How Quran Differs from Bible in Some Historical Details

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In light of contemporary discoveries in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, and other modern sciences, aspects of the Biblical narrative have been called into question. As a consequence, many Christians and Jews have forsaken the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. We Muslims acknowledge that the Biblical text as it appears today has not been protected from interpolation and corruption. This issue is only problematic for us if it can be decisively demonstrated that the Scripture we believe in, the Quran, which we hold to be inerrant, divine Words of God, repeats the apparent errors in the Bible.

According to Biblical chronology humanity is not older than six thousand years. If it is objectively false it cannot be used to taint the Quran which does not give, either explicitly or implicitly, a chronology of human history in terms of years. On the contrary, and interestingly, according to a Hadith Qudsi, King David is from the latter portion of Adam’s progeny:

هَذَا رَجُلٌ مِنْ آخِرِ الأُمَمِ مِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِكَ يُقَالُ لَهُ دَاوُدُ

This is a man from the latter nations of your offspring, he is called David (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi; #3076)

Now according to the Biblical timeline King David reigned approximately three thousand years ago. If humanity is merely six thousand years it would be a stretch to describe King David as a man from the latter portion or toward the end of Adam’s progeny.

When it comes to the historicity of the Exodus, virtually all historians reject it as presented in the Bible. The Bible claims that about six hundred thousand men, alongside a presumably equal or larger number of women and children, ventured out of Egypt (Exodus 12:37)

Simply put, the idea of over a million people suddenly being liberated and moving out of Egypt toward the Holy Land, for which it is necessary to cross the Sinai Peninsula, has no archaeological evidence whatsoever.

Now the Quran confirms the event of the Exodus, but apparently differs from the Bible in that it describes those who went with Moses as being less in number:

اِنَّ ہٰۤؤُلَآءِ لَشِرۡذِمَۃٌ قَلِیۡلُوۡنَ

These are a small party

(Surah 26, Ayah 54)