This supports the argument that I presented in my book Did Muhammad Exist?, that Islam was not presented to the world in complete form by a man named Muhammad, but began to appear only decades later than the traditional date for Muhammad’s death, and is an amalgam of material from multiple sources, principally Judaism and Christianity. For decades in the seventh century, it was in an inchoate state in terms of doctrine, even as Arab armies were conquering large swathes of the Middle East and North Africa. During that period, public buildings were inscribed with crosses, and coins featured crosses as well, along with, as we now see, menorahs. Islam was put together from disparate elements in order to provide a religion that would unify the new Arab empire. The new creed was martial and expansionist because it was crafted by warriors and for warriors.
“Archeologists discover menorah inscribed on Early Islamic period coins,” by Daniel K. Eisenbud, Jerusalem Post, December 6, 2017:
Researchers recently discovered that menorahs prominently adorned Muslim coins and vessels during the early Islamic period 1,300 years ago.
Relics inscribed with the Jewish symbol dating to the Umayyad dynasty during the seventh-eighth centuries were found at various archeological sites in Israel and are now being exhibited to the public.
Last year, archeologists Assaf Avraham of Bar-Ilan University, and Peretz Reuven of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem exposed an early Islamic inscription referring to the Dome of the Rock as “Beit al-Maqdis.” Jewish-Muslim influences in early days of Islam
According to scholars, the “Nuba inscription,” as it is called, implies that in the early days of Islam, Muslims perceived the shrine as an Islamic version of the Temple of Solomon.
Now, researchers are exposing further finds in Israel that constitute evidence of Jewish influences in the early days of Islam.
“The Jewish symbol which the Muslims were using was the menorah [the gold seven-branch candelabra from the Temple], which appeared on several coins and other early Islamic artifacts,” said Avraham on Wednesday.
“The menorah coins bear the Shahada Arabic inscription on one side: ‘There is no god but Allah,’ while the menorah appears in the center of the coin. The other side bears the inscription: ‘Muhammad [is the] messenger of God.’”
In addition to the coins, the archeologists are presenting several pottery and lead vessels from the early Islamic period that also utilized the menorah symbol in their design.
“They are dated to the early days of the Islamic caliphate, and were in use by Muslims,” said Avraham, noting that the finds are of great importance for understanding the history of Islam….
PATRICIA FRANCES KOENIG says
To assert that Mohammed never existed is the only dumb thing that Robert Spencer says. I wish he would damage his valuable mission with such nonsense. There is more than enough historical evidence that he lived.
dan christensen says
Please present the historical evidence as claimed. That would be very interesting to read about.
mortimer says
Christensen, read ‘Did Muhammad Exist?’ by Robert Spencer. Then read all of the scholarly books he quotes: Ohlig, Luxeberg, Crone, Donner, Rippin, etc., etc. They show Islam is a mirage.
Watch these two videos of Tom Holland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQh2nk8ih4&t=798s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKk0L6H1ms
Mockingjay says
Well, PATRICIA FRANCES KOENIG calling Robert Spencer “dumb” for claiming that a historical mohammad probably never really existed makes YOU look foolish, – as you obviously are not aware of the fact that Robert Spencer certainly isnt the first nor the only one questioning islam’s origins.
– Did you even know, for example, that in the earliest years of “islam”, the name “mohammad”, (meaning “the blessed one”) is ONLY found as referring to JESUS CHRIST?
– Now isn’t that a fun fact eh?
mortimer says
Christensen, view the following for the much of the information you requested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFKBk8AhOI0
LeftisruiningCanada says
Thanks for the videos M, i’m going to go through these when i can.
Just one point that i’d like to bring up: how do those that say mohammad never existed account for the hadith collections? It seems like they contain a great deal of evidence that people knew a guy called mohammad…..
were they simply fabricated?
AtomicB says
Most if not all Hadith collections were written much later than the life of Mohammad, by a couple centuries if I recall.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Certainly they were, but that’s why isnad chains are important in knowing which ones are considered the most reliable.
