This discussion revolves around the much greater point that the Quran was authored by a human rather than a god. Let’s not lose sight of that.
I agree. So let's analyse it as if it were written by a human.
Can you give examples? I can't think of any in my reading of the Quran. For example, it complains endlessly about Pagans, but gives no details rather than that they're polytheists.
If the text is written by a human then the obvious question is where did he get his knowledge of the Abrahamic traditions from?
It is quite obvious that the Quran assumes its audience is already familiar with these traditions, and this matches the archaeological evidence that shows Arabia had largely become Judaeo-Christian in the centuries prior to Muhammad. Pagan inscriptions pretty much disappear from the record 2 centuries before Muhammad, whereas there are increasing numbers of monotheistic ones. Muhammad did not start this process, he was a result of this process.
The sirah is clearly wrong in its invention of Arabia as a pagan backwater. 150 years ago, when people assumed the Sirah was mostly factually correct, folk could assume Muhammad was pretty ignorant and made elementary errors like saying Ezra was Jesus or Mary was part of the Trinity because he had only got a superficial knowledge from his travels and as his audience were ignorant pagans they knew no better.
This view cannot be a supported any more based on both the text itself and the archaeological/epigraphic record.
If I write a historical fiction book on The French Revolution , but only read one textbook to research it then scholars could easily pinpoint which ideas and events I’d adapted from the textbook. Ditto if someone else read 20 textbooks, scholars could piece together where they’d borrowed from each book.
They could easily tell which of us had read more widely by the presence of ideas from different sources.
With the Quran, scholars can find passages that are influenced by themes present in earlier traditions.
Mary’s story and giving birth under a palm tree relates to the Protoevangelium of James and The infancy Gospel of Matthew. Young Jesus does things from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, etc.
Or the legal culture potentially being influenced by texts like the Didascalia Apostolorum, see for example:
It also shows influences from Christian legends like The 7 Sleepers of Ephasus and the Syriac Alexander Legend/Neshana (and so forth)
So what we know is that the author of the Quran was relatively well versed in Judaeo-Christian Biblical and para-biblical traditions as while we can see echoes of other texts there is no single source that explains the presence of so many diverse features, and the linguistic adaptations show this as being a long process of cultural influence, not simply a short term introduction of alien texts.
Given the sectarian nature of the audience which the Qur’ān sought to win over—especially Jews and Christians—the text takes up the “dogmatic re-articulation” (see definition later) of earlier scriptures belonging to competing religious groups, written in neighboring dialects and languages. The most potent scriptures in the “Qur’ān’s milieu”—that is, the religious, cultural, political, and geographical context within which the text was first articulated and soon codified—and with which it had to contend, were: Hebrew Scripture and Rabbinic commentary (al-tawrāh; Q 5:44—perhaps due to Muḥammad’s exchange with Jewish interlocutors) and the Gospel traditions (al-injīl; Q 5:47—including other New Testament books).
The latter, which left an indelible mark on the Qur’ān’s worldview, doctrine, and language via different Aramaic intermediaries, is dubbed here the “Aramaic Gospel Traditions.” Specifically, these are the extant Gospel recensions preserved in the Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic dialects... The point is that these qur’ānic verses demonstrate a long process of cultural exchange, theological debate, and morphological adjustment—not mere borrowing. There was therefore no process of “cut and paste.”
The Quran and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions - E. el-Badawi
I'm sure Mohamed wasn't above using sectarian rhetoric, but those words are not ascribed to Mohamed - they're supposed to be from Allah verbatim. As such, they are held to a much higher standard, and "sectarian rhetoric" doesn't meet that standard (IMO).
But you think it was written by a human, therefore you need to analyse it as if it were written by a human, not based on whatever characteristics you think Divine speech should take.
Your argument is effectively that the human Muhammad thought Jews saw Ezra as basically being Jesus.
Regardless of what else he knew about Judaism, he certainly got this wrong.
Whether from an Islamic theological perspective, a secualr scholarly perspective, or even based on an elementary understanding of language and rhetoric that is not correct.
You think Muhammad wrote the Quran, why do you think it most plausible that he a) was pretty well versed in Judaeo-Christian sectarian affairs and lived in an environment with many Jews and Christians, some of whom he lived side by side with and b) was so completely ignorant he thought Jews saw Ezra as being an exact analogue of Jesus?
Seeing as the Quran is full of polemical rhetoric not to be taken entirely literally, why is this remotely more probable than it simply being yet another example of rhetorical polemic?
