Books of the Bible vs. books of the Qur'an

Factual Questions
1

These days it’s often said that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the god of Abraham. Christians and Jews use roughly the same books of scripture except that Christians, of course, have the New Testament. But what about the Qur’an?

  1. Are there any one-to-one correspondences between the books (chapters, maybe) of the Qur’an and the books of the Bible?

  2. Are the main stories the same?

  3. Was the Qur’an complied from a collections of writings at some point like the Bible, or does it have a single author?

  4. Is there a point in Biblical history where the Qur’an and the Bible part ways?

2

My understanding is that Islam considers the Torah and the Christian Testament to be flawed or corrupted revealations by inferior prophets, and that the Koran, having been delivered by the pefect prophet Muhammad, is the only thing that matters.

3

I’m not a Muslim, but I once sat and read the first three “books” (they’re called ‘sura’) of the Qur’an, and some other selected bits. It was an “Authorised English Translation” by some Imam from a mosque in Utah or something. I’ve also read a bit on the subject, and discussed it with some Muslims. (Clearly I’m not claiming to be an expert.)

Anyway, the way I understand it, the Qur’an is basically the New New Testament, revealed directly by God to the Prophet Mohammed some centuries back. (How many? This page gives the Muslim year as 1425.) Mohammed (Muhammad?) dictated it to scribes, and it’s been carefully preserved ever since exactly word for word – there’s even a rule against translating it (to avoid the sorts of problems Christians are having today about what Jesus meant when he said “arsenokoitai” and “judge not”).

It’s kind of like the Book of Mormon: a new text to be added to the existing scriptures. As such, it doesn’t repeat the stories you might be familiar with in the Old Testament, though I think it does refer to them – especially the creation and Abraham/Abram. It should be noted that Muslims probably consider different scriptures ‘canon’-- I’ve had it explained to me that they believe in the teachings of ‘Prophet Jesus’, but a lot of the other books of the New Testament, which are letters written by Paul (and etc.) don’t make the cut.

So to answer your questions:

  1. No, not really. It’s a differnt text altogether (and the verse assignments in the bible are pretty arbitrary, I’'m told)

  2. No, for the reasons above. It contains a lot of directives on how to live, and praise for God, and so on. Oh, and I passed several admonisments to Christians and Jews. Especially Christians, for foolishly deifying a prophet god sent to teach them.

  3. Just one author: God himself, revealed to humanity via one man: Mohammed.

  4. No, the Qur’an is only 14 years old, while the New Testament dates from a few decades after Christ was doing his thing, and the Old Testament is (as I was taught) a collection of writings from various dates that sorta came together as a unit quite a while before Christ.

Repeat Disclaimer: IANAMuslim, IANAProfessional religious scholar. I just read parts of the Qur’an, talked for hours with Muslims, and read about it on the internet.

4

The chapters of the Koran can’t really be compared to the books of the Bible – each was an individual revelation. My understanding is that they are held to be the word of God, conveyed to the prophet Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, and written down at some point on a convenient surface (including stones and palm fronds). They are all therefore inspired by God and repeated to men by the Prophet. There’s certainly no one-to-one correspondence.

The stories told include many stories from the Bible, although the names may seem unfamiliar (Habil and Kabil = Cain and Abel; Jibreel = Gabriel, etc. ) Some incidents are from Arab history. Some stories resemble those in Apocryphal Christian gospels.

There are many translations available – read one yourself.
My question about the stories of the Koran is that many are not “self contained”. You can get the story of Johan and the Whale (to give one example) from the book of Jonah. But many of the stories in the Koran are simply referred to or alluded to – the story itself is not explicitly told. Where, then, do young Muslims learn the stories? Even if it’s word of mouth, is there an agreed-upon source for these so that the details don’t “drift”?

5

Pull up a chair and set a while – this is gonna take a bit of time to discuss.

First, let’s pull out a hoary old chestnut from the lips of the Rev’run’ Billy Joe, over here. head of the First Bible-Believing Full Gospel Apostolic Baptist Church, Inc. And the Rev’run’ tells us that God dictated the Bible, word for word, to Moses, Paul, and the rest of the supposed “authors” of its books. (See below for Jewish teaching.)

Well, there are those who believe it, despite the evidence of the texts themselves, which indicate that any inspiration is a far more subtle sort of thing. But I think we can safely say that that is not how the Bible was produced, as regards the vast majority of believers and of scholars studying the field, believers or not.

