relaxjack,
it's like you deliberatly do not want to use your common sence, but hey... you have every right to use or not use that.
eventually you will always ask me more and more proof till it becomes absurd... when i show you all the heretic gospels that story allready excisted in before muhammed supponsenly came and claimed it new revelation.
then you will ask me how, who and when? see THAT is speculation and i told you that upfront that i can't know all such detail but what we do know is that he most highly likely copied... Waraqa is a possible influence in that, but so are many other people of that period of time. And that is pure speculation you can't not demand from me that i have a picture of Muhammed copying or listening from or to Mr. X.
And again your only nagging about this one 'borrowed' story, but their are COUNTLESS of borrowed once's, i do not base my conclusion upon this one clay bird story... but of tons of borrowings from others, i could go on all day posting them.
But still you will stubbornly reject everything merely because your demand of proof is so absurd it defiles common sence.
And if you don't get the marble story, think again:
marble = muhammed
tar = heretic christian knowledge
pit (of tar) = arabian pensulina
if you throw a marble in a pit of tar, it will only be reasonable that the tar on the marble will be from his surroundings... then the marble claiming the tar came to him miraculously
and no relaxjack, noone left out of the gospel, the first heretic gospels wich speak of his infancy with the clay birds are created in Egypt/Syria and have little or no knowledge about Jewish life proving that the writer had no first hand knowledge. And buy some books on it if you're gonna ask me for proof again... Internet is a limited resource you know, just becuase all research isn't on it, doesn't mean it doesn't excist.