What are the Some of the Differences Between the Bible and the Koran?

Adherents of Islam, Judaism and Christianity all place a great reverence for a sacred book / text as a central tenet of their respective belief systems.  For Muslims, the sacred book is the Koran (also spelled Quran).   For Jews, the sacred book is the Bible which details the history, literature and regulations of their religion.   Christians also have the Bible as their sacred book, accepting the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) as the precursor to texts which detail the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and the acts and writings of his apostles and early followers.  Muslims often refer to Jews and Christians as “people of the book” as Muslims view their book as the next progression of the Jews and Christians’ sacred texts.  

Many books have been written on the similarities and differences between the Holy Books of the Jews and Christians, and of the Muslims.  Nevertheless, I seek to summarize some of the salient differences between the Jewish/Christian Bible and the Muslim Koran. The points of comparison shall be authorship, dates / timeframe of composition, genres, organization, language, presentation of God, and Jesus / the Messiah.   

Authorship

The Bible is the inspired word of God communicated by God through the actions of the Holy Spirit.  Referencing the Vatican II document Dei Verbum (The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), The Catechism of the Catholic Church declared, “God is the author of Sacred Scriptures because he inspired its human authors; he acts in them and by means of them”  (see paragraph 136).  God worked with forty different persons to write the books of the Bible. 

Muslims believe that the Koran was dictated to Muhammad by an angel over the last 20+ years of his life.  Muslims believe that Muhammad was illiterate and thus the Koran’s transmission was miraculous, though the Koran itself does not make that claim.

Date and Timeframe of Composition

The Bible’s composition spans upwards of 2,000 years, though the exact timeframe is debated amongst scholars.  The Old Testament was written down between 1,200 B.C. and 65 B.C.   The New Testament was written between approximately A.D. 50 and A.D. 100.    The Koran was written down during the lifetime of its only author, Muhammad, between A.D. 609/610 and his death in A.D. 633 or so.  It was finalized in A.D. 650 by Muhammad’s followers.

Genres

The Bible, both the Old and New Testament, is a compilation of several different genres.  The Old Testament contains historical narratives such as the Books of Genesis and Exodus, dissertations on Jewish law such as the Book of Deuteronomy, poetry and prayers such as Song of Songs and Psalms, genealogy, and prophetic works such as the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea.  The New Testament contains four different genres:  the Gospels which detail the life and teaching of Jesus the Son of God, the Acts of the Apostles which narrate the first decades after Jesus’s Ascension into Heaven, pastoral and ministerial letters written by Jesus’s apostles, most notably St. Paul and St. Peter, and a prophetic work, the Book of Revelation.  Within the Bible, one will find narrative accounts, poetry, prophecies, teachings, laws and regulations, genealogical listings, Theophany (personal encounters with God), letters, prayers, biographies, and parables.    

There are far fewer genres in the Koran.  The Koran is a recitation of rules and dictates with periodic references to persons and events belonging to the Jewish and Christian holy books. 

Organization

The Jewish Bible consists of 24 books.  Christians consider the sacred writings prior to Jesus to be the Old Testament.   The Catholic Bible consists of 73 books, of which 46 are in the Old Testament and 27 constitute the New Testament.   The Protestant Bible numbers 66 books; Protestants do not recognize seven of the Old Testament books that Catholics include in their version.  This includes the Books of 1st and 2nd Maccabees, and Tobit.  Both the Old and New Testaments are organized in a hybrid fashion.  Both use a chronological and a thematic organizational method. 

Jews organize their Bible into three major parts:  the Pentateuch (Torah), the Prophets and the Writings.  The first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) of the Old Testament are historical narrative and laws and regulations.  The Prophetic Books are also historical narrative and the messages of the prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah received from God.  The third part is the Writings, which includes Psalms, Proverbs, and narrative works such as Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah. 

Catholics and Protestants use similar groupings, albeit with certain books that the Jews do not include in their version.  The Catholic Church divides the Old Testament into the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Wisdom Books, and the Prophetic Books. There is some chronological sequence to the Old Testament.  Some of the historical narrative books follow a chronological sequence, such as Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and 1st and 2nd Samuel.  Yet, the book that appears last in the Old Testament (the Book of Malachi) was actually written in 455 B.C.   The 1st Book of Maccabees describes events that occurred between 175 to 133 B.C. and was written around 100 B.C., but it appears 20th in the Old Testament.

