Oldest? Koran found in England

[Lyndon]

A copy of the Koran that dates to within 20 years of the prophet Mohammad's lifetime has been radio carbon dated in Birmingham England, and the text is basically identical to the Koran we have today.

'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University - BBC News

 

[Godobeyer]

A copy of the Koran that dates to within 20 years of the prophet Mohammad's lifetime has been radio carbon dated in Birmingham England, and the text is basically identical to the Koran we have today.

'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University - BBC News

this may help the people to believe in Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) existed .

 

[Lyndon]

I've been telling people there's much stronger evidence for the Koran being the words of Mohammad (pbuh) than for the New Testament being totally accurate. We don't have any New Testament manuscripts anywhere near only 20 Years from Jesus' life.

 

[Augustus]

Just to raise an important 'hold on a minute...', not to try to 'discredit' anything, just because what I say is true and something that not everybody realises.

One thing to be very careful of, radiocarbon dating is not this highly accurate tool that produces hard facts like some people think. Results can be distorted due to numerous factors such as climate, contamination, etc. Also, the dating of ancient documents is problematic as they date the material that the text is written on, rather than the writing itself, and parchments might well have been reused multiple times (although they can identify if this is the case).

One of the current 'oldest Qurans' is considered to be the Sana'a Manuscript which was radiocarbon dated twice giving ranges of 433-599 (obviously too early), and 543-643 (most likely too early).

When dating a manuscript, radiocarbon dating is not the number 1 tool, it is a helpful guide but is less important than other factors from textual analysis, history, philology, palaeography, etc.

People overrate radiocarbon dating as it is "science", and people overrate scientific techniques in general. "Science" is always seen as better than "not science" when the opposite is frequently true when dating manuscripts.

Oldest Quran found makes nice headlines and gets nice publicity for the university, but there is a reason that 'oldest' is in quotation marks as it is far from proven. The problem is most people will take this as fact. It is highly likely that this date will be revised later as that is frequently the case with ancient documents of all types.

I think that the oldest Quranic texts in existence are considered to be from around 675-700 currently, possibly slightly earlier, so we already know it was a fairly standardised document from within about 50 or so years of Muhammed's death.

 

[paarsurrey]

It is a happy news.
Thanks and regards

 

[Glaurung]

I've been telling people there's much stronger evidence for the Koran being the words of Mohammad (pbuh) than for the New Testament being totally accurate. We don't have any New Testament manuscripts anywhere near only 20 Years from Jesus' life.

We actually have a very good idea what the NT originals looked like, even non-believing scholars admit this. The big difference is that the Qur'an was tightly controlled very early on, while in the early years of Christianity the NT could be copied by pretty much anyone who could write.

And the question of dispute was never about what the Qur'an says, we all know what it claims to be.

 

[Lyndon]

We do know the Koran is exactly what Mohammad said, we don't know the Gospels were exactly what Jesus said as they were written down later, and the exact quotations may have been altered.

 

[Glaurung]

We do know the Koran is exactly what Mohammad said

Do we?

 

[Lyndon]

Yes, at least those that have studied it know it is true.

 

[Augustus]

Just another point as regards radiocarbon dating.

If you accept that it is accurate, you also have to accept a date range of 568 and 645 which potentially pre-dates Muhammed's accepted life span. You also have to accept that other manuscripts also have this problem. This could, in theory, relate to preexisting tradition.

As I have said, radiocarbon dating is far from 'fact', and I'm certainly not going to claim that this proves or disproves anything, but you can't assume the date relates to whatever date you want it to.

People speculate that 'this could have been written by someone who knew Muhammed', but this is no more valid a speculation than 'this could show that the Quran is based on traditions that predate Muhammed'.

Again, neither speculation is based on rigorous evidence, they are just that, speculation based on ambiguous and tentative information. People can think what they like, but they shouldn't claim that their view is supported by solid evidence.

Just saying...

 

[Lyndon]

No its because multiple followers had the entire Holy Koran memorized in the Prophets lifetime, and the entire Koran appears to have been written down before those followers would have died. Its not a matter of faith, its a matter of logic. Jesus didn't have a tradition of followers memorizing everything he said, like the early Muslims did, big difference, says nothing about the validity of either religion, just the logistics of how the writings were recorded.

