AggressiveProgressiv

I have heard that the Quran plagarizes from the Tanakh (Old Testament), the Babylonian Talmud, and the New Testament

Are there any here who are familiar with which passages in particular were plagarized. Either verbatim or paraphrased.

Also, I have found some great free software that can find plagarism. What pre-Quaranic Arabic writings should I check besides the ones already mentioned? I am especially interested in Arabic writings, because in translating to English, the plagarism might be less apparent and more easily deniable.

AggressiveProgressiv

I have heard that the Quran plagarizes from the Tanakh (Old Testament), the Babylonian Talmud, and the New Testament

Are there any here who are familiar with which passages in particular were plagarized. Either verbatim or paraphrased.

Also, I have found some great free software that can find plagarism. What pre-Quaranic Arabic writings should I check besides the ones already mentioned? I am especially interested in Arabic writings, because in translating to English, the plagarism might be less apparent and more easily deniable.

samy

Hi,
Quran, Bible and Talmud are coming from the same source...the Prophets of God. Unfortunately, both the Bible and Talmud were altered over the years and the old versions are no longer exist.

You may find more info on the following site http://www.islamtomorrow.com/

This site belongs to a Former Christian Preacher!!!

SkepticBoyLee

Horseshit. Check out some of Infidels articles on Islam. Specifically form Richard Carrier. He really rips it an new asshole.

The Article "The Koran: A Work of multiple hands" is a good one too.

FarmMama

Some suggested reading links:

Qur'an: A Work of Multiple Hands? by Denis Giron

The Koran Predicted the Speed of Light? Not Really. by Richard Carrier

Cosmology and the Koran: A Response to Muslim Fundamentalists by Richard Carrier

AggressiveProgressiv

I know about the contradictions with science and the contradictions from within koran, but those can be explained away to most people (not that they are good explanations... just good enough for them). The repetition of the koran is also humorous, but does not necessarily discredit it irreconcilably.

I recently helped my roomate, who was in process of converting to mormonism, to become agnostic. I did this by showing the plagarism. No matter what contradictions or inconsistencies I found, I could not get him to agree with me until I showed him the massive plagarism in the Book of Mormon.

It was only after he saw the plagarism that he actually started to rationally consider the contradictions.

It seems that a believer cannot be swayed unless some very damaging and irreconcilable information is revealed to them. Using confirmation bias they will only look at rational-sounding statements that agree with their logic, and they will dismiss anything else.

Notsri

Hey, AggressiveProgressiv.

I investigated this subject a few years back myself, though certainly not in any exhaustive fashion. Here are a number of examples I was able to dig up:

Qur’an 5:30-32:

"[Cain's] soul prompted him to slay his brother [Abel]; he slew him and thus became one of the lost. Then God sent down a raven, which clawed the earth to show him how to bury the naked corpse of his brother. 'Alas!' he cried. 'Have I not strength enough to do as this raven has done and so bury my brother's naked corpse?' And he repented.

"That was why We [Allah] laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind; and that whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind."

(The second paragraph doesn't seem to make very good sense here, IMO; it's almost as if a link in the narrative were missing between it and the first paragraph. The missing link, as it turns out, is found in the Qur'an's undoubted source, the Mishnah.)

From Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5:

"…we have found in the case of Cain who slew his brother, [Abel, that] it is said [in Genesis 4:10], 'thy brother’s blood crieth'—[in the Hebrew] it does not say 'thy brother's blood [singular],' but 'thy brother's bloods [plural],' thus indicating both his blood and the blood of his succeeding generations…

"…if anyone destroys a single soul from the children of man, Scripture charges him as though he had destroyed a whole world; and whoever rescues a single soul from the children of man, Scripture credits him as though he had saved a whole world."

(Of course, the first paragraph could easily be situated between the two from the Qur'an, and, needless to say, the second paragraph corresponds almost precisely to the second from the Qur'an.)



Qur'an 5:31 bears some resemblance to a Jewish Midrash, namely Pirkei de'Rabbi Eliezer, though, to my knowledge, there's some question among scholars as to which text contains the earlier tradition. In other words, does the Qur'an work from the midrashic tradition, or vice versa?

