Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Hmm, now with texts like the Bible and Koran, these were written by many scribes over time, not by one writer. They may be the 'revelation' of one man but that simply doesn't count - it's who writes it that counts.

I think you misunderstand the essential difference between the Bible and the Quran. While even the most hardcore snake-handling Bible-thumping KJV-only Baptist fundie will acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands over many centuries (even if he does believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch), it is a fundamental article of Islamic belief that Muhammed personally wote down every jot and tittle of the Quran as dictated to him by the archangel Gabriel, Allah's personal messenger. Very much like Joseph Smith and his angel, come to think of it.

Again, you're not going Bartheist on us, are you?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

I think you misunderstand the essential difference between the Bible and the Quran. While even the most hardcore snake-handling Bible-thumping KJV-only Baptist fundie will acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands over many centuries (even if he does believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch), it is a fundamental article of Islamic belief that Muhammed personally wote down every jot and tittle of the Quran as dictated to him by the archangel Gabriel, Allah's personal messenger.

Again, you're not going Bartheist on us, are you?

I'd bet a hundred shiny pounds that he didn't though.

And I've committed two 'sins' at once there...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I'm not quite sure in which direction you're tacking now.

After an extensive defense of the Author against PoMo drivel, I don't think that you're now taking the position that an Author who plagiarises doesn't count- even the act of choosing what to steal is still an independent creative act.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you're asserting that the Quaran has been 'garbled in transmission'- in fact its text from the oldest extant manuscripts down to the present are at least as consistent as the Vulgate and Septuagint.

There's no doubt in my mind that Muhammed, like Smith and Hubbard after him, set out consciously to create (or forge) a new "Mythology" as the fundamental step in that ancient scam, "Profiting Through Propheting."