I’m just wondering what reason we have to think that so many stories collected from so many people, with alleged links back to people who were with mohammad, are fabricated.
They could be of course, but it would need quite a bit of evidence for it to be useful.
Don McKellar says
What a shock — the OP can present no evidence to support that there ever was a real Muhammad. It’s okay — all religions, every single one of them — can never present any actual evidence to ever support any of their claims. That’s why they’re religions and not science or history.
mike9a says
Did you actually read his book? and analyzed the arguments he made? What evidence you have for your claim? Let’s analyze them. Does the dimensional end of the universe exist?
Eur says
Oh please, show us that historical evidence. I do not say that he did not exist but I have not found any proof, only Islamic texts. It is like defending that Jesus existed because he appears in the gospels. Historical, archaeological evidence is needed.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
It doesn’t matter whether Mohammad was an actual man or a euhemerization of seventh century Arab military mores. What is important is that ALL present day Mohammadans believe he was a real man.
Robert Spencer’s thesis is of an academic nature and it answers the question as to why there is no sign of a *historical* Mohammad outside of the Mohammadan scriptures.
Alice says
Before islam, no name such as Muhammad=a title! All is fabricated by the Califes=the Califat 200 years after the death of the founder belong to a Jewish community who believed in Jesus as Christ(=the Messiah=the God-Mad-=the Savior of the World) ,but as their miliraty Chief to help them get rid of the infideles!
Alice says
Actually, the “Muhammad” figured on the Dome of Rocher pointed to our Lord Jesus Christ! That’s why the Califes had to fabricated a fake Prophete 200 years later from this word!
The true name of the founder is “Quathem”= the cursed!
J.Morika says
@PFKoenig Are you sure? he very name “Mohammed” didnt even exist in arab in the times that Mohammed was supposed to have lived. Please explain how a real “Mohammed” could ever have existed then.
Custos Custodum says
Islamic eschatological (end time) doctrine itself provides some interesting clues as to the origin of its teachings.
WHOSE APPEARANCE triggers the end time?
gravenimage says
Patricia, Muslims pretty much assert that Muhammed existed because it is in the Qur’an, and you are not allowed to research the Qur’an. Of course, Muslims will also tell you that the Qur’an is the greatest book ever, because the Qur’an says so.
This is just circular logic, with no independent evidence.
Ade Fegan says
evidence to support your opinion is inconclusive AT BEST ….
do your homework .. you could easily be wrong
dumbledoresarmy says
I wonder… I wonder how much of this is an early example of the Mohammedan use of *deception*???
gravenimage says
It certainly could be. It could be another attempt by Muslims to make Islam deceptively attractive to Jews.
It could also just be copying Jewish coins.
steve says
If interested go to internet…… CROSS CROSSY STONE CLOONTUSKERT CO. ROSCOMMON….then go to images…you will find an ancient image of a Menorah carved in stone…………
mortimer says
Steve, that is NOT the point. Islam forbids IMAGES because they are IDOLATRY.
The fact that the menorah is on an Arab coin shows that ISLAM HAD NOT BEEN INVENTED YET.
The legends about Mohammed are thus shown to be fabrications.
kangi_yotaka says
Islam does not forbid images in toto; it forbids images of living things. There would be no problem with depicting a mosque, the kaaba, or a menorah.
mortimer says
The menorah on the coin recognized the TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM as the JEWISH TEMPLE, rather than a MUSLIM temple.
This is rather DEVESTATING to the argument of Islam. It shows a recognition of and awareness of the Temple ceremonials of Judaism. Such a recognition is ABSENT from ALL the Islamic texts!
LeftisruiningCanada says
But the Shahada is on the other side? Or are you referring to another coin?
gravenimage says
Mortimer, Islam does not ban outright all images–you find some small amount of Islamic art with things like leaf motifs.
But yes–having a menorah on their coins is pretty inconvenient for Muslim surpremacists…
WorkingClassPost says
Surely this only proves that the early Jews were really muslims who later got confused and became Jews, just like mo said all along.