However, “any falsehood is a truth somewhere else,” and that verbatim dictation concept, fringy as it is as regards the Bible, is precisely what orthodox Muslims claim happened – Muhammed was told to recite the words which Allah “spoke” inwardly to him, and did so. The results were written up as suras by followers who had memorized them assembled in descending order of length, and constitute the Qu’ran. The Hadith constitutes a collection of teachings of Mohammed, with provenances documented for each, is not the literal word of God as the Qu’ran is in their view, but receives immense respect as the other certain work of the Prophet.

The Bible, in contrast, is something like a John Dos Passos novel – it contains the word of God, in Christian understanding, but for most Christians does not precisely and totally equal that. (Many Orthodox Jews believe in the verbatim inspiration of the Torah – the first five books – but no more than that.) Each book has a purpose – but that purpose varies wildly. Some are historical accounts, others are collections of poetry or wise sayings, others are accounts of prophetic speeches made by the Nebi’im. In the New Testament, four accounts of Jesus’s life and teachings are preserved because each was written with a distinct evangelistic purpose and they work together to give a fuller picture of Him. A collection of letters written by Paul and others to give advice to people and churches follows. And there are several ‘one-off’ books that don’t fit any of the summary categories I gave above.

In contrast, the Qu’ran purports to be precisely what Allah told Mohammed to recite at various points in time, verbally dictated by God and the product of one human (albeit recorded by several followers).

Where the Qu’ran and the Bible deal with the same things, there are some similarities and some differences. Many of the moral precepts are the same, but the Qu’ran contains a rather strange assortment of “facts” about Jewish history and Jesus.

And, finally, even on the latest scholarly theory, the last book of the Bible was composed about 135 AD – roughly 500 years before Muhammed. The earliest “official” canon (authorized list of contents) was the product of a Council held at Hippo in 393 AD, though there had been unofficial lists prepared for over 200 years before that.

6

This is a pretty broad topic to tackle! I’ll just toss in a few things that strike me as relevant. I’m not a Muslim but used to live in 2 different Muslim societies for work, and have travelled a bit in the Muslim world. After the umpteenth conversion attempt and 1000th religious conversation & 8th gift of a Qu’ran you begin to pick a few things up…

  • Nitpick: technically you’re reading an “interpretation of the meanings of the Qu’ran” in any language other than classical Arabic for precisely the translation meanings cited previously in this thread. I’ve read the whole darn thing, which doesn’t necessarily mean I understood all of what I was reading…

  • The suras are not in chronological order. Muhammad apparently had his scribes move them around as different times. If you’re a Muslim you also believe this was divinely directed.

  • Most Mulsims I’ve met are very familiar with most of the major Torah and New Testament stories, the highlights or synapses of the Major Life Lesson ones have made the cut for the Qu’ran. Many times I’d have to cut someone off from a retelling of, say, the story of this guy who had a big ship with animals & remind them that I already knew that one. It strikes me that there may be large numbers of non-religious scholar Muslims who are unaware that some of the Qu’ran stories are from the earlier texts; considering the non-chronological nature of things & the lack of a neat demarcation line at Jesus as Christians have this is understandable.

  • Itr’s interesting that Mary gets a lot of good press in the Qu’ran, better I’d say than the Bible itself!

  • The Qu’ran is written out of a Bedouin poetry tradition which relies upon repetitious cycles, metaphor, and the multiple-meanings of Arabic root words. I certainly had times reading the translation in English where I was at a loss. Pretty much every “interpretation of the meanings of the Qu’ran” will have extensive, Riverside Shakespeare-style footnoting which still isn’t always entirely helpful.

I’d highly recommmend the book Islam in the World by Malise Ruthven for a history of the religion and its texts from both a believer’s and an unbeliever’s perspective.

7

I’ll give my opinion on the four OP questions:

  1. The books (surah) of the Qu’ran are arranged in order of decreasing length, not chronologically as in the Bible. There is substantial controversy over which surah were revealed first, because, as in many religions, later revelation trumps earlier revelation. As Crandolph mentioned, repetition is important in the Qu’ran and many themes are repeated frequently. For example, Muslims are told to give to the poor in at least 12 surah, and many surah discuss the fate of disbelievers. The Bible stories are not grouped together in any one section; rather, they are referred to when appropriate.

