The Quran’s Superiority over the Bible on the story of Adam and Eve’s Sin
Both the Noble Quran and the Bible contain the story of Adam and Eve’s great downfall, when they ate of the tree after being tempted by satan. However so, when one reads both stories, the one in the Noble Quran, and the one found in the Bible one will not fail in noticing the Quran’s vastly superior portrayal of what happened.
In this article, I shall post both stores, the one found in the Bible, and the one found in the Noble Quran.
Let us first show the story as mentioned in the Bible:
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 2: 1-25, 3:1-23)
This is how the Bible mentions Adam and Eve’s downfall. However so, there are several problems with this story.
Let us discuss each one one by one.
1- All blame is laid upon Eve
As one reads the story, one will not fail to notice that the downfall was all due to Eve being tempted by the serpent. We see that the serpent manages to fool Eve, which in turn results in Eve fooling Adam, all blame squarely going back to Eve, since it was her who fell at the serpents temptation, and it was her who tempted Adam.
Also note, when God finds out about this sin, Adam blames Eve saying it was her fault, that she made him eat the tree. Even later on God tells Adam BECAUSE YOU HAVE LISTENED TO YOUR WIFE, this completely puts the blame on Eve for their sins.
So this is the first problem with the story, all the blame goes on Eve, Adam seems to just be a victim of Eve!
2- God’s bad advice
Another problem we see from the story is that God doesn’t really give Adam and Eve very good advice, in fact the advice he gives them makes things worst, note what he tells them:
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Note, all God tells Adam is to not eat from the tree, he is free to roam the Garden as much as wants, even pass along this forbidden tree, yet the only advice he is given is to not eat from it, better advice would have been to not just eat from the tree, but to not APPROACH it either to eliminate all temptations since humans are too weak by nature even if they know the Truth; something God fails to do here.
3- God is portrayed as a weak person
One big problem with the story in the Bible is that it shows God to be weak, and incapable of looking after his own people, who are just 2 human beings being Adam and Eve!
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
This incident here portrays God as being very weak, note he has to call out for Adam to find him, what kind of message does this send to God’s creation? Not a very good message if you ask me.
For a fourth problem, visit this other article of mine:
Let us now turn our attention to the Noble Quran’s version of how things really happened, and without a doubt, the Quran gets the story straight:
From Surah Al-Araf:
"O Adam! dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and enjoy (its good things) as ye wish:
but approach not this tree, or ye run into harm and transgression." Then began Satan to whisper suggestions
to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before): he said: "Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever." And he swore
to them both, that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: "Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?" They said: "Our Lord! We have wronged our own souls: If thou forgive us not and bestow not upon us Thy Mercy, we shall certainly be lost." (Allah) said: "Get ye down. With enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling-place and your means of livelihood,- for a time." (7:19-24)
A mere simple 6 verses from the Noble Quran completely supersedes the Biblical version of the same story which took two chapters to cover! This alone shows how superior the Quran is to the Bible, the Quran does not to write 2 or 10 chapters on one incident, but can discuss a major story in a couple of verses and can completely put the former version to shame.
As we see, the Quranic version of Adam and Eve’s downfall completely corrects the Biblical mistakes to the true events of what really happened. Let us see how the Quran correctly corrects the Bible and getting the story right:
1-
Allah’s better advice
We see in the Noble Quran that Allah gives Adam and Eve the correct and better advice, which is to not APPROACH the tree. This is far better than simply allowing Adam and Eve to roam around freely with the tree in their midst with the simply advice of not eating from the tree. The better advice is to tell someone to avoid something bad, and not approach it, exactly as the Quran tells us.
2-
BOTH Adam and Eve are EQUALLY guilty
Unlike the Bible where all the blame is mainly put on Eve, here we see that both Adam and Eve were deceived, and that they both together ate from the tree, not Eve alone being deceived and then deceiving Adam to join in her sin. No, satan went to them both and deceived them both into eating from the tree, and they were both equally guilty.
3- God is not portrayed as being weak
In the Quranic account we don’t see Allah being weak, roaming around trying to find a hiding Adam like a game of hide and seek. Allah is immidietly aware of both Adam and Eve’s sin as they commit it:
So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: "
Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?"
Notice the second they eat from the tree, and realize that they are naked and try to clothe themselves, God immediately calls out telling them of their sin, unlike the Bible where he is walking around looking around trying to find Adam!
CONCLUSION
We have clearly seen that the Quran’s version is vastly superior to the Bible’s wrong version of how things really happened, no one can deny this unless they are simply biased, but that is their choice, the facts speak for themselves.
What I also still find amazing is that it took the Quran a mere 6 verses to discuss such a major story unlike the Bible.
We must thank Allah for sending down the Quran, for it has opened our eyes and showed us how things really did happen, correcting the Bible’s errors and bad mis-information. Praise Allah! AMEEN