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.