The New Testament also uses a hybrid organization.  The first four books (the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John) describe the life and teachings of Jesus the Son of God.  Acts of the Apostles begins with the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven and ends with St. Paul’s ministry in Rome prior to his martyrdom there.  The next grouping is of letters written mostly by St. Paul but also by St. Peter, St. John, St. Jude and St. James.  The final book of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation, a prophetic work which describes in great detail the events preceding Jesus’s return, his actual return and the end of human history on Earth.

The Koran has a bewildering organizational scheme.  Essentially, the Koran consists of one book with 114 chapters (Surah).  After a short opening Surah, the succeeding Surahs are organized from the longest chapter descending by length to the shortest chapter.  This means that there is no chronological progression or thematic development to the Koran.   The first five verses of the Koran revealed to Muhammad actually appear in the 96th chapter (Surah). 

“The Quran is not a book that is uniform,” said Al Fadi, a Christian convert from Islam in a 2012 interview.  “You cannot start from the beginning of the Quran and go to the end and get a full picture. It’s bits and pieces that have been put together. As a result, you do not really get a full picture of what’s taking place.”  (See https://www.billygraham.ca/stories/the-quran-vs-the-bible/  ) 

Language

The Bible began as oral tradition which was eventually written down.  The Old Testament was written in Aramaic and Hebrew and later translated into Greek in the First Century B.C. This Greek translation is known as the Septuagint.  The New Testament was written in Koine Greek.  The choice of Greek was due to it being in widespread use at the time.  It has been subsequently translated into numerous languages.   The Koran was written in Arabic and as such, the Arabic Koran is considered to be the definitive version.

Presentation of God

How the Bible presents God and how the Koran presents Allah are vastly different.  Like Jews, Muslims see God as one Being, unlike Christians who believe in a Trinitarian God:  one God in Three Persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). “For Muslims, Allah is not viewed as a Father, but as a Master who orders His slaves to obey strict rules,” wrote Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer in their Inside Islam:  A Guide for Catholics (pg. 81).  Ali is a Muslim convert to Catholicism.  “The concept of Allah’s love in the Koran is tied to obedience” (pg. 81). 

In contrast, the Old and New Testaments present God as a loving Father who guides His people through Divine messages and punishes them when appropriate.  But God ultimately loves His human children and yearns for their salvation, so much so that He sent His Only Son into the world to redeem them from their sins.

 “Whoever knows the Old and New Testament and then reads the Koran clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation [emphasis in original],” wrote Pope St. John Paul II in his 1994 classic Crossing the Threshold of Hope.  “It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about Himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son.   In Islam all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside” (pg. 92).

Jesus / The Messiah

The Bible and the Koran differ dramatically when discussing Jesus.   Both Jews and Muslims do not recognize Jesus as being Divine.   In Surah 3:59, the Koran declares, “Lo! the likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam.  He created him of dust, then He said unto him:  Be! and he is.”  Then in Surah 4:171, the Koran admonishes:

“O People of the Scripture!  Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth.  The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which he conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him.  So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not ‘Three” – Cease! (it is) better for you!  Allah is only One God.” 

[Quotes from the Koran are from The Glorious Qur’an Translation.  Translated by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall.  (Elmhurst, NY:  Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an Inc., 2000).  I checked these verses for accuracy with two other translations of the Koran which are posted online https://al-quran.info/#home  and https://quran.com/  ]

While Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, they do believe in the Messiah and eagerly anticipate his emergence.  

For Christians, Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.  He came into the world to redeem humanity from its sins.  As St. Peter confessed to Jesus in St. Matthew’s Gospel, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16).  In his Letter to the Galatians, St. Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption” (4:4-5.) 

More importantly, God Himself told humanity:  “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; See also Mark 1:11 and Luke 3:22).

The Muslim Koran and the Jewish and Christian Bibles are the most important and influential books ever written in human history.  Each holds a prominent place in the belief systems of their respective faith groups.  While the Koran bears some similarities with the Jewish and Christian Bibles, the Koran is vastly different from them in terms of its organization, literary style, authorship, dates of composition, presentation of God and Jesus / the Messiah.  This short article only scratches the surface of those differences.