Is the Hadith a Forgery?

[Minimalist]

Experience shows that oral tales are not reliably transmitted from person to person.  There is no way to verify what they originally said.... if they said anything.

Which still doesn't make them forgeries.

Boru

It is a word which is used much too loosely, and not always in our century.  For example,  the Acts of Pilate, was denounced as a forgery in the 4th century by Eusebius himself, the probable forger of the Testimonium Flavianum.

Having forged, to be sure, Memoirs of Pilate and Our Saviour, full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, with the approval of their chief they sent them round to every part of his dominions, with edicts that they should be exhibited openly for everyone to see in every place, both town and country, and that the primary teachers should give them to the children, instead of lessons, for study and committal to memory. (H. E. 9.5.1)

Here's the thing, we can't know the intention of the author of Acta Pilati.  It could have been merely the literary musings of a man who said "suppose Pilate had written a report about the crucifixion.... what would it have said."  Such an author is not responsible for the actions of later believers who accepted his musings as factual.  Thus there may have been no intent to defraud.  Unlike what Eusebius himself did with the TF in which he wrote in exactly what a good 4th century jesus freak would want to see in a first century document to make himself feel better about his godboy.

Another example being the so-called Pastoral Epistles of Paul.  These are at least late 2d century documents which no one living at the time would have assumed were written by "paul" who they set in the first century.  They are pseudoepigraphical [ http://www.dictionary.com/browse/pseudepigraphy : noun1.
 the false ascription of a piece of writing to an author. ]

and certainly dishonest in that whoever wrote them was trying to enhance their authority by giving the name of a revered writer of the past but did he actually write them and expect people to think they were pauline or did later believers simply like what they saw and vacuumed them up into their canon?  We can never know for certain.  But then, so much of the NT is pseudoepigraphical with only the dumbest of fundies still thinking that their so-called gospels were written by the people whose names are attached to them.

In the case of the hadith there seem to be political ramifications to them for the various sects claiming support for their beliefs over and above other sects and that almost certainly ensures tampering which would rise to the level of forgery in that there is intent to defraud.  The most certain evidence is when they contradict each other - something known even to muslims.

https://pressthat.wordpress.com/2007/05/...y-hadiths/

I chose a favorite.

2) TURNING TOWARD MECCA DURING URINATION OR DEFECATION
The first contradictory hadith: You must not turn yourself to Mecca while you are urinating or defecating.
Hanbal

The second contradictory hadith: Having witnessed that certain people avoided turning toward Mecca while urinating or defecating, the Prophet had his toilet designed pointing to Mecca to avoid pandering superstitions.
Bukhari

Whereas in one hadith it is stressed that one should not direct oneself toward Mecca while urinating or defecating, in another, the Prophet is illustrated doing exactly the contrary of what is firmly believed. As one can see, to ascribe things to the Prophet devoid of any justification is to cast aspersion on him.