EVE'S FAULT

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EVE'S FAULT


The three religions agree on one basic fact: Both women and men are created by God, The Creator of the whole universe. However, disagreement starts soon after the creation of the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve. The Judaeo-Christian conception of the creation of Adam and Eve is narrated in detail in Genesis 2:4-3:24. God prohibited both of them from eating the fruits of the forbidden tree. The serpent seduced Eve to eat from it and Eve, in turn, seduced Adam to eat with her.




When God rebuked Adam for what he did, he put all the blame on Eve,
&quotThe woman you put here with me --she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."; Consequently, God said to Eve: "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." To Adam He said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree .... Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life..."


The Islamic conception of the first creation is found in several places in the
Quran, for example:


"O Adam dwell with your wife in the Garden and enjoy as you wish but approach not this tree or you run into harm and transgression. Then Satan whispered to them in order to reveal to them their shame that was hidden from them and he said: 'Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you become angels or such beings as live forever.' And he swore to them both that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought them to their fall: when they tasted 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 your avowed enemy?' They said: 'Our Lord we have wronged our own souls and if You forgive us not and bestow not upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be lost' " (Quran 7:19:23).






A careful look into the two accounts of the story of the Creation reveals some essential differences. The Quran, contrary to the Bible, places equal blame on both Adam and Eve for their mistake. Nowhere in the Quran can one find even the slightest hint that Eve tempted Adam to eat from the tree or even that she had eaten before him. Eve in the Quran is no temptress, no seducer, and no deceiver. Moreover, Eve is not to be blamed for the pains of childbearing. God, according to the Quran, punishes no one for another's faults. Both Adam and Eve committed a sin and then asked God for forgiveness and He forgave them both






- EVE'S LEGACY


The image of Eve as temptress in the Bible has resulted in an extremely negative impact on women throughout the Judaeo-Christian tradition. All women were believed to have inherited from their mother, the Biblical Eve, both her guilt and her guile. Consequently, they were all untrustworthy, morally inferior, and wicked. Menstruation, pregnancy, and childbearing were considered the just punishment for the eternal guilt of the cursed female sex. In order to appreciate how negative the impact of the Biblical Eve was on all her female descendants we have to look at the writings of some of the most important Jews and Christians of all time.




Let us start with the Old Testament and look at excerpts from what is called the Wisdom Literature in which we find: "I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare....while I was still searching but not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand but not one upright woman among them all";(Ecclesiastes 7:26-28).


In another part of the Hebrew literature which is found in the Catholic Bible we read: "No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman.....Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die"; (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).


Jewish Rabbis listed nine curses inflicted on women as a result of the Fall: "To the woman He gave nine curses and death: the burden of the blood of menstruation and the blood of virginity; the burden of pregnancy; the burden of childbirth; the burden of bringing up the children; her head is covered as one in mourning; she pierces her ear like a permanent slave or slave girl who serves her master; she is not to be believed as a witness; and after everything--death." 2


To the present day, orthodox Jewish men in their daily morning prayer recite "Blessed be God King of the universe that Thou has not made me a woman."; The women, on the other hand, thank God every morning for "making me according to Thy will."; 3






Another prayer found in many Jewish prayer books: "Praised be God that he has not created me a gentile. Praised be God that he has not created me a woman. Praised be God that he has not created me an ignoramus."; 4


The Biblical Eve has played a far bigger role in Christianity than in Judaism. Her sin has been pivotal to the whole Christian faith because the Christian conception of the reason for the mission of Jesus Christ on Earth stems from Eve's disobedience to God. She had sinned and then seduced Adam to follow her suit. Consequently, God expelled both of them from Heaven to Earth, which had been cursed because of them. They bequeathed their sin, which had not been forgiven by God, to all their descendants and, thus, all humans are born in sin. In order to purify human beings from their 'original sin', God had to sacrifice Jesus, who is considered to be the Son of God, on the cross. Therefore, Eve is responsible for her own mistake, her husband's sin, the original sin of all humanity, and the death of the Son of God. In other words, one woman


acting on her own caused the fall of humanity. 5 What about her daughters? They are sinners like her and have to be treated as such. Listen to the
severe tone of St. Paul in the New Testament: "A woman should learn in
quietness and full submission. I don't permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner" (I Timothy 2:11-14).


St. Tertullian was even more blunt than St. Paul, while he was talking to his 'best beloved sisters' in the faith, he said: 6 "Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."


St. Augustine was faithful to the legacy of his predecessors, he wrote to a friend: "What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children."


Centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas still considered women as defective: "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."


Finally, the renowned reformer Martin Luther could not see any benefit from a woman but bringing into the world as many children as possible regardless of any side effects: "If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there"


Again and again all women are denigrated because of the image of Eve the temptress, thanks to the Genesis account. To sum up, the Judaeo-Christian conception of women has been poisoned by the belief in the sinful nature of Eve and her female offspring. If we now turn our attention to what the Quran has to say about women, we will soon realize that the Islamic conception of women is radically different from the Judaeo-Christian one. Let the Quran speak for itself:


"For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise-- For them all has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward" (Quran 33:35).


