Benevolent Creator God?

[R00tKiT]

@Klorophyll

I’ll come to my point. If the Bible contains at least some historically accurate information about Egypt and Egyptian Pharaohs; and from what I’ve read, it does; then there’s no reason to think with such incredulity that some pieces of accurate Egyptian history could have made its way into the Quran. How did it get there? The same way it likely got into the Bible. The Bible got some stuff right. The Quran got some stuff right. Not necessarily the same stuff, but so what? That’s expected under the circumstances. If anything, the fact that both books contain accurate content regarding Egypt refutes your argument that the only way anyone alive at the time could have gleaned that specific information was via divine revelation.

Btw, I’m not well-versed on the historicity of either text, so if I’m missing something here, someone please educate me. Or is this really as silly as it seems?

The Bible contains true and false stuff about ancient prophets and other figures. The Qur'an takes the true stuff of the Bible with other extra biblical details that turn out to be true. Even if we fully accept that all the information about egyptian pharaohs was available at Muhammad's time by some means, this still doesn't explain why he picks the true bits, what we would expect from a man made quran is to contain widespread myths about the pharaohs that were later debunked.

It’s less than 1000 miles from Cairo to Mecca. It isn’t unreasonable to posit that, during the fifteen centuries in which the title ‘pharaoh’ was used, word of the divine appointment of those particular kings could have filtered across that distance. In fact, it is UNreasonable to assert that not a single Egyptian made that journey (although a more likely scenario is that it happened in stages, over several generation).

Since it is at least plausible that the divinity of the pharaohs was known in Arabia by mundane means, claiming that the only way Mohammad could have known about it was via God seems, well, a little desperate.

At any rate, I’d be interested to see the verse in question.

Boru

Here's the verse you're asking for:

Has the story of Moses reached thee? Behold, thy Lord did call to him in the sacred valley of Tuwa, "Go thou to Pharaoh for he has indeed transgressed all bounds: And say to him, ‘Wouldst thou that thou shouldst be purified (from sin)? - And that I guide thee to thy Lord, so thou shouldst fear Him?'" Then did (Moses) show him the Great Sign. But (Pharaoh) rejected it and disobeyed (guidance); Further, he turned his back, striving hard (against God). Then he collected (his men) and made a proclamation, Saying, "I am your Lord, Most High". [Qur'an 79:15-24]

and another one :

Pharaoh said: "O Chiefs! no god do I know for you but myself  [Qur'an 28:38]

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Egyptian potentates claim to divinity is as old as egypt.  It wasn't a secret - they advertised.  What do you think all those monuments were about?

Big Mo "agrees with the bible" - a bit-........because big mo cribbed notes from abrahamism.

And there's no reason to suspect he didn't embellish the stories a bit, in exactly the manner that Khloro points out. The fact that one of those embellishments turned out to be correct could be cultural diffusion or a lucky guess.

Boru

If we start explaining these things by lucky guesses, then we are erring on the side of irrationality. But sure, you can always take this way out, the Qur'an is a collection of guesses that are all true because Muhammad was lucky.