Ann, I always love all of your thread topics. This one is I can't wait to comment on but I may get distracted cause I'm at work but here it goes...
Interestingly, the Koran is absolutely chock full of stories about characters that we recognize from the Bible – Abraham, Joseph, Jesus and Mary, for example. On the other hand, all the stories that are told about these familiar characters are different from the stories that are told in the Bible.
You may already know this because you've read both books but the reason the Koran is very similar to the Bible is because the Muslim people are descended from Ishmael, Abraham's first son (before he had Isaac). God had promised Abraham a son with his wife Sarah and when they became aged and still had not had a son, Sarah told Abraham to sleep with their servent Hagar (not an uncommon practice for this time). Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Of course after this Sarah did actually give birth to a son, Isaac. So the Muslim's believe much of the beginning of the Bible but they believe Ishmael was the son that Abraham took onto the mountain and almost sacrificed, not Isaac. And that Ishmael was the son that was promised to Abraham that would enable him to become the 'father of many nations.' There is a movie that I watched one time called
More Than Dreams where Muslims have dreams where Jesus (called Isa in the Koran) appears to them and they become Christians. They are very moving stories. One of the stories (my favorite) is about an Egyptian terrorist who was asked to read the Bible by his terrorist cell leader and to write a book on why the Koran is the word of God and the Bible is not. In the end, after reading and studying the bible, the man became a Christian because he saw that much of what the Koran says actually supports the Bible. All of the stories are in subtitles for their native language and very well re-enacted. They moved me to tears. Anyways, maybe you should check out that video because he does talk about some of the similarities he found in the Bible & Koran and he was a Koran scholar so you might find it interesting.
The Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, is a story about waiting for the Messiah. According to the New Testament Jesus has already arrived, but he needs to come once more so that the Kingdom of God can be fully realized. The Old Testament says that the Messiah will come when the Jews have become righteous, so that they deserve the Messiah. And then when the Messiah comes, he will build a righteous nation that will be the Kingdom of God on Earth, and that Kingdom will then extend to other nations as well. At least that is how I understand it.
The point is that both the Christians and the Jews are waiting for something. The world they live in is not perfect, and they are waiting for the Messiah to bring them that perfection.
You are right about the Jews still waiting for the Messiah. The difference between Judaism & Christianity is that people who practice Judaism (I don't say Jews because I know Jews who are Christian - they call themselves Messianic Jews or Complete Jews) believe their Messiah is still coming whereas Christians believe Jesus is the messiah and he has already come. I agree whole-heartedly with your last statement in that quote. Christians and Jews are both waiting for the Messiah - only Christians are waiting for their Messiah to
return , whereas the people who practice Judaism are waiting for the Messiah to come for the first time.
The Muslims, however, don’t seem to be waiting for a radical makeover of their society brought to them by God. No Messiah is expected.
Right, the Muslims don't believe in a Messiah. One of the main reason Muslims hate Christians is because they feel we worship more than one God because Christians say God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To me, this makes perfect sense. Just as water can be gas, liquid or solid and still water. Or that an apple has a core, seeds and the part you eat and yet it is still one apple. As far as my knowledge goes, pretty much the same as yours, Muslims believe in Allah and only Allah. They should serve him in everyway that Muhammed has said. That's it. They do look forward to their Paradise however, so in a way they are waiting for something too.
Does the Koran say that women lack souls?
No!!! Absolutely not. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Koran that suggests that women would be unworthy of going to Heaven, for example. On the contrary, the Koran is more eloquent than the Bible when it comes to making it clear that women have the same right as men to go to Heaven. For example, it says in the fourth Sura, verse 123 (I’m sorry I have to translate it into English myself from my own copy of the Koran):
Whoever does good deeds, whether they are men or women, and is of the true faith, they will go into Paradise and never suffer any injustice.
That's interesting to me because I had always heard (but never read for myself) that the Koran does teach many horrible things about women and other horrible acts. Perhaps those are in the other teachings you referred to earlier...??