Eur says
On the contrary, the Ishmaelites were a Jewish sect, as they were seen from the Byzantine Empire. There was no such thing that would later be called Islam. Read history and do not treat religious texts as historical evidence. The first Ishmaelites were a warlike Jewish sect. That is the origin of Islam, that new sect was the embryo of the new religion, necessary to unify the Arab tribes and justify all the Arab expansion and its conquests.
WorkingClassPost says
How dare you!
Are you saying that mohamed was wrong when he said that everyone was originally muslim, before we were all led astray?
It can’t be so, he was the perfect man, doncha know.
Eur says
Jajajajajajajjajaa
hendrikush says
Marvellous reactions Workingclasspost.
Keep it up!
mortimer says
Eur, disagree. The Nabataeans were the predecessors of the Mohammedans and they were pagan polytheists.
Eur says
The Nabatean people disappeared long before the appearance of Islam.
gravenimage says
Actually, I think it is probably accurate that those who would become Muslims were Arab pagans who ginned up a creed based on garbled bits of Judaism, Christianity, and other religions of the time which they could then skew to use to sacralize their habits of raiding and enslaving other tribes.
mgoldberg says
That the ‘muslims’ coopted the Jewish symbol of a menorah, distorted it by the way, and tried to make themselves the ‘rightful’ inheritors is what it was about…. not dialogue.
For those researchers to try to mild that into some kind of ‘dialogue’ is facile and historically denied by all the events the last 1375 yrs.
dumbledoresarmy says
I think you’re onto something when you speak of the symbol being *co-opted” and *distorted*. Because that is what the mohammedans do with *everything* that they don’t totally erase/ destroy.
All one has to do is to think about how the dawa artists operate *today*.
And… taking it down to the micro level.. in Israel itself, today, Muslim men have posed as devout *Jewish* men in order to entrap vulnerable Jewish girls into marriage. Then, once the girl is in their hands … WHAM, the mask comes off and she finds herself in an Arab Muslim village as his despised sex-slave/ fourth ‘wife’. Similarly, in India, Muslim men have been known to pretend to be devout practising *Hindus* in order to ensnare Hindu girls. There are probably mohammedan men who have pretended to be Christian, or converts to Christianity, in order to fool *Christian* girls.
I suspect some of the material archaeologists are reading as evidence that Islam wasn’t ‘at the outset’ the Islam with which we are all so dismally familiar, *might* have been produced by tactics/ approaches on the macro level similar to what I have just described on the micro level.
gravenimage says
Also quite possible.
Stendec says
” Islam was put together from disparate elements in order to provide a religion that would unify the new Arab empire. The new creed was martial and expansionist because it was crafted by warriors and for warriors.”
“Martial” and “expansionist,” crafted by “warriors” to create and solidify an “Arab empire.” These are all political concepts and entities. That’s why I do not consider Islam to be religion. It is a political cult, crafted by politicians, with political doctrines paramount, to serve political ends. The feeble religious elements of Islam are just bits of a thin veneer of respectability to fool Islam’s next infidel victims, to justify the freezing of its fascist doctrinal rules forever, and to put a pretty face on political purification via the extermination of dissenters. Islam is the political hijacking of religion. It is the only “religion” today that was crafted, not by humble philosophers awed by creation, or deep-thinking wise men inspired by God, but by politicians for political purposes. That is why the left, which weaponizes everything in our society in order to advance its endless quest for raw power, loves Islam. Birds of a feather.
J. Holden says
Islam is a Cult. It meets all of the criteria to be labeled a cult. Definitely a bunch of crazies.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Could it be that these coins were issued by the muslim rulers of the area, and that they used a locally significant symbol (the menorah) as a way to indicate where they originated from?
