tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post6799385216964108239..comments2024-03-28T09:26:25.931+11:00Comments on Thinking Out Aloud: It is not a Reformation that Islam needsLorenzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-19284263724003787972010-05-24T09:27:30.466+10:002010-05-24T09:27:30.466+10:00Thanks, it did give me a chuckle. One of the princ...Thanks, it did give me a chuckle. One of the principles of bigotry is they are allowed to slander the despised as much as they like, but the despised are absolutely not allowed to criticise back.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-52930387649293913762010-05-23T11:30:02.722+10:002010-05-23T11:30:02.722+10:00Lorenzo
I thought you might enjoy this. Though ma...Lorenzo<br /><br />I thought you might enjoy this. Though maybe Mark Durie might not, so much.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>A man honored by President Obama as a “civil rights pioneer” has told a Christian ministry leader the God of the Bible is a “sinful, homophobic bigot” who needs to repent and “seek forgiveness for the pain and suffering which his sinful homophobia has needlessly inflicted upon gay people for the past 4,000 years.</i><br /><br />http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=121811Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-43491865341379336732010-05-17T22:53:15.216+10:002010-05-17T22:53:15.216+10:00PP: I haven't read Brown, so I was taking your...PP: I haven't read Brown, so I was taking your potted summary as him fitting in with the "it is only a transition" thesis about Western Europe: that there was no Fall. <br /><br />I rather thought that Gibbon's notion that the Eastern Empire was not "real Romans" was long since dead. (Particularly his thesis about Christianity causing the fall, given the most Christian half of the Empire was the half that survived.) Indeed, I object to the term 'Byzantine' since it is C17th antiquarianism with little to recommend it and use the term 'Eastern Roman Empire' instead, since they called themselves Romans (if in Greek) and those around them call them Romans.<br /><br />So, I was not commenting on the Eastern Mediterranean region at all: the survival of the Roman Empire there is a given. But, about <b>Western</b> Europe, the latest scholarship is pretty clear. It suffered a Dark Age (i.e. a large scale systemic collapse leading to a dramatic drop in literacy) after the fall of the Western Empire. One comparable to (but not nearly as catastrophic as) the Eastern Mediterranean Dark Age after the Bronze Age collapse.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-14267632867349303382010-05-17T19:48:15.668+10:002010-05-17T19:48:15.668+10:00I'm not sure how much and how closely you'...I'm not sure how much and how closely you've read Peter Brown, but he <i>was</i> responsible for exposing the unscholarly hocus pocus of the 17/18th scribes, such as Gibbon's "it was the Christian wot done it." <br /><br />Your arguments seem to be rely on the bigotries and chauvinsims of the 17th century, but without a hint of irony. The appellation "Dark Ages" has little to do with the 1st Millenium, and everything to do with Renaissance Europe.<br /><br />Brown's focus has never been on the tedium of Italy and Gaul, and Gibbon's shoddy "decline and fall" thesis formulated with not a jot of original research. H<br /><br />Brown's focus has always been on the main game in the Eastern Empire and Byzantium, but most of all Christianity.<br /><br />Brown has always about the dialectical substitution of Christianity for the tired and tedious Imperial cult, as the empire's glue.<br /><br />Your focus on the horror of the west is odd. From the 4th century, the West as defined by Gaul, Britain, and so on was full of Roman savages. The grandeur had shifted east to Constantinople, and the empire's glory was focused on Byzantium, Syria, and Egypt. <br /><br />It is this cultural transition that is Brown's work, and particularly how Christianity emerged as Rome's shadow imperial bureaucracy before subsuming and squashing it.<br /><br />If you are reading Peter Brown as a mere Edward Gibbon,you are wasting your time. And by the way, I found Brown's scholarship on Arabia and Persia chimed with my own whimsy very much.<br /><br />The man is among humanity's top 10 historians without doubt.Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-57443785552828183372010-05-17T12:50:57.653+10:002010-05-17T12:50:57.653+10:00PP: That scholarship of early Christianity is much...PP: That scholarship of early Christianity is much more advanced than that of early Islam is obviously true. That research can develop, and change, our understanding of the past is also true. By 'revisionism' what I was getting at was putting a picture of the past radically different from what one might reasonably expect. That Christ did not exist, that Muhammad did not exist, that Muhammad taught something radically different from Islam as more commonly understood are "revisionist" in that sense. <br /><br />BTW, Peter Brown is wrong. The Western Roman Empire definitely fell and there was a Dark Age--a large-scale collapse of literacy--in Western Europe. The more recent scholarship, particularly building on the vast increase in archaeological knowledge of the era, is <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/09/fall-of-rome-and-end-of-civilisation.html" rel="nofollow">quite clear</a> on <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/09/fall-of-roman-empire-barbarians-did-it.html" rel="nofollow">that</a>: so the Pirenne thesis <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/11/pirenne-thesis.html" rel="nofollow">is wrong</a>. There are a few attempts to keep the "it was just a transition" line alive, but they are getting <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/12/from-barbarians-to-angels.html" rel="nofollow">increasingly sad</a>.