Historical errors of the Quran

Surah 20:85-87  and Surah 20:95-97 When Moses  goes up to Mount Sinai, a SamirI (i.e. Samaritan) builds the golden calf. It’s very clear that this was a  Samaritan because Moses said to him “And  what is your case O Samiri?” The problem is there were no Samaritans  in 1400 BC.  Samaritans were not created until the  fall of the northern kingdom by Israel  by Sargon II and that was in 722 BC. How can you have Samaritans existing  700 years earlier? 

It gets the mosque much too early. The mosque at the dome of the rock was built in 691 and the al-aqsa mosque one was  built in 710. Surah 17:1 of the Quran talks about  the masjid-haram (in Mecca) and the masjid al-aqsa (in Jerusalem)  but it talks about “from the great mosque  to the farthest mosque”. Assuming that is  referring to the Miraj (i.e. night journey), where Muhammad went from  Mecca up to Jerusalem, the farthest  mosque would be in Jerusalem. The  difficulty  is there were no Muslims in Jerusalem.   Muslims didn’t get to Jerusalem  until at least 650. They’ve got Muslims in the wrong place,  doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. It cannot be the temple they’re  referring to because that was destroyed  in 70 AD.

Surah 34:10-11 says that David was to make full coats of chainmail (a type of armor) and calculate precisely the links. Yet David lived in 1000 BC. There was no  chainmail, they didn’t have that  technology in 1000 BC. Coats of  chainmail were not invented until 200 BC,  800 years later.

It places crucifixions too early. In  the story  of Pharaoh and Moses, the sorcerers who  could not keep up with Moses were crucified. That’s in 1400 BC. Surah 7:1120-124. And in Surah 20:71, in the story of Joseph,  which is in 1800 BC, again a Pharaoh  takes the baker and  crucifies him. You can’t have  crucifixions that early  because crucifixions were not introduced  until 500 BC and  they were never used in Egypt as well. Thus the Quran’s crucifixions  are in the wrong place and they’re about  1000 to 1300 years too  early. The one place it should have got the  crucifixion right, it gets it wrong. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He was  not crucified according to Surah 4:157 yet when you take a look at all the  historical material from the first  century,  look at the historians who had referred  to that crucifixion, you have Thallus and Phlegon who are debating it  in 52 AD, just 20 years after the event. You have Tacitus, who hated Christians. He  was talking about it  even. He is the one that tells that it  happened during the time of Pontius Pilate  while Tiberius was emperor, proving  that it had to happen in 33 AD. That’s  how we got the date for the crucifixion. He was a Roman historian. Josephus, a Jewish historian, talks about  the crucifixion and mentions not only that Jesus was crucified,  but goes on to say that the  Christians believe he rose again. So there is a Greek historian, Roman  historian and Jewish historian  all talking about the crucifixion of  Jesus Christ. Why did the Quran get it so  wrong?

It’s got the wrong Mary. 

Surah 19:28 says “Mary,  you have certainly done a thing  unprecedented O sister of Aaron.” So Mary,  the mother of Jesus  is the sister of Aaron in Surah 66:12,  the same Mary, who is the mother of Jesus,  is the daughter of Imran,  who is the father of Aaron. In Surah 20:30,  Aaron has a brother named Moses, so both  Aaron and Moses  who are the sons of Imran (which is the  biblical Amran)  have a sister named Miriam (i.e. Mary) who is the  mother of Jesus. Do you see a problem with that,  especially when you know that Aaron and  Moses did have a sister named Miriam? They were all the children of Amran but they lived in 1400 BC.  Mary lived in the first century. Unless  she was a very old Mary.

It confuses the qibla (where to face when praying) and the kaaba. It gets the wrong  qibla at the wrong place (all qiblas are facing Petra rather than Mecca before 727 AD). It  finally gets the right qibla for Mecca but  not till 727  and this was not solidified  until the 800s (today you’ll see them all  towards Mecca). It also  completely confuses where the kaaba is  and does not understand that the kaaba can be any place where  their worship is done, in many different  sanctuaries.

It confuses Pharaoh, the tower of Babel  and Haman in Surah 28:38  mentioning that Haman is an Egyptian. In Surah 40:36-37, Pharaoh talks to him and the  problem is  Egypt never built any towers as  according to this story; they built  pyramids. More than that,  we know that Haman was not an Egyptian  name, it is a Persian name. We see him  referred to in the story of Esther in  Esther 3:1.  Pharaoh lived in 1500 BC whereas Haman  the  Persian lived in 510 BC. They never  met each other because there was about 1000 years between them. God would not make these kind of  mistakes, man would. That’s why I’m pointing these out to you  proving that this is all  man-made and the error we do not put at  God’s feet.

It makes Alexander the Great an amazing  engineer. Surah 18:96 talks  about Alexander creating a wall between two  mountains to keep the barbarians from  getting across. This great big wall, big enough  to hold out an entire army,  is made out of iron and copper. Alexander lived in the 3rd century BC. That would be one of the greatest  engineering  events of history to say nothing of the  fact that we can’t even make those large  walls of iron and copper even today. One  of the greatest engineering feats  according to the Quran by  Alexander the Great. We have three  biographies of Alexander. Nowhere is there any reference to this  wall. And where  would its residue be?  

It refers to coins (Dirham) too early. Surah 12:20 says that Joseph was  sold for a few dirham  “counted out”. “counted out” means “coins” but there were no coins at the time of  Joseph in 1800 BC. Coins were not invented until the 600s  by the Lydians. So what coins existed at the time of  Joseph in 1800 BC? Obviously this was written long after  coins were made and redacted back to the  wrong person. Does the bible get this wrong? Genesis 37:28 says  that Joseph was sold for 20 shekels. A shekel is a weighted measure. 20  shekels is about  0.2 kg of silver. When  you look at the historical tablets, you will see that the price  of a slave exactly fits what we see in  Genesis 37.  We don’t ask it to be correct, it just  turns out to be correct. But I’m still curious about that dirham  because dirham is the name of a specific coin and dirhams were introduced in 661. There were no dirhams before  661 because all the Arabs would have  used drachmas,  either Greek drachmas or Byzantine. And they introduced their own coins  in 661. How could they be in a Quran referred  to by a man who died in 632? That’s 30 years too early, unless of course Muhammad was prophetic. 

When you look at these anachronisms,  what we notice is the authors of the  Quran do not seem to know history very  well. God would not make these kinds of  mistakes, man would. This is further proof that the Quran  includes intentional human interventions.