Quran, indeed, could be inauthentic

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Apr 9, 2021 at 19:54

Dear Dr Pipes, Responding to my message that Quran is not a good manual for humanity because it is widely described as untranslatable, reader DNM made a very valid point. DNM said that Quran may be just plain inauthentic and it may not be possible to find an authentic version of Quran. I completely agree. But that is a direction that I do not necessarily want to go into.

It is very unlikely that a book recited to an illiterate man by God in the silence of a cave and not preserved for many decades or centuries is authentic.
Haven't we all played the kids' game of telephone? Human messages get corrupted very soon during transmission. DNM is so very right to have brought this point.

The beauty is that what Muslims call their biggest virtue is their biggest failing. Let me illustrate. There are many versions of the Bible. Muslims use it to malign Christianity. But it is a blessing that the Bible has many versions. Right or wrong, the core messages of the Bible are common to all versions and are well corroborated and understood. Christianity is not dependent on any one version being entirely and infallibly correct. Islam will fall apart if the accepted version of the Quran falls apart.

Stubbornness is no virtue. Muslims must realize. Flexibility is a virtue. Muslims must realize that as well. When it comes to the religious text, Hinduism is in an even better shape. The truth of the Vedantic Hinduism is written and repeated in tens of Upanishads. These Upanishads build upon each other, borrow from each other and support each other. And on top of them hundreds of subtexts have been written on these Upanishads. Some of these texts are being written even today. The core principles remain the same. And, Hindus mention with pride when they find that one of their thoughts was also mentioned by a Christian philosopher or even Plato. Thank goodness, I don't have one single last word of God no proof of whose authenticity can be found.

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