<br /><br />The Dark Ages are, in fact, a good example of a common pattern in historical revisionism. A thesis is advanced which dramatically reverses traditional historical understanding, it is all the rage for a while, then gets wound back as new evidence accumulates and/or previous evidence is re-examined.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-22848234813652452212010-05-17T10:52:41.653+10:002010-05-17T10:52:41.653+10:00I'm not sure what you mean by "revisionis...I'm not sure what you mean by "revisionism." It suggests a cut-off point, where all this history was settled, beyond which no innovation or purported new finds, theories, or explanations could be seen as legitimate. I am a little familiar with the history of Christianity, and it is impossible for such a notion to revisionism to apply, because the diversity within space is just mindblowing. <br /><br />All GREAT history-writing must, by definition, be "revisionism." Take the greatest historian of Christianity during Late Antiquity on earth - Peter Brown. We were all basically still swinging in the trees until his work began in 1970. We'd still be believing in such hocus-pocus nonsense as "Rome fell" and "the Dark Ages."<br /><br />I can't help but detect an ideological inertia to some kind of equivalence. "Islam, Christianity, there all the same."<br /><br />There are two overarching reasons why the standards and techniques relevant for scholarship of early Christianity vs early Islam.<br /><br />1) The extant evidence from the Mediterranean World during the time of Christ and onto Late Antiquity is of so many magnitudes greater than that available for the early days of Islam.<br /><br />2) As I said on an earlier post, the revolution in Christian and Biblical scholarship during the 19th century, is barely even muttered as possible of beginning. Quite simply because of the nuttier Islamists discover an infidel is undertaking such scholarship and research, they will kill you. <br /><br />That is why those few brave SOULS who are trying to subject Islam to the tsunami of critical scholarship on Christianity, Christ, and Late Antiquite from the 19th century, ALL have to publish under pseudonyms.<br /><br />The scholarly history of early Islam barely exists. It is only non-muslims who can do it properly. Why?<br /><br />Because the history of early Islam is contained within 1) above, which has been dominated by the Germans, French, English - and now Americans for centuries.<br /><br />The methods needed to be brought The Koran are contained in 2) above, dominated by the same players.pnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-6593285946166445842010-05-17T10:07:28.428+10:002010-05-17T10:07:28.428+10:00PP: I was merely suggesting there is a pattern of ...PP: I was merely suggesting there is a pattern of historical revisionism one sees with both Islam and Christianity that I find implausible in both cases.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-4138751856319744132010-05-17T04:18:34.326+10:002010-05-17T04:18:34.326+10:00I still don't follow. The analogy is irrelevan...I still don't follow. The analogy is irrelevant. Why this pulling Christ out thin air in a discussion about Islam's theology, and the historiography of Late Antiquity? It is a complete non sequitur.<br /><br />I am not aware of ANY theories that Muhammad was made up after the fact. And to the extent they do exist, they are not championed by me. My posts above are clearly premised on a real live Muhammad.<br /><br />If people theorize about whether or not Christ ever lived, it matters not a hill of beans to what I have posted here. Hell, everybody who takes undergrad courses in Late Republic and Early Empire Roman history will inevitably have a tutorial on whether or not Christ really existed, and if he did how well does The Bible and other religious texts stack up against extant evidence.<br /><br />It is irrelevant if my whimsy is in that direction. Again, it is a complete non sequitur to say my theories about early Islam THEREFORE oblige me to subscribe to what you believe are similar theories about Jesus.Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-67105625717299540312010-05-16T01:29:55.189+10:002010-05-16T01:29:55.189+10:00PP: Just as there are theories that Christ did not...PP: Just as there are theories that Christ did not really exist, so there are theories Muhammad was made up after the fact. Then there are theories that what Christ preached was radically different from what has come down to us. Your whimsy about Islam is in that direction. The notion of some significant change over time I can see, it is the sort of radical change you were suggesting which begins to move into a territory of radical difference between reality and received image that gets implausible to me.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-84852607306638501532010-05-15T23:03:32.808+10:002010-05-15T23:03:32.808+10:00I'm clearly missing something here. I still ha...I'm clearly missing something here. I still have no idea why Jesus has been introduced into a discussion of Islam, its theology, origins, and the world of the Near East in the 7th to 9th centuries.<br /><br />And I haven't read even a hint of anybody questioning that Muhammad really did exist, and really was an Arab leader.