When you walk into a massive library or scroll through digital archives, the sheer weight of religious history can feel a bit overwhelming. People ask all sorts of questions about these texts, but the most common one—the one that really gets to the heart of how civilizations formed—is pretty straightforward: which is older the Bible or the Quran? The short answer? The Bible is significantly older.
But "significantly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. We aren't just talking about a few decades or even a single century. We are talking about a gap that spans nearly a millennium, depending on how you define a "finished" book. It's fascinating because these two texts don't just exist in a vacuum. They are layered, like sediment in a canyon, with the older layers deeply influencing the ones that came later. Honestly, it’s impossible to fully understand the Quran without realizing it was revealed in a world where the Bible had already been the dominant religious authority for hundreds of years.
How the Bible Got Its Start
The Bible isn’t a single book. It’s a library.
When we talk about the Bible's age, we have to look at the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) first. Scholars like Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou have spent decades tracing these origins back to ancient Israelite and Judahite traditions. Some of the oldest song fragments in the Bible, like the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges, might date back as far as the 12th century BCE. That's over 3,000 years ago.
Writing didn't happen all at once. It was slow.
The Torah—the first five books—was likely codified around the 5th century BCE, during or shortly after the Babylonian Exile. By the time the Dead Sea Scrolls were being tucked away in caves near the Qumran site around 150 BCE to 70 CE, the Hebrew Bible was mostly a recognizable collection.
Then came the New Testament.
This part is much younger than the Old Testament but still much older than the Quran. The letters of Paul are the earliest Christian writings, dating to roughly 50-60 CE. The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written between 70 CE and 100 CE. By the late 4th century, specifically the Council of Carthage in 397 CE, the Christian Bible as we know it today was pretty much settled. So, if you're looking for a definitive "completion date" for the Bible, you’re looking at the late 300s.
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The Arrival of the Quran
Now, compare that to the Quran.
The Prophet Muhammad began receiving revelations in 610 CE in a cave on Mount Hira. This was hundreds of years after the Christian canon was closed. For the next 23 years, until his death in 632 CE, these verses were memorized by followers or written down on whatever was handy—parchment, stone tablets, even palm leaves.
It was fast.
Unlike the Bible, which took over a thousand years to compile, the Quran was standardized very quickly. The first Caliph, Abu Bakr, started the process of gathering the text, but it was the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, who finalized the official "Uthmanic Codex" around 650 CE.
Think about that gap.
The Bible was essentially "finished" by 400 CE. The Quran was finished by 650 CE. That’s a 250-year gap at the very minimum if you only count the New Testament. If you count the earliest parts of the Hebrew Bible, the gap jumps to over 1,500 years. It’s like comparing the United States Constitution to a modern blog post in terms of time elapsed.
Why the Gap Matters for History
Knowing which is older the Bible or the Quran isn't just a trivia point. It changes how you read the texts.
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The Quran actually addresses the Bible directly. It refers to the Torah (Tawrat) and the Gospel (Injil) as previous revelations from God. Because the Bible had been circulating in the Middle East and Ethiopia for centuries by the time Muhammad began preaching, the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were already part of the cultural "air" everyone breathed.
Islamic tradition holds that while the Bible was originally divine, it was altered over time by humans (a concept called tahrif). Therefore, the Quran was sent as the final, unchangeable correction. This perspective is vital for understanding the relationship between the faiths.
Archaeology backs this up too. We have the Birmingham Quran manuscript, which was carbon-dated to between 568 and 645 CE. It’s one of the oldest in the world. On the flip side, we have the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus for the Bible, which date to the mid-4th century. The physical evidence is clear: the Bible was physically present on the planet in bound-book form centuries before the Quran.
Common Misconceptions About the Timeline
Sometimes people get confused because they hear that the "message" of the Quran is eternal. In Islamic theology, the essence of the Quran has always existed with God. But historically? In terms of ink on paper? It’s the younger sibling.
Another mix-up happens with language.
The Hebrew Bible is mostly in Ancient Hebrew with some Aramaic. The New Testament is in Koine Greek. The Quran is in Classical Arabic. Because Arabic is a Semitic language like Hebrew, they sound similar to the untrained ear, which leads some people to assume they emerged from the same era. They didn't. Arabic as a literary language really came into its own with the Quran, whereas Hebrew had been a written language for over a millennium by then.
Real-World Evidence and Manuscripts
If you ever find yourself in London, go to the British Library. You can see these timelines in person. They have the Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th-century Greek Bible. A few hallways over, you’ll find early Quranic fragments from the 8th century.
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- The Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 250 BCE - 70 CE): Proves the Hebrew Bible's age.
- The Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (c. 125 CE): A tiny fragment of the Gospel of John, showing the New Testament was already circulating early on.
- The Sana'a Manuscript (c. 671 CE): One of the oldest Quranic parchments ever found, discovered in Yemen in 1972.
These aren't just myths. These are physical objects you can touch (well, through glass) that prove the Bible predates the Quran by a long shot.
Nuance in the "Which is Older" Debate
It is worth noting that while the written Quran is younger, Islamic tradition argues that Muhammad was not "founding" a new religion but rather "restoring" the original faith of Abraham. From a purely religious standpoint, a Muslim might say the truth of the Quran is the oldest thing there is. But from a historical, academic, and SEO perspective, the Bible holds the title of the older document.
The transition from oral tradition to written text is also different. The Bible’s transition was messy and long. Different sects still disagree on which books belong in it (the Catholic Bible has more books than the Protestant one, for example). The Quran’s transition was tight, centralized, and happened within the lifetime of people who actually knew the Prophet. This makes the Quran's textual history much more "concentrated" than the sprawling, multi-century evolution of the Bible.
Actionable Takeaways for Your Research
If you are digging into this for a class, a debate, or just personal curiosity, here is how you should approach the facts:
- Always distinguish between the Old and New Testaments. When people ask "how old is the Bible," they usually forget it’s two different eras joined together.
- Look at carbon dating. Don't just rely on religious tradition; look at the scientific dating of the earliest manuscripts like the Birmingham Quran or the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- Understand the linguistic shift. Recognize that the shift from Hebrew/Greek to Arabic represents a massive change in the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East.
- Respect the "Intertextuality." Read the stories of Joseph or Mary in both books. You’ll see how the younger text (the Quran) comments on and reshapes the narratives of the older text (the Bible).
The timeline is simple: The Hebrew Bible came first, then the New Testament, and finally, roughly 600 years after Jesus, the Quran was revealed.
To see this history in action, you can use online tools like the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls or the Cambridge University Digital Library to view high-resolution images of these ancient pages. Seeing the actual handwriting from 2,000 years ago vs. 1,400 years ago makes the timeline feel much more real than just reading dates on a screen.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Knowledge
- Compare the Narratives: Pick a specific figure found in both, like Abraham (Ibrahim), and read the Genesis account alongside Surah Ibrahim in the Quran. Notice how the 2,000-year-old tradition and the 1,400-year-old tradition differ in their focus.
- Visit a Local Museum: Many major cities have biblical archaeology or Islamic art exhibits that house fragments of these texts.
- Check Primary Sources: Read the Introduction to the Oxford Annotated Bible and The Study Quran (by Seyyed Hossein Nasr) for expert academic commentary on the compilation history of both volumes.
- Explore Manuscript Collections: Use the British Library's "Discovering Sacred Texts" online portal to compare the visual styles of early Bibles and Qurans side-by-side.