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

NT was collected in 323 in Rome.
Quran was collected during caliphate of Uthman may Allah be pleased with him.
In the lifetime of prophet pbuh muslims already memorized the quran.

Giant difference.

 

[Shad]

No its because multiple followers had the entire Holy Koran memorized in the Prophets lifetime, and the entire Koran appears to have been written down before those followers would have died. Its not a matter of faith, its a matter of logic. Jesus didn't have a tradition of followers memorizing everything he said, like the early Muslims did, big difference, says nothing about the validity of either religion, just the logistics of how the writings were recorded.

Go look at Islamic sources. The codification of the Quran used written sources not memory. If memorization was so wide spread, and reliable, then no written source would be required at all. The fact that written sources were used shows that memorization was no reliable enough thus your point has no merit nor is it logical.

 

[Shad]

NT was collected in 323 in Rome.
Quran was collected during caliphate of Uthman may Allah be pleased with him.
In the lifetime of prophet pbuh muslims already memorized the quran.

Giant difference.

There are manuscripts and parts of manuscript dating back to a few decades of Jesus which do align with whole parts of the NT. Beside the date of collection for either does not guarantee either text represents the words spoken by Jesus or Muhammad. See my above post to show how the memorization concept is dogma not reliable fact.

 

[Lyndon]

Thousands of people today and throughout history have the entire Holy Koran memorized, if that's not reliable fact I don't know what is. Its just how it is; People with photographic memory memorized the Holy Koran in the prophet's life as is documented and they were used to write it down, perhaps a few very slight alterations crept in but we can be sure the Koran today is 99.99% the same as it was in the Prophet Mohammad's life, its not dogma, its just fact of how the Koran was recorded, you can argue all you want about whether the Koran was inspired, but we know it was written down in basically the same form as the Prophet Mohammad revealed it, once again the same can not be said of Jesus' Gospels; They were not written down immediately and the earliest surviving manuscripts date to the third century, I believe, not decades after Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

There are some scarce documents dated to 150 AD, 120 years after Jesus, but these consist of only a very few verses, not even chapters of the New Testament.

 

[columbus]

You would have to put:
"According to the stories told by powerful men who were using the Quran to establish themselves as the rulers of a rich and strong new empire..."

multiple followers had the entire Holy Koran memorized in the Prophets lifetime, and the entire Koran appears to have been written down before those followers would have died

in front of this quote to have an unambiguously true statement.
It is about as credible as the pope's claims about apostolic succession. It is not too credible to anybody who hasn't already decided to believe in it.
Tom

 

[Glaurung]

There are some scarce documents dated to 150 AD, 120 years after Jesus, but these consist of only a very few verses, not even chapters of the New Testament.

The problem with your whole premise is an apples to oranges comparison. The NT was never "revealed" it's a collection of different texts by different people written at different times that were circulating around early Christian communities. Some of these texts (while the work very human authors) became accepted having divine inspiration, and by the authority of the Church they were eventually codified into a cannon. The cannon as a whole never claims to be handed down from on high as the verbatim word of God. Most of it was never even written to be "scripture". What Christ bequeathed us as not a cannon of texts, but a Church and a magisterium; a sacred tradition passed down by the Apostles. It was the authority of the bishops that gave us the NT.

The Qur'an, while composed over several decades was intended as a stand-alone text. And Islam gaining political power within Muhammad's life meant that from very early on the Qur'an's transmission could be tightly controlled. No doubt much of the Quranic tradition traces back to Muhammad himself, but it's a banal point which no one disputes. The point is that the texts of the NT are the most well attested works of ancient literature and the scholarship shows that what we have today is accurate. We don't have the originals but we are as sure as can be that we nonetheless have their contents in tact as the vast majority of the thousands upon thousands of textual variations within the early manuscripts are so trivial that they have no barring on the actual content of the texts. (Spelling variations, untranslatable variations in syntax, scribal errors, etcetera). Muslims claim the gospels we have today have been corrupted yet they cannot actually show it but from the say-so of their tradition. (And they must claim it otherwise the whole basis of Islam falls apart). Unless you have reason to accept Muslim claims then you have no basis to impute the NT as dubious regardless of whether or not you accept its claims.