That is still fairly common today – i’ve seen several US coins that feature State symbols.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_State_Quarters
CogitoErgoSum says
Interesting that the menorah on the coin would accommodate only five flames and not the usual seven and the shahada appears inscribed along with the modified menorah. Perhaps the five flames on the menorah represented in the mind of the coin’s maker the five pillars of Islam. Wouldn’t an inaccurate representation of the menorah be offensive to the Jews? The Muslims would not care of course and this would be a way for them to symbolize and convey to the Jews that Islam was now the dominant religion in the area of the coin’s use.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Fair point. The five flames might indicate that they may have believed they were restoring the “true’ practices, since they hold that all the Hebrew prophets were muslims.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Mortimer, you are also a confused fictionist more ignorant than Mr Spencer. Mr Spencer has contradicted himself. He has been insulting Prophet Muhammad and he is now doubting if at all he existed. How can you insult someone who did not exist?It means that Mr Spencer is a madman talking to imaginary entity. As such all his write-ups are fictions.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Please, be serious.
One can insult the idea of a man even if he never existed. It is the concept of muhammad as he is portrayed in the koran and sunna that we mock, regardless of whether any such individual ever was.
Chand says
I’m getting confused here.
Was there a human being called Muhammad, son of Abdullah and Amina, from the Hashim clan of the Qureishi tribe? So was he not the caravan raider who heard the voice of God and narrated the Koran, started this new religion called Islam, fought wars and united the warring Arabian tribes? Did he not marry and have children from Khadija and Maria, including his daughter Fatima, who married Ali, his cousin, who gave birth to his two grandsons Hassan and Hussein?
Is Muhammad not buried in Medina, in the Prophet’s Mosque there?
It surely is possible, as Robert Spencer says, that “Islam was put together from disparate elements in order to provide a religion that would unify the new Arab empire. The new creed was martial and expansionist because it was crafted by warriors and for warriors.”
First time I’m hearing about this Muhammad fiction, though. I ought to read Spencer’s book. All the books I read seemed to definitely claim the historical figure of Muhammad, the most recent of the Semitic prophets.
Then what about the hair of the Prophet in the Hazratbal Shrine in Kashmir and the shawl of the Prophet from Kandahar, Afghanistan which Mullah Omar had draped over himself? Fakes then, I guess.
Well, at this point I find Spencer’s idea a bit ridiculous and mildly hilarious. Are all the Muslim and non-Muslim biographers, hagiographers and historians completely deluded when they claim he was a real person?
Then what is this huge hue and cry about this evil prophet who follows a false god, etc? So the enemy here is only Arab fascism masquerading as the religion of Islam? So why insult, curse and abuse an imaginary entity called Muhammad who is not the author of the Koran? Isn’t it as futile as attacking a ghost as following one?
So is Jesus a concept too? And the Buddha?
Quite possible. I agree that it is definitely possible to mock a concept of an fictional character but saying that Islam is founded on a fiction called Muhammad seems a tad far fetched, IMHO. Not that I mind, being an atheist myself.
All religions are built on unproven concepts and unverifiable claims.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
The problem comes from the fact that there is no sign of a *historical* Mohammad outside of the Mohammadan scriptures. A significant individual should have left some trace in the historical record outside Mohammadan scriptures. There is none whatsoever. That question needs to be addressed. As with anything scientific, if there is no evidence then it must be assumed that it may never have existed. A fictional invention is more likely than a significant historical figure not being noted by anyone in or adjacent to Arab peninsula.
None of this is relevant to Mohammadans; for them, the Koran proves he existed because they believe it is the revealed word of their god. (Anyone notice a circular argument here?)
mike9a says
Can you prove your thoughts exist? Can you prove existence of numbers?How would you descibe red color to colorblind person. Can science scientifically show that science exist? Should I continue? How the end of the universe look like? An atheist is description of pride, “the best” in direction of unbelief that human intelect could do is to say ” I’m agnostic”, which basically translates to “I don’t know”.
LeftisruiningCanada says
“Muhammad, the most recent of the Semitic prophets.”
Whatever else he may or may not have been, he was not one of those.
“Then what about the hair of the Prophet in the Hazratbal Shrine in Kashmir and the shawl of the Prophet from Kandahar, Afghanistan which Mullah Omar had draped over himself? Fakes then, I guess. ”
Probably yes. And don’t think for a moment i’m going to defend the so called relics that to titillate certain strands of Christianity. Superstition all of it.
