Is there any correlation in the content of the Koran and Christian bible?

Dear Jkritikson, 

The answer is "no". 

The Qur'an is constructed of verses revealed to prophet Mohammed by
God. It contains no parts similar to the Bible and does not contain
the books that are included in the Bible.

However, Islam views itself as an "upgrade" of both Judaism and
Christianity, and does not view the Bible as unholy. The Muslims
believe that Jesus was a prophet, but not the last one. Just like
Christianity, Islam was much influenced by Judaism and viewed itself
as the "real" (improved version) of Judaism.

Further Reading: 

Qur'an (Wikipedia)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur'an> 

The Bible (Wikipedia)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible> 

I hope this answers your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it.

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Request for Answer Clarification by jkritikson-ga on 28 Feb 2006 15:35 PST

Thank you for your answer.  I would have accepted it as is but for the
comment by davidg23 who raises the crux of my question.  My question
was prompted by something someone i know had said about the Koran /
Quran.  This acquaintance, who was raised Shia in Iran, said that as a
young person he had, as required of young Muslims everywhere, been
learning the Koran - much by heart - and had compared it to the
Christian bible and found much to be the same as suggested by
Davidg23.  Of course the Torah is from Judiasm, but his comment is so
close to what i had been told that now i must admit i am even more
uncertain what to think.

Islam, as you say, considers Muhamed to have disclosed the final
revelation of truth, and therefore Islam to be the final development
of monotheastic religion that commenced with Judaism.  It would not be
a total surprise to me to find out that it had adopted parts of "The
Book" and put it in Arabic, which is what i was hoping to confirm or
debunk.  Your thoughts?

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Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 01 Mar 2006 01:45 PST

Yes, passages do exist in the Qur'an, but not as books. The five Torah
books are not organised that way in the Qur'an.

Thank you for the rating and the tip.

I must disagree with the "expert" who answered this question.  The
quran does has the same first five books of the bible (Genesis,
exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).  Mulsims call these five
books the "torah."

Dear David, 

Torah, and these five books, are part of Judaism, not Islam.

Jkritikson,
Perhaps these sites can help.  They point out the differences between
the Koran and Bible on various subjects, but what is pertinent to your
question is the number of references in the Koran to passages in the
Bible:
http://dianedew.com/islam.htm
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~dbates/koran.htm
http://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/ZKORAN.HTM

I am sure that one can argue about the way the sites present both
Islamic and Christian beliefs, but that is not so relevant here.  A
layman, who is familiar with the Bible, when reading the Koran will
immediately notice that it includes incidents from the Torah and from
the New Testament (Jesus, Mary).

The confusion is in the way the question was asked.  Yes, there is a
"correlation" in the "content" between the Qur'an and the Bible.  The
Qur'an does not share any of the same books the Bible has, and it does
not have any of the same verses, verbatim, that the Bible has, but the
"content" as far as what it says and the stories contained therein is
similar in places.

For example, the Qur'an speaks of paradise and hell, the two share
Abraham as the father of the faiths, except the Qur'an's point of view
has Ishmael as the son of promise rather than Isaac as the Bible has. 
There is a flood in both books.  Jesus appears in both books, though
in the Qur'an He does not die for anyone's sins, in the Bible He does.
 Jesus is the son of Mary in both books.  The idea of a monotheistic
God is shared in both books, though the Qur'an declares God has no son
(Allah begets not, nor is he begotten) whereas in the Bible Jesus is
the Son of God.

Again, if the question was intending to ask if the texts of the Qur'an
and Bible are identical anywhere, the answer you paid for is correct,
but if you're looking for a general "correlation", the answer you paid
for is wrong.