Medieval polemicists ridiculed the moon-splitting miracle using natural philosophy

Evidence

How can Muslims claim that Muhammad split the moon, asks the author of the Liber denudationis, when the moon, being ethereal, can neither fall nor be split? Furthermore, since the moon controls the tides, the disastrous consequences of its fall would have been noted worldwide; such was not the case. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 819

Categorization

• CANDY: The nitpicky Aristotelian objection that if the moon fell, tides worldwide would have recorded it is a genuinely amusing snapshot of medieval rationalist polemic worth an elevator mention.