"The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil, they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His Mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise" (Quran 9:71).


"And their Lord answered them: Truly I will never cause to be lost the work of any of you, Be you a male or female, you are members one of another" (Quran 3:195).






"Whoever works evil will not be requited but by the like thereof, and whoever works a righteous deed -whether man or woman- and is a believer- such will enter the Garden of bliss" (Quran 40:40).


"Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has faith, verily to him/her we will give a new life that is good and pure, and we will bestow on such their reward according to the best of their actions" (Quran
16:97).


It is clear that the Quranic view of women is no different than that of men. They, both, are God's creatures whose sublime goal on earth is to worship their Lord, do righteous deeds, and avoid evil and they, both, will be assessed accordingly. The Quran never mentions that the woman is the devil's gateway or that she is a deceiver by nature. The Quran, also, never mentions that man is God's image; all men and all women are his creatures, that is all. According to the Quran, a woman's role on earth is not limited only to childbirth. She is required to do as many good deeds as any other man is required to do. The Quran never says that no upright women have ever existed. To the contrary, the Quran has instructed all the believers, women as well as men, to follow the example of those ideal women such as the Virgin Mary and the Pharoah's wife:


"And Allah sets forth, As an example to those who believe, the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she said: 'O my lord build for me, in nearness to you, a mansion in the Garden, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings and save me from those who do wrong.' And Mary the daughter of Imran who guarded her chastity and We breathed into her body of Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and of His revelations and was one of the devout" (Quran 66:11-13).

Have you ever thought of using Christian sources when interpreting the Bible? By using Islamic sources you repeat the same old mistakes as the interpretation they put forth on the Bible are incorrect.

The only one who was NOT forgiven was Satan.. Both Adam and Eve were forgiven for their sin of disobedience to God, the difference being the Quran beliefs that God simply forgave them and told them not to sin any more.. Which makes no sense on so many levels. The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve were forgiven and sent to live their life (which was now a limited timespan) on earth... AFTER paying the penalty of their sin. This because God we know is just. How do we know this is truth? Easy.. Because we have evidence of our own state today.

Do women suffer pain in childbirth? Yes.. They do.
Are men expected to do the hard work to support their families? Yes ... they are.
Do we have an inherited sin nature? Yes we do.. If we did not then there would be no sin in the world.
Do we die? Yes we certainly do.

God decreed that Adam and Eve would atone for their sin and promised from their seed death would be defeated and mankind would take the place we were meant to be.. With a Holy God in paradise. Jesus was that last Adam.. It's through Him we are saved. Just as Jesus conquered death in accepting Him we have eternal life. Balance is restored. It's that simple.

Peace

These sources Thread



FOOTNOTES


1. The Globe and Mail, Oct. 4,1994.


2. Leonard J. Swidler, Women in Judaism: the Status of Women in
Formative Judaism (Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press, 1976) p. 115.


3. Thena Kendath, "Memories of an Orthodox youth" in Susannah
Heschel, ed. On being a Jewish Feminist (New York: Schocken Books,
1983), pp. 96-97.


4. Swidler, op. cit., pp. 80-81.


5. Rosemary R. Ruether, "Christianity", in Arvind Sharma, ed., Women in
World Religions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987) p.
209.


6. For all the sayings of the prominent Saints, see Karen Armstrong, The Gospel According to Woman (London: Elm Tree Books, 1986) pp. 52-62. See also Nancy van Vuuren, The Subversion of Women as Practiced by Churches, Witch-Hunters, and Other Sexists (Philadelphia: Westminister Press) pp. 28-30.


7. Swidler, op. cit., p. 140.


8. Denise L. Carmody, "Judaism", in Arvind Sharma, ed., op. cit., p. 197.


9. Swidler, op. cit., p. 137.


10. Ibid., p. 138.


11. Sally Priesand, Judaism and the New Woman (New York: Behrman
House, Inc., 1975) p. 24.


12. Swidler, op. cit., p. 115.


13. Lesley Hazleton, Israeli Women The Reality Behind the Myths (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1977) p. 41.


14. Gage, op. cit. p. 142.
Women in Islam 57






15. Jeffrey H. Togay, "Adultery," Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. II, col. 313. Also, see Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990) pp.
170-177.


16. Hazleton, op. cit., pp. 41-42.


17. Swidler, op. cit., p. 141.


18. Matilda J. Gage, Woman, Church, and State (New York: Truth Seeker
Company, 1893) p. 141.


19. Louis M. Epstein, The Jewish Marriage Contract (New York: Arno
Press, 1973) p. 149.


20. Swidler, op. cit., p. 142.


21. Epstein, op. cit., pp. 164-165.


22. Ibid., pp. 112-113. See also Priesand, op. cit., p. 15.


23. James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval
Europe ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) p. 88.