To quote the text, again, from the Qur'an:

"Then God sent down a raven, which clawed the earth to show him how to bury the naked corpse of his brother. 'Alas!' he cried. 'Have I not strength enough to do as this raven has done and so bury my brother's naked corpse?' And he repented."

Pirkei de'Rabbi Eliezer 21:

"Adam and his helpmate were sitting and weeping and mourning for [Abel], and they did not know what to do with [him], for they were unaccustomed to burial. A raven came—one of its fellow birds was dead at its side. The raven said, 'I will teach this man what to do.' It took its fellow and dug in the earth, hid it and buried it. Adam said, 'I will do like the raven.' He took the corpse of Abel and dug in the earth and buried it. The Holy One, Blessed Be He, gave a good reward to the ravens in this world."



Qur'an 3:35, 37 corresponds in certain respects to traditions from the Protevangelium of James.

3:35:

"Remember the words of Imran's wife, [Mary's mother, i.e. Jesus' grandmother]. 'Lord,' she said, 'I dedicate to Your service that which is in my womb. Accept it from me. You alone hear all and know all."

Protevangelium of James 1:4:

"And Anna, [Mary's mother,] said: 'As the Lord my God lives, if I bear a child, whether male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall serve him all the days of its life'."

3:37a:

"[Mary's] Lord graciously accepted her. He made her grow a goodly child and entrusted her to the care of Zacharias."

As in the Qur'an, Mary's guardian in the Protevangelium of James (8) is Zacharias.

3:37b:

"Whenever Zacharias visited her in the Shrine he found that she had food with her. 'Mary,' he said, 'where is this food from?' 'It is from God,' she answered. 'God gives without measure to whom He will'."

This would likely correspond to Protevangelium 8:1 (and 13:2):

"And Mary [lived] in the Temple, nurtured like a dove and received food from the hand of an angel."

Incidentally, Qur'an 3:38-41 goes on to relate Zacharias's request to God for a child, at which point an angel tells him about his soon-to-be son, John (the Baptist). Zacharias disbelieves and, for "three days and three nights," he's thus unable to speak. Verses 42, 43 tell us that Allah had also chosen Mary for conception, having "exalted [her] above womankind." In any event, the whole account follows fairly closely the narrative of Luke 1, especially vv. 8, 11, 13, 15, 19-20, 22, 26-28, 30.



Qur'an 3:49 // 5:110:

"I [Jesus] bring you a sign from your Lord. From clay I will make for you the likeness of a bird. I shall breathe into it and, by God's leave, it shall become a living bird."

Essentially the same story is related in a number of pre-Islamic Christian apocrypha/pseudepigrapha (not to mention the Jewish Toledot Yeshu, though that may post-date the advent of Islam).

E.g., the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 27:

"And it came to pass, after these things, that in the sight of everyone Jesus took clay from the pools which he had made, and from it fashioned twelve sparrows…He struck his hands together, and said to his sparrows, 'Fly!' And at the voice of his command they began to fly. And in the sight and hearing of everyone that stood there, he said to the birds, 'Go and fly through the earth, and through the entire world, and live.' And when those that were there saw such miracles, they were filled with great astonishment."



Qur'an 4:157:

"[The Jews] declared: 'We have put to death the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of God.' They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but he was made to resemble another for them."

This idea that Jesus was transfigured to escape crucifixion while the Jews (or rather, Romans) crucified someone else altogether, someone indistinguishable from Jesus, corresponds to a particular Gnostic motif.

E.g., Acts of John 97:

"And [Jesus] stood in the middle of the cave and giving light [to the apostle] said: 'John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified…but to you I am speaking'."

You might also have a look at the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter 81.6-24 & 82.20-83.10; The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 55-56; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24.4.



Qur'an 27:16-17 corresponds to yet another Jewish source, namely Targum Sheni to Esther, though, again, there is some question as to which is dependent on the other.

27:16-17:

"Solomon succeeded David. He said, 'Know, my people, we have been taught the language of birds and endowed all good things. Surely this is the signal favor.' His forces of demons and men and birds were called to Solomon's presence, and ranged in battle array. Etc."

Targum Sheni 1:1

"David was succeeded by Solomon, whom the Holy One…appointed to rule over wild beasts and the fowl of the skies…as well as demons and spirits…He spoke the language of each of them."