“So why insult, curse and abuse an imaginary entity called Muhammad who is not the author of the Koran? Isn’t it as futile as attacking a ghost as following one?”
Nope. As others have said, the point is that muslims around the world believe the mohammad described in the koran and sunna was real. Even if that one is a fake, which im not sure about at the moment, there is plenty to mock and ridicule, it being so awful anyway.
“So is Jesus a concept too?”
There is plenty of evidence outside the gospels to support the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Not sure about the buddha.
“All religions are built on unproven concepts and unverifiable claims.”
Not true. So far as anything can be known to have occurred in the past, the life, death and resurrection of Christ happened.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
mike9a you cunning sophist.
I remember once meeting a sophist in College. He used the Socratic method on everyone. This question; that question. He ended up getting the lowest mark in the class. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
gravenimage says
Chand, there is no real claim for the existence of Muhammed outside of Muslim texts themselves. There is no other corroborating evidence.
mike9a says
Flavius, Flavius 🙂
My intention has not been to hurt feelings, only to provoke thoughts. In 30 secs: On this earthly journey I have earned Mechanical Engineering degree, degree in Computer Science and I am USPTO patent holder. Went through one real war in my life, I’ve seen real humans and animal humans //apology to animals//. I know GOD exist, so there is very small chance I am agnostic or sickly prideful. Running marathons in free time. You could label it as you did, but perhaps the better or more fitting one, would be a unicorn! https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7fptrdj
Oh btw, I got the answer on: How the end of the universe look like? Have phun and a flavius day. I love your music.
gravenimage says
The moronic Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Mr Spencer has contradicted himself. He has been insulting Prophet Muhammad and he is now doubting if at all he existed. How can you insult someone who did not exist?It means that Mr Spencer is a madman talking to imaginary entity.
………………………..
What an idiot. Muslims certainly believe in the vicious “Prophet” Muhammed.
One can criticize this savage Muslim ideal, whether he existed historically or not.
Reply
Chand says
Ya, I have been reading up on this a bit and there does seem to be some doubts about Muhammad as a real person.
Wow!! That’s great if true! I’m actually ecstatic! This changes a lot, in my mind. I feel lighter, as if a great load has been lifted.
So Muslims are actually NOT followers of this evil, caravan raiding, mass murdering, Jew killing, polygamous, paedophilic, perverted, demonic, sixth century Arab warrior as he never existed. Phew!
They are just deluded.
A great hope for mankind as it can now be hoped that the Muslims will learn about this mistake and realize that they were only following Arab militaristic fascism in the guise of a religion created by a Prophet of God Almighty. A great hope for atheism and the dismantling of erroneous beliefs and delusions.
It is quite a relief. It also lifts a great burden off the back of Muslims who are innocent. They are no longer guilty of being the followers of an evil murderer and child rapist. They are only deluded and can re-educate themselves.
There must be a philosophical difference between following a real person, a very bad person additionally, and following an illusory figure.
This fact needs to be aggressively promoted, with evidence, of course. Innocent Muslims will be safer now hopefully from vicious attacks and suspicions as they are not guilty of the automatic crime that they face of being followers of a criminal.
Allah (or God, if He [ or She or It ] exists) has not abandoned them after all as He/She/It was wise enough not to have chosen an immoral gangster as Prophet.
Muslims must quickly learn about this and renounce Islam which is only Arab fascism.
“Be cool, guys! No need to fight for and kill and scream about disrespect to your Prophet as he was just made up by Arab conquerors. No need to try and establish God’s rule on earth as the whole God-Prophet-Holy Book thing is a scam. They just plagiarized Judaic and Christian ideas. Move on.”
But a question remains as this must be counted as the BIGGEST HOAX perpetrated in human history.
So how come the mainstream media is not interested in this story? They should, if they care about both Muslims and non-Muslims who are facing problems from this Muhammad following religion.
But will this story convince most Muslims or will they just dismiss it as false propaganda and carry on as usual, cult worshiping Muhammad, who remains faultless and sin free, in their eyes?
