Interesting piece by Rev. Sensing. Also the Atlantic Monthly article is lengthy, but well worth reading in full. I think a comment from toward the end of the article is worth quoting:

Islam's own history shows that the prevailing conception of the Koran is not the only one ever to have existed, and the recent history of biblical scholarship shows that not all critical-historical studies of a holy scripture are antagonistic. They can instead be carried out with the aim of spiritual and cultural regeneration.

As a Liberal Protestant who spent many years in academia, that seems to me self-evident, and roughly on-target. However one of my concerns for "reinterpreting" the Qur'an-- as with historical-critical study of the Bible-- is whether serious academic scholarship can outpace the supermarket tabloids. I mean, let's face it, if the man on the street has ever even heard of modern biblical scholarship (and most likely he hasn't) then probably what he thinks of are those lurid headlines in the Weekly World Enquirer Star: "NEWLY FOUND GOSPEL OF JOSEPH predicts killer snowstorms this winter!"

Can't you just see the headlines at the supermarket checkout: "NEW LOST SURAS REVEALED! Mohammed predicts the coming stock market crash... outcome of 2004 presidential election... and rocky times ahead for J.Lo!"

I know I'm sounding facetious, but I'm trying to make a serious point. My experience has been that, when it comes to popular awareness of serious academic scholarship on religion, something analogous to Gresham's Law usually prevails.

BTW Dean, I will continue to spell it Qur'an, thank you! :)

Arabic has equivalent letters to Q and K. The word used for that particular book begins with Q. But in the Middle East the name is usually transcribed Quran, without the hamza (indicated by an apostrophe). So make of it what you will, all of the spellings are pretty much understandable.

There are some problems looming on the horizon for the Quran. About 6-7 years ago, while repairing damage to an ancient mosque in Yemen, very early copies of the Quran were found. The books found there--written on palm leaves--are different from the "standard" Quran: different verses, some Suras missing, others unique to these exemplars.

The people working on these different Qurans are doing so in Germany. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that "Luxenburg" was involved. I do known an Egyptian scholar got religiously blasted for his work and had to leave the country a few years back. He's having to work out of the Netherlands.

Listen to your fan... large chunks will be hitting it in the near future.

Juke, everything you just said is in that Atlantic Monthly article I linked, plus more. ;-)

Paul, you're overreacting. The last time I checked the Gospel According to Rufus, it made it very clear that God does not do weather reports.

He did, however, predict the coming of Nostradamus.

If I recall, the American Muslim Council outlined the proper way to spell their "holy book", which according to them is to be spelled as Qu'ran.

That's why I always spell it as Koran. :-)

Dean, I think you're correct about Nostradamus-- I'm still trying to figure out why this quatrain of Nostradamus didn't come true on 1 January 2000:

Original Late Middle French text:

Aube de l'époque du Verseau,
La teste de bronze lalle, s'étourdit.
Année confondue, ouai, deux quai:
Des ivres s'étonissent au toquessin.

English translation:

Dawn of the era of Aquarius,
The bronze head stammers, is dazed.
Year in confusion, ouai, deux quai:
As the bell tolls, drunks are astonished.

Notes:
"la teste de bronze": In medieval legend, Albertus Magnus constructed an intelligent clockwork head of bronze. His student Roger Bacon smashed the head when it bested him in debate, responding to the question, "What is time?", with the answer, "Time is, time was, time shall be!"

"ouai, deux quai": echoic formulation of "Y2K". Cf. how, in another quatrain, Nostradamus makes a prediction about Napoleon under the title of "Nay, pau loron."

By the way (to bring this back on topic) did you catch in the Atlantic Monthly article that remark that around 20% of the Qur'an is unintelligible in Arabic?! I've always noticed (and considered sorta cool) those suras in the Qur'an which open something like, "In the name of Allah, Most gracious, Most Merciful. Alif. Lam. Mim." But I never realized that the "unintelligibility quotient" of the text ran quite so high.

Paul's point is a good one. Sensing is over-simplifying the way the Qur'an is interpreted. We Protestants, after the cry of sola scriptura of the Reformation, are closest to the approach ascribed to Muslims. Many Muslims have a parallel oral tradition used to interpret the Qur'an that plays a role similar to that of the Mishnah in Judaism. This is something I've learned in the last 24 hours. I've posted twice on this.

The spelling of the book's name results from the problem of transliterating from Arabic to English. I'd defer to those within the tradition as to how to accomplish that, the same way I defer to my southern neighbors on the matter of the pronunciation of local place names. To do otherwise is just rude.

Before we celebrate the appearance of such a bold hypothesis, it might be good to remember that the Jewish community didn't especially appreciate Wellhausen's critical approach to the Hebrew Bible. This may do nothing for Muslim/Western relations. It may also do nothing to further the efforts of progressive Muslims to increase the use of modern critical tools in their own communities.

And before we condemn Muslim reaction to this, Christians might remember our own history of persecuting modernists. Reimarus never dared publish his Apologia during his lifetime. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention still purge those who will not subscribe to sola scriptura and inerrancy.

Paul's point is a good one. Sensing is over-simplifying the way the Qur'an is interpreted. We Protestants, after the cry of sola scriptura of the Reformation, are closest to the approach ascribed to Muslims. Many Muslims have a parallel oral tradition used to interpret the Qur'an that plays a role similar to that of the Mishnah in Judaism. This is something I've learned in the last 24 hours. I've posted twice on this.

The spelling of the book's name results from the problem of transliterating from Arabic to English. I'd defer to those within the tradition as to how to accomplish that, the same way I defer to my southern neighbors on the matter of the pronunciation of local place names. To do otherwise is just rude.

Before we celebrate the appearance of such a bold hypothesis, it might be good to remember that the Jewish community didn't especially appreciate Wellhausen's critical approach to the Hebrew Bible. This may do nothing for Muslim/Western relations. It may also do nothing to further the efforts of progressive Muslims to increase the use of modern critical tools in their own communities.

And before we condemn Muslim reaction to this, Christians might remember our own history of persecuting modernists. Reimarus never dared publish his Apologia during his lifetime. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Southern Baptist Convention still purge those who will not subscribe to sola scriptura and inerrancy.

Hell, can I help it if I remembered reading the Atlantic piece, as well as working with some of those linguistic archeologists? Just my luck you'd recycle it all!