically Muslim is also a moot point.

Sure. However many of the verses are repeating traditional stories but claims that these were not picked up within the environment but whispered to by an angel in Mo's ears. That is the difference.

The audience was familiar with these stories though, he wasn't saying 'You've never heard of him, but there's this chap called Moses and God told me about the things he did. no one else knows this though'

Of course. However there are also other issues such as verses talking about agriculture but Mecca is not an agricultural settlement. So these verses are not set to people within such an environment as agriculture is to the north and south.

Judaism and Christianity in the 7th C were influenced by Greek/Roman religion, Hellenistic philosophy, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, etc.

Sure I agree.

Just because an idea originated somewhere doesn't lead to perpetual ownership and exclusive rights to it.

That is not the point. The point is it's theology claims regarding the message.

The spread of Christianity and its subsequent reification of Jewish history as being part of mankind's history means that people operate within the paradigm of Jewish (pseudo) history.

Sure. However as you pointed out yourself this paradigm was assimilated, in part, by Judaism from other religions and cultures. So it operates under pseudohistory as if it were factual history.

Specific niche arguments between rival schools of philosophy discussing the originality of specific ideas are not the same as 7th C societal understanding of gods, myths and 'reality'.

Irrelevant to the theological claims of Islam and the source of these claims.

You are ignoring the theology of Islam when I am talking specifically about it and it's claims. This is different than the environment academia sets as there are far more numerous injection of various ideas from various groups into Islam. None of which Islam acknowledges due to its attachment to prophet-hood.

 

[outhouse]

God's eternal and uncreated word is not credited to God?

God does not exist scientifically or historically speaking, outside mythology and theology.

Factually there is no such thing as gods eternal and uncreated word, in any credible scholarship.

Only men wrote and compiled the traditions.


Credible history is not created by things not there, or mythological. Its based on credible evidence.

Claims of things not there are not credible explanations of anything. Gods do not exist as a real part of any credible historical study, these would be viewed as unsubstantiated theologiocal claims.