Apologetics: Flippin’ Fatwa Friday – The Quran vs. The Bible: The Exodus (Part 1).

I’m not even going to try including what verses we’ll be examining today in this because the Exodus story in the Quran is so ridiculously jumbled between books that the title of this post would be almost as long as the actual post itself. It’s for this reason that I kind-of dread having to write this because I’ll be flipping constantly through my Quran finding verses to fill in the gaps. But I promised that this would be our next topic in this series, so here we go. The Quran’s version of the Exodus as told by a snarky teen. Just like with my retelling of the Quranic creation account, all quotes taken directly from the Quran will be highlighted in red.

Moses’s early life (told in Surah 28:3-28) starts similarly in the Quran to how it does in the Bible. In both books, Pharoah is killing the baby boys and keeping the women alive (Surah 2:49) and Moses is born to a Hebrew woman in the land of Egypt. Allah tells his mother (who’s never named in the Quran) to put Moses in a basket and send him down river. Moses’s sister follows him and sees him get picked up by Pharoah’s daughter, who decides to keep him. However, Pharoah’s daughter not being able to breastfeed and Moses being uncooperative with the wet nurses in Pharoah’s house, Moses’s sister tells her about his mother, who can act as a wet nurse. Pharoah’s daughter agrees, and Moses is returned to his mother.

After that, we fast forward. Moses grows up in Pharoah’s household and (presumably when he’s a young man) sees a Hebrew slave in a fight with his Egyptian master. He rushes in to help, kills the Egyptian and buries him. A bit later, he sees the Israelite in another fight, and the Israelite turns against him, wondering if Moses will kill him as he killed the Egyptian. Scared, Moses flees Egypt and goes to Midian, where he comes under the servitude of Jethro (who isn’t named here).

So far, so good. Though it has some minor changes, this story has somehow managed not to go totally off its rocker and start saying things that can’t be confirmed by the Bible.

Then we get to the burning bush incident (28:29-35) and this is where some things begin to get a bit muddled. In this text, it says that Moses approaches the bush because he feels “warmth of affection and love” from it (Surah 28:29) and believes he may get some important info from it, or else, will just come back with a burning stick to make a fire at home with. Meanwhile, in the Bible, he goes to it because he’s curious as to why this random bush isn’t burning even though it’s on fire (Exodus 3:2-3). Other than that, the story stays the same, God shows Moses that this is all legit and sends Moses and Aaron to go have a chat with Pharoah.

Then we get to the 10 Plagues (Surah 7:103-137). The Bible talks about the 10 Plagues in great detail, showing how God gave the Egyptians chance after chance to repent and let the Israelites free and how the plagues were a judgement upon the Egyptian gods. However, in the Quran, the plagues are pretty quickly brushed over, with the Quran only listing six of them, and one of the six mentioned was flooding, which never even happened.

This, I think, is an important bit to note. In the Bible, not only was this God showing his might to get the Egyptians to repent and let the Israelites go, but it was also a flex on the gods of Egypt. Most if not all of the plagues God sent to the Egyptians had something to do with their gods. The Nile turning to blood was a flex on Hapi, Khunum, and Isis, who were both associated with the Nile, fertility, and life. The frogs were a judgement on Heqet. The lice was a judgement on Geb, the god of the Earth. The boils were judgement upon Sekhemet, the goddess of healing.

I could continue giving examples of this, but the point is that God’s judgements on Egypt weren’t just random feats of His power. They were direct judgements on some of Egypt’s most important and revered deities. By skipping over some of these plagues, not mentioning that this was a judgement not just on Pharoah, but on the gods (Exodus 12:12), and flat out making one up, the Quran skips over this. It seems as though Allah is more concerned with punishing humans than also bringing judgement upon that which they worship.

However, the biggest thing the Quran forgets to include (and the most important) is the death of every first born in Egypt. This isn’t just a big deal because this was a judgement on Ra and Pharoah (who thought he was a god), but this story is important theologically for Jews and Christians. For the Jews, the Passover represents God’s power and His covenant to them. For Christians, it’s a foreshadowing of Christ serving as the ultimate Passover lamb. Thus, removing the story of the Passover from the Exodus account not only skips the biggest part of the entire thing, but it serves to ignore two major theological points.

And the scary thing? We’re only halfway through this. It gets worse in the second half, but I’ll spare you that until the next Flippin’ Fatwa Friday post.

Until next time,

M.J.