  2. No. A few Bible stories are referred to in the Qu’ran, but the accounts are not as detailed as they are in the Bible. For the most part, the Qu’ran focuses on the meaning of these stories in the context of Islam, rather than on how big Noah’s ark was, or how he found land when the flood was over. The Bible stories that are included tend to be ones from early in the Bible – before Abraham – though later prophets are mentioned. There is little detail from the New Testament. The Qu’ran contains substantially more direct revelation than the Bible; Allah tends to speak directly (in the first person plural) and in monologue. There are relatively fewer dialogues and parables.

  3. The Qu’ran was assembled from oral tradition. Muhammed was illiterate (though, in the Qu’ran, he is able to read by Allah’s command). Eventually, people who had memorized some of his lessons wrote them down. Presumably it is believed that the integrity of these lessons was maintained divinely, and that the Qu’ran represents what was actually revealed to Muhammed even though some time passed before it was written down.

  4. Various elements from the Bible appear in the Qu’ran, all the way from Adam in Genesis to Gog and Magog in Revelation (though perhaps this reference is from Ezekiel, where it also appears). For the most part, it appears that the Biblical figures which are most important in Islam are early ones – Adam, Noah, Moses, etc. All the Old Testament prophets are mentioned at least once, and Mary and Jesus are discussed as well. It is not entirely clear whether Jews and Christians are believers or not; some passages seem to suggest that their belief is sufficient, and others seem to suggest that their religions have become corrupt and that they are disbelievers.

8

Thanks to all for some excellent answers.

Let me see if I’ve got this right. God told Gabrial, who then told Muhammed, who then told his followers over and over and over again until they had the stories/lessons memorized (and I thought my 80-year old mother was repetitious), who then wrote them down not in chronological order but from shortest to longest. :dubious:

I’m still curious about **Cal’s ** question. Do Muslims consider at least parts of what we know as the Old Testament as authoritative? Are the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy, I think) part of Muslim tradition? If that’s the case don’t they have to accept the whole Jews-as-the-chosen-ones thing?

9

AFAIK, no. As already mentionned, according to Islam, previous revelations by prophets have been corrupted (not that they originally were uncorrect. What Jesus said was exactly what God meant. But these messages have been corrupted, modified, etc… later, by ordinary people, out of ignorance or mischief). So, their content is unreliable at best, plain wrong at worst. And the only authoritative source is the Qu’ran (I believed it was called “Koran”, in english, by the way?), which include the exact words of God.

10

Agreed, with the caveat that items mentioned in the Torah, the Psalms of David, or the Gospel of Jesus that aren’t contradicted by the Qur’an I believe are considered valid revelations, at least by some Muslim scholars. However just how common it is for your average Muslim theology students to study those documents, I have no idea.

  • Tamerlane
11

Islamic history records that the memorized suras were collated and put in written form by the caliph Uthman, 10-20 years after the death of Muhammad. Uthman was supposed to be a hafiz (one who has memorized the Qu’ran) himself.

With regard to people memorizing the suras, you appear to think this is dubious. It’s not that unlikely, given that this was likely a primary way of passing on stories and religious doctrine in the Arab world at the time. Indeed, there are quite a few people today who have memorized the Qu’ran. The idea is that the Qu’ran was preserved in its perfect form in the memories of Muhammad’s students, and is now preserved perfectly in both written and memorized forms.

12

This isn’t exactly my question, guys. I was asking what (especially if the books of the Bible are viewed as corrupted) Muslims did use as their sources for these stories that are alluded to in the Koran. Is there some standard text? Is it all Word of Mouth? I would think that would tend to lead to divergent versions.

13

Google search results:

Qur’an 350,000 hits
Qu’ran 33,600 hits
Quran 955,000 hits
Koran 977,000 hits

Koran wins!

14

Muhammed certainly must have read, or at least talked to people about, the Jewish and Christian scriptures. He was very impressed by them, and referred to Jews and Christians as “the people of the Book”. He seems to have gotten his info about Christianity from “heretical” groups. For instance, the following seems to reflect the Docetic idea that Jesus was not really crucified, only a likeness of him was crucified, while the real Jesus was taken up into heaven:

(From this site. )

What modern Moslems think of “the Book” I have no idea.

15

You do realize this is loaded toward native speakers of English?

Among the websites using that older spelling are “Koran Evil!” and “Koran Exposed! Exposed! Exposed!” :rolleyes: