[aruanan]

Id read somewhere, (and I'll try to find it for reference) that the actual basis for the Koran, or, perhaps better put, the core of the Koran is actually a set of poorly translated and incomplete apocryphal Syriac versions of New Testament writings found by Mohammad in Damascus. This history of the New Testament is murky and one which I intentionally avoid lest heretical misdirection enter my consciousness. Another, better known example, are the set of apocryphal New Testament books found and apparently written in Egypt. Frankly, I don't give the Muslims a great deal of thought; they are their own problem.

There was something on FR about it. From what I remember, it was not the NT but some book commonly used in the church back then, maybe something akin to and Orthodox version of the Book of Common Prayer. The article claimed that its remnants could still be seen throughout the Koran. The history of the NT isn't that murky. You can compile virtually the entire NT from quotations in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. As far as Islam goes, it you stripped from the Koran and associated writings everything that had its origin in Christianity and Judaism, you'd have little left. Islam was the first, though far from the last, successful cult to derive its authority by claiming descent from Abraham through a lost or spurned descendent and a new revelation that would enable its followers to pursue the true way, at last revealed to Mohammed, that had been purposefully obscured by apostate Christian and Jewish leaders.

[glide625]

Thanks; and after reading your post it reminds me again of a true curiousity I’ve developed as to the true nature of the man that was Mohammad; what was he really all about? From what little bit I’ve read he seems to have been as much a military figure as a religious figure. Quite a curious combination though not unique.