Regardless of whether one source here is directly dependent on the other, by the way, the Jewish tradition of Solomon's rule over even the spirit world is very ancient, certainly pre-Islam. In the Babylonian Talmud, e.g., Gittin 68a-b, Solomon compels the demon Ashmedai to assist in building the Temple.



Qur'an 27:44 has another interesting parallel (though not exact) in the Targum Sheni.

27:44: "[The Queen of Sheba] was bidden to enter [Solomon's] palace; and when she saw it she thought it was a pool of water, and bared her legs [to keep her clothes dry]. But Solomon said: 'It is a palace paved with glass'."

Targum Sheni 1:1:

"Now when King Solomon heard that [the Queen of Sheba] was coming to [greet] him, King Solomon arose and went to sit down in a bathhouse. When the queen saw that the king was sitting in a bathhouse, she thought to herself the king must be sitting in water. So she raised her dress in order to wade across. Whereupon he noticed the hair on her leg…"

(If by chance you’d be interested in pursuing further study of at least these last two examples, you might check out Jacob Lassner's Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Dissolving Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Post-Biblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. I haven’t personally read the book but, from what I understand, Lassner includes a comparative study of the Jewish and Muslim versions of the above episode and more. On the other hand, reviewers on Amazon have panned the book.)



One last example: Qur'an 37:97-98:

"They said, 'Build [Abraham] a furnace, and throw him into the blazing fire!' (This failing), they then sought a stratagem against him, but [God] made them the ones most humiliated!"

The story evidently refers to Abraham's supposed deliverance from a fiery furnace. Of course, there's nothing in the Bible that corresponds to this; but it does appear in extrabiblical Jewish material, many examples of which pre-date Isalm by centuries.

E.g., Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities 6:16ff. (ca. 1st c. CE):

"And they took [Abram] and built a furnace and lit it. And they threw bricks burned with fire into the furnace. And then the leader Joktan with great emotion took Abram and threw him along with the bricks into the fiery furnace…there was not the least injury to Abram from the burning of the fire. And Abram came up out of the furnace, and the fiery furnace collapsed. And Abram was saved and went away…"



One final point of interest, particularly as regards this subject of Qur'anic/Islamic plagiarism: There a two interesting and perhaps very telling passages, one in particular, that I came across when studying this subject, one from the Qur'an and the other from the ahadith.

Qur'an 6:25:

"When [unbelievers] come to argue with [Muhammad] the unbelievers say: 'This [the Qur'an] is nothing but fables of the ancients'."

(On the one hand, it would seem from this verse that Muhammad met with the same allegation of plagiarism leveled even today, and perhaps included the above verse in anticipation of more of the same: those who in the future make such claims, have this text by which to condemn themselves as unbelievers. On the other hand, I may be misreading the text; I suppose it might simply refer to the infidels’ rejection of the Qur'anic materials as fallacious, regardless of their actual origins.)

The more interesting of texts comes from the Sunan Abu-Dawud (1379:3654-5):

"Abu Hurairah reported [Muhammad,] the apostle of God…as saying: 'Relate traditions from the children of Israel; there is no harm.' Abd Allah b. Amr said: 'The Prophet…used to relate to us traditions from the children of Israel till morning came; he would not get up except for obligatory prayer'."

(So Muhammad was conversant with Jewish traditions, was he? Wonder if there might be anything in the Qur'an to indicate as much. )

Hope you’ll find all this useful, AgressiveProgressiv.

Regards,
Notsri

Chris Weimer

Shouldn't this be merged with the one in BC&H?

FarmMama

As this is a duplicate thread, I'm moving it to BC&H where it will be merged with this thread.

FM

SkepticBoyLee

The plagerism wont matter to Muslims. They often contend that virtually all holy books and prophets of other religions were Muslims but that their message was corrupted and changed and that Isam is the only religion untainted. So to them it would be natural that much of the content form book to book is the same.

1. So what if the Koran is unchanged? An unchanged hunk of warmongering, superntaural shit is still shit.


2. The form of arabic spoken back then is much different than todays arabic.

3. The Englsih translations differ from one antoehr with some tranlsations appearing as if they are trying to smooth over harshness.

4. There is the problem with abrogated Verses in the Koran. As well as those pesky satanic verses.

5. Talking ants! Talking FUCKING ANTS!

I read the thread about your Mormon converted roomate.