Voytek Gagalka says
It is pointless to try to reason with people who have chosen to abandon reason. In the case of Mohammedans, they never discovered it. So doubtless they will find easy rationalization (“explanation”) for that finding and on top of all blame Mossad (Jews in general), accusing falsification. They deny connection of Jews to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem and acknowledge now some coin? Unlikely.
nicholas tesdorf says
This latest discovery ties in very nicely with the idea that The early Muslim invasions were a purely Military endeavour with no Muslim impetus. The later need for a unifying Religion to guide the expansion of Muslim Empire led to the resurrection or invention of some “Robin Hood”=like character called “Mohammed” or “The praised One”. Early texts were probably dissident Christian, or deviant Judaic writings mixed with Folk Tales. The Qur’an was cobbled together from these up to 200 years after Mohammed’s supposed death. So much for the “unchanged” Qur’an…..
Joe says
And after several centuries of no record, we have exact details of daily life. For example, we are told which women Mohammed had sex with on which night and why he did it. We know nothing about him for centuries, then as if by magic, we know every detail.
LeftisruiningCanada says
i’m not ruling magic out as a possible explanation.
gravenimage says
I still think it likely because of such specific details that Muhammed is at least based on a real figure–or perhaps is an amalgam of several different dark ages warlords. This is conjecture, though, and impossible to prove.
Bill Garrison says
English = Arabic
“Dome of the Rock” = “Qubbat al-Sakhra”
“House of the Holiness” = “Beit al-Maqdis” or “Bayt al-Maqdis” =? “Dome of the Rock”
“The Holy City/(House”) = “Bait ul-Muqaddas” = Jerusalem
“house” (city?) = bay – bayt = bait = beit (pronunciation/transliteration differences)
zachary says
Rather that Demonic S O B existed or not Muslims claim him as there Profit Islam & the Lowlife sleeze bags also known as Muslims follow his BS & use it to Justify Killing Non Believers Having intercourse with young Boys Girls Camels & Chickens Marrying 6 Year olds
& living like Barbaric Cretins.
Don McKellar says
Sure, just like how the Bible was put together by the scholars of Constantine and a construction of the trendy upper classes cult of Christianity. It was the result of other traditions and was solidified so that there would be a single religion to unify the Roman Empire. The arabs learned from this example (and may have been aware of other examples) and tried to do a similar thing when they found themselves with a sprawling empire. And naturally Islam reflects the immorality and deception and corruption rampant in their culture.
Joe says
The Bible is a collection of old books, that were put together by one man, Jerome. It was called the “Vulgate” because it was for the common man. The Church adopted the “Vulgate” a while after Jerome’s death. Jerome compiled the Bible in the same cave that Jesus was born. Jerome was in Bethlehem when he compiled and edited the Bible. The Vulgate was being wrote when the Vandals sacked Rome. That is not in the same period as Constantine.
LeftisruiningCanada says
I’m afraid that neither of the above two comments bear any relationship to the truth of how the New Testament came to be.
“the Bible was put together by the scholars of Constantine and a construction of the trendy upper classes cult of Christianity”
There is NO evidence for this at all. There is a great deal of evidence that all of the 27 books of the NT were known and circulating at least 150 years before 1st Nicea in 325.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/bruce1.html
” It was the result of other traditions and was solidified so that there would be a single religion to unify the Roman Empire”
Although there are some that like to try and draw parallels between the NT narrative and other religions such as Mithraism or the ancient Egyptian stories of Isis/Osiris, these comparisons have no basis in fact. If you take a closer look, there is nothing to them whatsoever.
The idea that Constantine some how ordered the creation of NT Christianity is frankly bizarre, and lacks evidence to such a degree that the idea may have come from books like “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” or “the Davinci Code” which drew much from it.
We have a fantastic collection of papyrus manuscripts and fragments of the NT all dating from before 300AD. We also have many writings by what are usually term the “church fathers” from the same period. We could replicate the NT just from their writings if we had to. Christians had been the focus of 10 or more empire wide persecutions from 65AD through 313, when Constantine proclaimed the religion a “religio licit: as having legitimate status alongside all other recognized religions.
