Muslims believe Moses was a respected prophet, like Jesus, on the same level as Muhammad. He is mentioned frequently in the Koran, yet the stories of him are inconsistent with the Bible.

• Pharaoh’s wife wanted to adopt Moses. The Bible says it was his daughter.
• A thunderbolt struck Moses and killed him, but Allah raised him up (Surah 2:55-56). The Bible does not tell of any such incident.
• Moses struck the rock for water and twelve springs came up, one for each tribe (Surah 2:60). The Bible only says a stream of water gushed up.
• In the desert, Allah gave the Israelites a varied diet of herbs/garlic, cucumbers, corn, lentils, onions. (Surah 2:61). The Bible only says the Israelites ate manna, then quail when they grew tired of manna.
• Allah asked the Israelites to sacrifice a yellow cow (a real, living, breathing yellow cow). (Surah 2:69) The Bible mentions the golden calf, but it is idol made of gold by human hands.
• Moses walks with a mysterious servant who forgets to bring fish, bores a hole in the bottom of a boat, then kills a youth. (Surah 18) No such servant is found in the Bible.
• Pharaoh’s magicians repent and became Muslims. (Surah 20) The magicians from the Bible do not repent.
• Pharaoh has an assistant named Haman. He asks Haman to build him a tower to reach God. (Surah 28) The Bible mentions an evil assistant to a leader named Haman, but it is found in a different book called Esther written many years after Moses. The tower sounds a lot like the Tower of Babel found in Genesis 11, constructed many years before Moses.
• The golden calf was crafted by the Samiri, not the Israelites (Surah 20:83-95). Samiri translates Samaritans, individuals mentioned in the New Testament who were full or partly bred from the nation of Samaria. The nation was not around until 772 BC, after King Solomon’s son split the nation. Samaria was known as north Israel. They could not be involved in the Exodus since Israel was not even a nation yet. The Bible says that the Israelites made the calf from gold jewelry they carried with them.

The discrepancies clearly show that the two books do not totally agree on the story of Moses. The Koran must be claiming that the Bible did not get the whole story about Moses correct and added its own revelation. In Surah 26, there is a dialog between Pharaoh and Moses, with thoughts, words and ideas not expressed in the Bible. The entire Surah 28 recounts the Moses and Pharaoh story with new scenes and perspectives. While they are not necessarily contrary to the Bible, one wonders the source.

Were these important pieces of information left out because:

• Moses forgot to include them when he wrote Exodus. Did Moses not listen to God when he told him to write it down? This would mean that Muhammad listened, obeyed and paid better attention to Allah than Moses.
• Since Muhammad did not witness the scene firsthand, he must have received special revelation from Allah. Moses, the Bible believes, wrote his own account of his own life. How can Muhammad be more right about an incident he did not witness?
• Why would Jews and Christians distort this information? Why were the specifics about lightning, twelve rivers, the desert diet, magicians and Haman left out? Why would they profit a Jew or Christian? Moses was held in very high esteem by both groups.

Or could it be the Koran is getting its facts wrong, blending and mixing up a variety of incidents and people with the story of Moses?