There are several women in the Bible who are important because they bear important sons, but does that make them heroines? In my opinion it is impossible to build a non-sexist society around the notion that the only way a woman can be a heroine is by giving birth to one or more sons. Therefore I’m not going to say that Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth or even Mary were heroines, in spite of their important sons.
I wouldn't really consider these women Heroines either. I do consider them important women in the Bible. Partly because the authors of the books chose to focus on them for a specific reason and partly because I do think that many of them did do important things. Mary for one I think was definitely a heroine. I know that she was chosen to bear Christ but her attitude in accepting it proved why God had chosen her. She knew that not being married and suddenly becoming pregnant would be looked down upon greatly. So much so that no one would want to marry her ever. In fact, Joseph was going to break it off with her (in a very quiet manner) until the Angels spoke to him and let him know what was going on. I think Mary was a very brave woman. There are a couple other women that you left out that I consider heroines. There is Esther who became Queen during Persia's rule and risked her life to save her people. Then there's Rahab (a prostitute) who hid Caleb (I think Caleb...), & the other men who were checking out Jericho before attacking it. Rahab risked her life when she lied and said she hadn't seen these men. In the end, they spared her when they took Jericho. And Mirium, Moses' sister, was a phrophetess and highly respected as well. There's a really awesome book I read called
Women of the Bible that goes through almost every women
mentioned in the Bible and depicts their lives and what they did in a very real and moving way.
Ecclesiastes says that woman is more bitter than death (Ecclesiastes 7:26). And Exodus 22:18 demands that witches must be put to death.
Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes and it is meant to be a book of Lament. Many of the things he speaks about in that book are depressing. Solomon was saying "woman is more bitter than death" because he was upset and probably a little bitter with one of his many wives/concubines. I don't take offense to that because of the whole theme I see in the book. It's been awhile since I read it but here is a passage from the first chapter
2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
As you can see, he is very depressed and many of the things he says are not true of the Bible. The Bible does not teach that life is meaningless, etc. In many books of the Bible, you have to know the context from which they are spoken, etc. My Bible, which unfortunately I don't have with me at the moment, has an explanation at the beginning of the Book on why the book is in the Bible and what we can learn from it. I'll look that up and post it later. In reference to the quote you said earlier about witches being put to death, that is true. The Bible did say to do that but not only about the witches. The Bible commanded for all mediums which includes warlocks, etc. to be put to death so I don't feel this really focuses on women specifically.
What rights does the husband have over his wife, according to the Bible and the Koran?
This is another interesting point. The New Testament repeats four or five times that women must obey their husbands. On the other hand, nothing is said about what a husband is allowed to do to force his wife to obey.
You are right. The Bible says over and over again that women must obey their husbands. But it commands that men must love their wives.
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. and
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Now a part of me used to flare up when I read this. I HATE the word submit. But I've learned over the years that it doesn't mean I am less than my husband. I've learned that my opinions matter as much as his do. The Bible is not trying to show otherwise. What is saying is that we need to respect our husbands. Men are inherently different than woman. They have something called an Ego that surprislingly is very fragile and respect is a must for them. I don't think it means a woman should be like, "yes master, whatever you say master." Or that the husband should expect it. I think if the husband loves his wife like Christ loves the church then he will never make her feel less than him.
He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. And the only thing the Bible criticizes him for is that all those hundreds of wives and concubines made him worship other gods.
God has always looked down on Polygamy. I need to get my Bible later and find my references because I'd asked myself those same questions time and again when I read through the old testament. But I do agree here with the Bible looking down on Solomon's choice of wives. Because they led him astray and he was the leader of the entire nation, he led the nation away from God.
Crap! I have to leave work now and I don't have the Internet at home. I really want to finish commenting on everything though. I'll finish up tomorrow and bring some of my references with me.
Thanks for the thread Ann! I really do love talking about all this stuff!
