It wasn't Mohammed who founded Islam.

[pocaracas]

Oooh, you look nicer with green. Congrats!

Thanks!
With all the modding I almost forgot about this thread...

If it was just one person, then, maybe because he knew he'd be questioned if he claimed prophethood for himself... people only do Suspension of disbelief for a few things.

But just previously you said that he is not questioned one bit: "The guy speaks from a position of authority or trustworthiness and is hence not questioned one bit."

I love how you contradicted yourself.

I'm still not claiming that Mo is a prophet, so I'm still on the same side!

I keep presenting possible scenarios (maybe even contradicting ones), but none requiring any god talking to a man in a cave.
I admit I don't think it all through at once and, sometimes, I need to backtrack a bit, or add some more flourishes to what may have happened in that time that didn't get recorded.

If one guy makes an extraordinary claim about himself, then that gets called... if he makes it about someone else, it gets harder to call it.

Actually both claims are equally easy to call, but just in a different context:

- An extraordinary claim about himself would make it easier for people to question the validity of his (claimed) prophethood
- An extraordinary claim about someone else makes it easier to question the source of his (claimed) knowledge

And if the source is, as I find often, someone already trustworthy by all or most? And if it was... dead? Like Mo himself was dead and some of his family took over the business.... and you then get some hadiths or parts of the qur'an where the reports of the claims of such relatives of Mo got recorded.
Would they question that source?
Kinda difficult, huh?

You see a "command from on high" as signifying that it came from a god. That is not necessarily so.

But most likely it is signifying that it came from God because, as you yourself wrote in the very next line, Sebeos was "a believer in some god" and thus also "biased in some form."

Plus, my understanding of the entire passage agrees with the scholarly interpretations:

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"Indeed, as John Moorhead has pointed out, one of the earliest Christian theological responses to Islam was actually a response that seemed to have credited Muhammad with the status of an actual prophet of God. The Armenian bishop Sebeos in roughly 661 argued that the religion of Islam was led by Muhammad, who 'taught the Arabs to know God' and led them back to the religion of their ancestors, the Ishmaelities. As such Muhammad served as a prophet of the God of Abraham, and thus a prophet of the Christian God as well (Moorhead 1981: 266). To be sure, as Moorhead recounts, this view of Muhammad as a veridical prophet was 'a particularly positive view of Islam' (266), one which soon fell out of favor as 'other Oriental authors took a hostile view of Islam' (268)--a view that would come to predominate in the decades and centuries to follow." - Joseph Prud'homme, writing in a review of Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism (2009) by Paul Heck

"According to Sebeos, Muhammad was an Ishmaelite, educated in the Law of Moses, who claimed to be a prophet and instructed his fellow countrymen to return to the religion of Abraham." - Long, William Thomas (1993) A critical analysis of Christian responses to Islamic claims about the work of the Prophet Muhammad, ‘the Messenger of God'

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Yours doesn't.

It also sounds like they're reading far too much into what is written.
But it is possible that Sebeos was already recounting, 30 years after Mehmet's death, the rumor. It is possible it started shortly before he heard about it.
Then again, it is possible that Sebeos was only attributing legitimacy to Mehmet's claim as leader of the people. Much as european kings would require the pope's acknowledgement in order to be true kings.

There are many other candidates that can fit the bill.

What are those other candidates?

Damn, I had to go back and see what that was all about!

"Command from on high" could be from Moses, from Jesus, from the previous leader of the tribe... who knows what he meant?!

Your view is biased toward a god. Mine isn't. I also keep in mind that Sebeos was a bishop, so a believer in some god... also biased in some form.

So if he was biased towards God then most likely the "command from on high" is referring to a divine command.

Yes, it is possible.

It's also interesting to note the distance from the heart of the arabian peninsula to Armenia... remember the broken telephone game?

Are you saying that a prophet need only claim to receive guidance from a god?
Is the reality of such claim not required?

As I said before, they would be prophets only definition-wise (for claiming to be so), but it's a different thing whether or not you believe in the reality of it.

Very well.... do you think it likely that Mehmet was an actual prophet (even if only claiming to be so) instead of just a preacher of the law of Moses (as is well patent in Sebeos' account)?