paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Your thoughts please.
Everybody is welcome to post whether pertaining to a religion or not.
Regards
Everybody is welcome to post whether pertaining to a religion or not.
Regards
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How does (did) one know who has (had) authored a book?
- Thread starter paarsurrey
- Start date
... you look at the publication data and read the listed authors and contributors? It's usually on the cover of the book, or within the first few pages?
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
"How does (did) one know who has (had) authored a book?"
I guess you can never know for sure. It's something you have to take on trust.
For example, the new TV show on SyFy, The Expanse, from a book written by James S.A. Corey. That author isn't one author, but two authors working together. It's a nome de plume for their collaboration.
I guess you can never know for sure. It's something you have to take on trust.
For example, the new TV show on SyFy, The Expanse, from a book written by James S.A. Corey. That author isn't one author, but two authors working together. It's a nome de plume for their collaboration.
In most cases, obviously, there is not much dispute.
Other times it is difficult to tell for sure. It may or may not be possible to reach some conclusions by studying the writing style, but that relies a lot on having good specimens of the writing of the expected author. Even then it may be difficult to tell.
Other times it is difficult to tell for sure. It may or may not be possible to reach some conclusions by studying the writing style, but that relies a lot on having good specimens of the writing of the expected author. Even then it may be difficult to tell.
My prediction: people will say that the book itself will mention or list the author and that is how we know who wrote it. Paarsurrey will then respond that the Quran mentions that its author is God and that we should therefore accept that it was written by God since we use that same measure of investigation to identify the author of other books.
Tumah
Veteran Member
I though they believed Muhammad dictated it to people in a cave.
I don't know. I don't recall hearing of that before. I still think he's going to try to use this thread to argue that the Quran is God's word, though.
Tumah
Veteran Member
Oh for sure.
Jumi
Well-Known Member
In ancient times it was common to write books using more authoritative names, well because people often take things on authority. In modern times often we can contact the authors or they are public. Sometimes authors use ghostwriters and it may be hard to find out who the real author is.
In Islamic tradition we have something called "Ijaza", which means that when you author a book you read it to a scholar or give it to him, accompanied with a permision for him to "narrate" the book as one of your works. The scholar in his turn will pass the book with the permision to another one and so on...
The permission can be a written document or a verbal one..
Great scholars have great number of permissions, where they author "books of permissions" that include all the permissions they have..
Here is what Wikipedia said about the subject...It has some mistakes. It is mentioned there that "the ijazah was limited to the study of Islamic law (sharia) and in the transmission of knowledge (gnosis) in the Islamic spiritual tradition Sufism. Philosophy,natural sciences and Islamic theology (kalam) were excluded", however, according to my knowledge, scholars were used to pass Ijaza regarding all their works. Also at that times, most scholars would study Islamic sciences besides their other fields.
Tumah
Veteran Member
Does that tell you who wrote the book (the question in the OP) or whether the person who wrote the book had permission to distribute what he wrote (not the question of the OP)?
This will at least shows that the Claimed author is claiming to be the real author..Not someone who came later on has started the claim.
If there are doubts about the claim of the "claimed author", those transmitting the claim would raise them..
So it is somewhat similar in function to a record of authorship authority, albeit organized in a not-very-centralized way?
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Do you mean that TV shows may be treated sort of a book?
Regards
The internal evidence in the Bible, including the accuracy of it's prophecies, it's historical accuracy, scientific accuracy, and more convinces me the Bible was authored by the true God. Add to that it's universal appeal to people in all nations, it's tremendous distribution into more languages than any other book in history, and it's internal harmony though penned by over forty men during a 1600 year timespan; All this and more marks the Bible's divine Authorship, IMO.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Your could, but that's not why I mentioned the TV show. That TV show is based on a book, just like Harry Potter movies were made from the Harry Potter books. But that's not the point I was making. It was just an example used to support the actual point.
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
You mean a book has not necessarily be bound in covers (of leather etc).
Regards
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Eh? My point wasn't about the nature of the book. It was about the topic you started regarding authors.
And yes and no if a book can be in covers. E-books are books too because they contain reading material. But I don't think a is a book. It can be based on a book, or a book can be written from it, but a movie is a movie and a book is a book (something you read). The difference is in how the different media is experienced.