<br /><br />If folks thinks Jesus did not. That's cool. But surely irrelevant to this thread?Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-10889144538246418122010-05-15T02:09:09.696+10:002010-05-15T02:09:09.696+10:00SL: That is precisely what I am referring to. I fi...SL: That is precisely what I am referring to. I find it no more plausible to do with Muhammad (or Islam as a new religion) than with Jesus.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-74849344670790928192010-05-14T21:46:51.466+10:002010-05-14T21:46:51.466+10:00Lorenzo can correct me if I'm wrong, but '...Lorenzo can correct me if I'm wrong, but 'explaining away' Christ sometimes refers to attempts by a certain sort of skeptic to prove that Jesus didn't exist. If one applied the degree of skepticism these people apply to Jesus to other noted figures from the same period, the population of the Roman Empire in the First Century AD would be reduced to about 100,000 and would depend almost entirely on inscriptional evidence. If you are skeptical of religious <i>claims</i> but accept the existence of major religious figures like Jesus and Muhammad, then the extreme skeptical position is very irritating.skepticlawyerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09282438188120264295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-52056469845488193392010-05-14T17:24:08.596+10:002010-05-14T17:24:08.596+10:00I admit the theory is a bit of a whimsy! :) Bu...I admit the theory is a bit of a whimsy! :) But I don't understand what you mean by "attempts to 'explain away' Christ."Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-31460317544659216122010-05-14T06:26:44.827+10:002010-05-14T06:26:44.827+10:00Mark: thanks for the endorsement! Do you discuss ...Mark: thanks for the endorsement! Do you discuss the epistemological issue in <i>Revelation</i>?<br /><br />Nicolai: Thanks for the links (though all but one are already in the post).<br /><br />Peter: That sort of theory has been around for a while. I am a touch sceptical, since it looks a bit much like attempts to "explain away" Christ and we do have the Quranic verses on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock" rel="nofollow">the mosque of Umar in Jerusalem</a>. That there may have been some changes in those first few centuries I would accept, however.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-41803436218379380822010-05-14T01:31:03.203+10:002010-05-14T01:31:03.203+10:00Mark
I have long harboured a little theory about ...Mark<br /><br />I have long harboured a little theory about the incoherence of Islamic theology - particularly Sunni. And that is, I am not persuaded that Islam started out as a separate religion. My theory is that Muhammad himself was a convert to one of the eastern monophysite Christian sects, and quite likely he and his early followers were evolving into a hybrid Arab Nestorian type, with quite a bit Judaism thrown in for good measure from their co-habitation in Mecca and Medina.<br /><br />I thus also posit that <i>The Koran</i> started out as mish-mash of <i>The Torah</i> and eastern Christian books and rituals all translated into Arabic. So whereas some people speak pig-Latin, the Arabs started speaking pig-Judeo-Christianity.<br /><br />I have two possible theories of why they eventually split, firstly into another Christian sect, and then Muslims. The first point would be at the same time that Muhammad had a huge falling out with the Christians, picked up his prayer mat, and started praying towards Mecca, whereas hitherto they had prayed towards Jerusalem.<br /><br />The second possibility is that the splitting off into a separate religion occurred long after Muhammad's death. Given that The Koranic tradition doesn't really get going until the middle of the 8th century at the earliest, they had two centuries to get the Greeks, Jews, and Persians translate bibs and bobs from the various Judeo-Christian texts into Arabic, and volia- Islam in all its glorious theological incoherence!Peter Pattonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-7753563971290263072010-05-13T22:06:01.344+10:002010-05-13T22:06:01.344+10:00Well I may be biased, as this post quotes me, but ...Well I may be biased, as this post quotes me, but I agree with Lorenzo 150% percent.<br />There are some additional theologically-driven factors which de-privilege reason in Islam.<br />One is the dogma of the superiority of the Umma, which has made it hard for Muslim societies to learn from non-Islam (Bernard Lewis has written extensively about this in What Went Wrong).<br />Another is the lack of a coherent epistemology in Islamic thought (the contrast with Christian theology is marked).<br />Another problem is that Allah of the Qur'an is essentially non-relational, and not open to reason. The scenario, often manifested in the Bible, of people reasoning with God, seeking to make him change his mind by invoking his promises or his character, is totally absent from the Qur'an. Allah of the Qur'an is a-rational, as his supremacy makes him unaccountable in every respect to human beings. If you can't argue with God, reason has no foundation and must bow to divine command. This handicaps both science and philosophy.Mark Duriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18024979657079255161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-55884338034654291882010-05-13T22:03:18.428+10:002010-05-13T22:03:18.428+10:00This comment has been removed by the author.Mark Duriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18024979657079255161noreply@blogger.com