Robert Spencer predictable as always

Submitted by Antonio Jerez (Sweden), May 27, 2012 at 19:18

Let me guess. Robert Spencer is actually not arguing that Mohammed never existed - he is arguing that the Mohammed who made miracles and flew to heaven on the donkey Burak never existed. The thing is that the same thing could be said about another ancient prophet, Jesus, who has his fair share nowadays of Jesus mythers who claim that he never existed. It is a silly proposition. A 1st century gallilean healer and preacher named Yoshua certainly existed - though the Jesus with all the mythological ornamentation found in the gospels never existed.

And I think Patricia Crone's book Hagarism is extremely weak. I think she repudiated most of her thesis long ago. The book is almost as silly as Wansborough's book on the origins of the Quaran. And I must admit that it is quite fun too see Spencer cut the Quran and the traditions about Mohammed to pieces while not seeing the huge speck in his own eye. The simple fact is that few religions give us such close access to the actual words and worldview of a religious founder as the Quran. On the other hand the gospels have been overlaid with so many mythological layers and invented words attributed to Jesus that it is almost impossible to recover the historical Jesus. To recover the historical Muhammed is a piece of cake compared to recovering the prophet from Nazareth.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".