Stephen Shoemaker: Issues with Carbon Dating, the Science of Memorization, and Creating the Qur’an

In this video I have a discussion with Professor Stephen J. Shoemaker about the reliability of carbon dating for dating Qur’an manuscripts, the critical approach to how texts get “standardized”, and the question of how scholars should understand the traditions that the Qur’an was memorized orally prior to its textual standardization. Professor Shoemaker is Professor of History of Christianity in the University of Oregon’s Department of Religious Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1997 and teaches courses on the Christian traditions. His primary interests lie in the ancient and early medieval Christian traditions, and more specifically in early Byzantine and Near Eastern Christianity. His research focuses on early devotion to the Virgin Mary, Christian apocryphal literature, and the relations between Near Eastern Christianity and formative Islam. I hope that you enjoy this discussion! Please remember to like the video and subscribe to the channel to see more content like this!