24. Ibid., p. 480.


25. R. Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974) p. 162.


26. Mary Murray, The Law of the Father (London: Routledge, 1995) p. 67.


27. Gage, op. cit., p. 143.


28. For example, see Jeffrey Lang, Struggling to Surrender, (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 1994) p. 167.


29. Elsayyed Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah (Cairo: Darul Fatah lile'lam Al-Arabi,
11th edition, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 218-229.
Women in Islam 58






30. Abdel-Haleem Abu Shuqqa, Tahreer al Mar'aa fi Asr al Risala
(Kuwait: Dar al Qalam, 1990) pp. 109-112.


31. Leila Badawi, "Islam", in Jean Holm and John Bowker, ed., Women in
Religion (London: Pinter Publishers, 1994) p. 102.


32. Amir H. Siddiqi, Studies in Islamic History (Karachi: Jamiyatul Falah
Publications, 3rd edition, 1967) p. 138.


33. Epstein, op. cit., p. 196.


34. Swidler, op. cit., pp. 162-163.


35. The Toronto Star, Apr. 8, 1995.


36. Sabiq, op. cit., pp. 318-329. See also Muhammad al Ghazali, Qadaya al Mar'aa bin al Taqaleed al Rakida wal Wafida (Cairo: Dar al Shorooq, 4th edition, 1992) pp. 178-180.


37. Ibid., pp. 313-318.


38. David W. Amram, The Jewish Law of Divorce According to Bible and
Talmud ( Philadelphia: Edward Stern & CO., Inc., 1896) pp. 125-126.


39. Epstein, op. cit., p. 219.


40. Ibid, pp 156-157.


41. Muhammad Abu Zahra, Usbu al Fiqh al Islami (Cairo: al Majlis al A'la li Ri'ayat al Funun, 1963) p. 66.


42. Epstein, op. cit., p. 122.


43. Armstrong, op. cit., p. 8.


44. Epstein, op. cit., p. 175.


45. Ibid., p. 121.


46. Gage, op. cit., p. 142.
Women in Islam 59






47. B. Aisha Lemu and Fatima Heeren, Woman in Islam (London: Islamic
Foundation, 1978) p. 23.


48. Hazleton, op. cit., pp. 45-46.


49. Ibid., p. 47.


50. Ibid., p. 49.


51. Swidler, op. cit., pp. 144-148.


52. Hazleton, op. cit., pp 44-45.


53. Eugene Hillman, Polygamy Reconsidered: African Plural Marriage and the Christian Churches (New York: Orbis Books, 1975) p. 140.


54. Ibid., p. 17.


55. Ibid., pp. 88-93.


56. Ibid., pp. 92-97.


57. Philip L. Kilbride, Plural Marriage For Our Times (Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1994) pp. 108-109.


58. The Weekly Review, Aug. 1, 1987.


59. Kilbride, op. cit., p. 126.


60. John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A history of
Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988) p. 87.


61. Ute Frevert, Women in German History: from Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (New York: Berg Publishers, 1988) pp. 263-264.


62. Ibid., pp. 257-258.


63. Sabiq, op. cit., p. 191.


64. Hillman, op. cit., p. 12.
Women in Islam 60






65. Nathan Hare and Julie Hare, ed., Crisis in Black Sexual Politics (San
Francisco: Black Think Tank, 1989) p. 25.


66. Ibid., p. 26.


67. Kilbride, op. cit., p. 94.


68. Ibid., p. 95.


69. Ibid.


70. Ibid., pp. 95-99.


71. Ibid., p. 118.


72. Lang, op. cit., p. 172.


73. Kilbride, op. cit., pp. 72-73.


74. Sabiq, op. cit., pp. 187-188.


75. Abdul Rahman Doi, Woman in Shari'ah (London: Ta-Ha Publishers,
1994) p. 76.


76. Menachem M. Brayer, The Jewish Woman in Rabbinic Literature: A Psychosocial Perspective (Hoboken, N.J: Ktav Publishing House, 1986) p.
239.


77. Ibid., pp. 316-317. Also see Swidler, op. cit., pp. 121-123.


78. Ibid., p. 139.


79. Susan W. Schneider, Jewish and Female (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984) p. 237.


80. Ibid., pp. 238-239.


81. Alexandra Wright, "Judaism", in Holm and Bowker, ed., op. cit., pp.
128-129
Women in Islam 61






82. Clara M. Henning, "Cannon Law and the Battle of the Sexes" in Rosemary R. Ruether, ed., Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) p.
272.


83. Donald B. Kraybill, The riddle of the Amish Culture (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1989) p. 56.


84. Khalil Gibran, Thoughts and Meditations (New York: Bantam Books,
1960) p. 28.


85. The Times, Nov. 18, 1993.