 

[arthra]

"...the vast majority of the thousands upon thousands of textual variations within the early manuscripts are so trivial that they have no barring on the actual content of the texts."

I wouldn't be too sure of that.

John Mill's 1707 Greek New Testament was estimated to contain some 30,000 variants in its accompanying textual apparatus[1] which was based on "nearly 100 [Greek] manuscripts."[2] Eberhard Nestle estimated this number in 1897 as 150,000–200,000 variants.[3] Bart D. Ehrman has estimated that there are "between 200,000–400,000 variants [in] several million pages of manuscripts,"[4] and in 2014 Eldon J. Epp raised the estimate as high as 750,000.[5] Still, Epp says that there is "no reliable estimate of the total number of variants found in our extant witnesses."[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

 

[Hawkins]

"...the vast majority of the thousands upon thousands of textual variations within the early manuscripts are so trivial that they have no barring on the actual content of the texts."

I wouldn't be too sure of that.

John Mill's 1707 Greek New Testament was estimated to contain some 30,000 variants in its accompanying textual apparatus[1] which was based on "nearly 100 [Greek] manuscripts."[2] Eberhard Nestle estimated this number in 1897 as 150,000–200,000 variants.[3] Bart D. Ehrman has estimated that there are "between 200,000–400,000 variants [in] several million pages of manuscripts,"[4] and in 2014 Eldon J. Epp raised the estimate as high as 750,000.[5] Still, Epp says that there is "no reliable estimate of the total number of variants found in our extant witnesses."[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_textual_variants_in_the_New_Testament

All versions of the Bible remains theoretically the same disregarding the variance you try to portray here. That actually say it's the author is here monitoring that the same messages of the same effect are conveyed without error.

It happened that in the year of AD 303 there was a roman kingdom wide persecution including to wiping out of Bibles in the churches. There's another impact which is the invention of paper which drives humans changed their recording practice. It's thus much more difficult to find out original documents, say, before 300 AD than after. Humans no longer keep the cumbersome scrolls as long as the documents are considered translated into paper form.

 

[Shad]

Thousands of people today and throughout history have the entire Holy Koran memorized, if that's not reliable fact I don't know what is. Its just how it is; People with photographic memory memorized the Holy Koran in the prophet's life as is documented and they were used to write it down, perhaps a few very slight alterations crept in but we can be sure the Koran today is 99.99% the same as it was in the Prophet Mohammad's life, its not dogma, its just fact of how the Koran was recorded, you can argue all you want about whether the Koran was inspired, but we know it was written down in basically the same form as the Prophet Mohammad revealed it, once again the same can not be said of Jesus' Gospels; They were not written down immediately and the earliest surviving manuscripts date to the third century, I believe, not decades after Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

There are some scarce documents dated to 150 AD, 120 years after Jesus, but these consist of only a very few verses, not even chapters of the New Testament.

The issue is that is directly contradicts Islamic tradition which states it used written sources, not memory, to establish codification. So it does not matter if a million people memorized it today, ad populum fallacy. All you are doing is repeating dogma not fact. You still can not be sure that the Quran reflects the actual words coming out of Muhammad's mouth. You first must accept that the people that wrote the standardized texts used authentic sources. You must assume these people are trust worthy. To hold either as absolute fact is dogma of faith. Beside the dating of recording of a text does not mean it is accurate, to maintain this is pure dogma.

If memory was reliable there would be no need for any written source as a basis. They would of never used Hafsah version, which was destroyed after she died. Heck she didn't want them to destroy it. Why? If it was a direct copy burning it is irrational. However if it was not a direct copy this obviously raises a few eye brows. Hafsah was not the only one to object to the standardized version. More so the very tradition is based on ahadtih which are two centuries old at the least. I will let everyone speculate for themselves as to the reasons why.