He did not make it the religion of the empire. That came later, around 380.
Constantine did call the first council of Nicea in response to an ongoing and quite disruptive controversy that was going on in the years between 313 and 325 (and continued for another 50 years of so afterwards), that of Arianism. It was causing such a split in the empire, as the different factions were busy excommunicating each other etc, that Constantine wanted to try and bring things to a close, for the sake of peace in his newly acquired empire. He only partially succeeded in this goal, but did manage to cause some progress nonetheless.
“The arabs learned from this example (and may have been aware of other examples) and tried to do a similar thing when they found themselves with a sprawling empire.”
This would need some support, if possible.
“The Bible is a collection of old books, that were put together by one man, Jerome. It was called the “Vulgate” because it was for the common man.”
This is quite false. The vulgate was a revision made from previous editions of the already existing latin and/or greek and hebrew, and not all of it was made by Jerome. The wiki page is quite good on this.
We know for a fact that Jerome did not bring about the collection of the OT/NT canon. There are complete Bibles still in fantastic condition dated from before Jerome began his revision work, plus papyrus greek manuscripts of much of the NT dated from before 300AD. Canon lists also predate his work.
“The Church adopted the “Vulgate” a while after Jerome’s death”
The latin speaking church did adopt it as their standard yes, but obviously not those that spoke other languages.
” The Vulgate was being wrote when the Vandals sacked Rome”
From what i found just now, that sacking of rome was in 455, around 70 years after Jerome was working. The earliest sack of rome was in 410, by the visigoths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome
LeftisruiningCanada says
around 40 years after Jerome was working, sorry
gravenimage says
Christians are fine with archeological study of the Bible.
Not so Muslims…
LeftisruiningCanada says
That’s very true GI. With regard to textual criticism of the koran, there has been practically no efforts within islam to do even basic collations of the oldest manuscripts they have. I don’ think they have even been digitized for the sake of easy research access, as so many NT manuscripts have.
And forget even thinking about getting back to anything pre-Uthmanic recension.
Dustin Koellhoffer says
I hate to tell you but that’s as foolish an argument as the Left’s claim Jesus did not exist. The coin is only proof of the previous leaders in Arabia. Muhammad overthrew them. He didn’t instantly melt down all their coin.
Ecosse1314 says
Still have to answer the fact that Mecca probably didn’t exist as a major town in Mo’s time or that early mosques had their prayer direction pointing to somewhere in Syria NOT Mecca.
gravenimage says
So you are saying that the Shehada precedes Islam? How would that work?
Stendec says
Robert Spencer is not building his argument based on this one incident of finding a suspicious coin. He wrote an entire book on the subject of the origin of Mohammed entitled “Did Mohammed Exist?” This new finding of a coin just adds to the pile of evidence in support of that theory. And that is all he is saying in this article. In any case, Robert Spencer never concluded anything absolutely. Mohammed may or may not have existed as a real person. The point is, there is no written historical or archaeological evidence of his existence. Apparently, not even the many peoples who were slaughtered by the Arab armies and conquered ever mentioned, in what they left behind, any warlord named Mohammed or any book called the Koran. Read Robert’s book for the many details.
CRUSADER says
“Islam: The Untold Story” is a documentary film written and presented by historian Tom Holland.
The documentary explores the origins of Islam, an Abrahamic religion that developed in Arabia in the 7th century; it criticizes the orthodox Islamic account of this history, claiming that it lacks sufficient supporting evidence.
So, in essence, this dovetails with findings by Spencer. Reading Spencer’s books is good practice.
gravenimage says
Archeologists discover early Islamic coins featuring an image of a menorah
…………………..
Well, this will have Muslims frothing at the mouth…
Linnte says
https://youtu.be/jOxZl60MyqE AND THIS WILL HAVE MUSLIMS frothing at the mouth too.
There really is NO proof that Muhammad existed.
Ade Fegan says
Photos of the coins would have been nice