Re: Fwd: Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran

From: Jeremy Bradley (jeremyb@nor.com.au)
Date: Wed Mar 06 2002 - 05:30:16 GMT

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    Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 16:30:16 +1100
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    From: Jeremy Bradley <jeremyb@nor.com.au>
    Subject: Re: Fwd: Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran
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    At 10:34 AM 2/03/02 -0500, you wrote:
    >
    >Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany,
    >argues that the Koran has been misread and mistranslated for centuries.
    >His work, based on the earliest copies of the Koran, maintains that
    >parts of Islam's holy book are derived from pre-existing Christian
    >Aramaic texts that were misinterpreted by later Islamic scholars who
    >prepared the editions of the Koran commonly read today.
    >Snip.............

    Good post Wade (a bit long tho)
    Do you have any similar critiques of the Judaeo/Christian texts or are you
    myopically looking for justification for a new Crusade against Islam?
    I personally feel that it would be more productive to look at the validity
    of the claims to the disputed Palestinian territories than to find fault
    with any of the (manipulated) 'sacred' texts as everyone claims to have the
    support the word of God and everyone has re-written them from time to time
    for political reasons. Furthermore, the Jews believe that the Old Testament
    is the word of God but the New Testament isn't, the Christians believe that
    the combined texts known as The Holy Bible is the word of that same God,
    but that the Koran isn't and the Moslems acknowledge most of Genesis and
    that Christ was a Prophet but claim that the Koran is the word of the self
    same God that the other two reckon is their best buddy.
    If we look at Palestine we have one group who have lived there from time
    immemorial who claim the right to exist unmolested in the land of their
    forebears. The other group mainly arrived over the last hundred years with
    the claim that their title of 'ownership' was inherited from Abram.
    Abram's ownership of the land, then known as Canaa, derives from a private
    interview with God about 4,000 years ago. During the interview God gave
    Abram, and his people, the portion of Canaa which became known as Judea; a
    portion of modern-day Israel.
    It must be recognised that for some time prior to the advent of the
    'Zionist movement' Arabs, Jews and Christians lived in Palestine in
    relative peace and that the initial violence and terror was instigated by
    the Zionists and neither the Palestinians or the Jews as a whole started
    the trouble.
    Now if we admit that, in a democratic world, we should all have equal
    rights, then everyone should be allowed to behave like Israel and the US.
    Nuke Gingridge said today that it is "reasonable that a nation has the
    right to defend itself against clear and present danger by whatever means
    are available to it". He also said that it is 'just' that a nation take
    "action against aggressors" even if that action is pre-emptive.
    However, in this eye-for-an-eye conflict mass blindness has resulted. It
    would appear to be reasonable, just and in keeping with the above cultures
    to employ the wisdom of Solomon and split the disputed possession because
    not to do so represents clear and present danger for us all.
    Jeremy

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