A Sweet Reward

I'm still reading the wonderful book mentioned below, which contains so many good points that, why, this blog couldn't contain them if I tried to write them all down ;-) - but seriously, I'm going to have to be very picky and still create a huge blog upon finishing the book. It's controversial if you have an ounce of faith left in your body - and I have a few oz - but here's a quote that wouldn't wait, because it's so funny. From the appendix (footnote 20 p253):

"Christopher Luxenberg (this is a pseudonym), a scholar of ancient Semitic languages, has recently argued that a mistranslation is responsible for furnishing the Muslim paradise with “virgins” (Arabic hur, transliterated as “houris” – literally “white ones”). It seems that the passages describing paradise in the Koran were drawn from earlier Christian texts that make frequent use of the Aramaic word hur, meaning “white raisins.” White raisins, it seems, were a great delicacy in the ancient world. Imagine the look on a young martyr’s face when, finding himself in a paradise teeming with his fellow thugs, his seventy houris arrive as a fistful of raisins.

See A. Stille “Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran,” New York Times, March 2, 2002."