Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Comparisons between the Bible and the Koran

I thought I'd start a new thread where I'll compare the Bible and the Koran. First of all, I'll say something about my reasons for reading the Bible and the Koran.

I read the Bible because it seemed to me that Evangelical Christians, or at least some of them, were using the Bible to oppress women. An article in Time or Newsweek from the early 1980s claimed that Evangelicals were very serious about their demands that women must obey their husbands, because the Bible says they must. Also, according to this same article, Evangelicals discouraged married women from having a career outside their homes, and they very strongly discouraged women from divorcing their husbands. It seemed to me that Evangelicals were using the Bible to demand that women give their lives to fulfilling their husbands' needs while constantly denying their own, and that we were talking about very serious oppression of women in the name of God.

And I felt that I just had to know what the Bible actually said about women. So, in the summer of 1985, I sat down to read it.

Then in the late eighties I read someplace that the Koran claims that women haven't got souls. Women are like animals in that respect, unlike men who have souls and are true human beings. Could it possibly be true that the Koran said that women lacked souls? If it was true, then Islam was indeed an unspeakably horrible religion. I just had to read the Koran to find out what it said about women.

Reading the Bible and the Koran

Reading the Bible proved to be easy, because I was already so well acquainted with the larger picture and the overall story of the Old and the New Testament. Wherever I was in the Bible, I knew what came next, so to speak. It was like walking through a neighbourhood that my parents had driven me through, admittedly while breaking the speed limit, so many times. I just had to go much more slowly and discover so many more details when I walked, or rather read, on my own. Also, my own Bible has little summaries printed ahead of every chapter in it. Therefore, after reading the summaries I was able to skip certain chapters and still feel that I wasn't missing much – so, for example, was I able to skip chapters which primarily consisted of long lists of names and genealogies. I also decided against reading Psalms, and I paid very scant attention to Acts. The thing is that I always felt that I knew what it was I was skipping, and why.

By comparison, reading the Koran was very hard and very boring. I didn't know the overall story. I couldn't foresee where the narrative was taking me. I got lost in the details, in the repetitions and in all the solemn invocations. I couldn't remember what I had read the week before. Eventually I was bored out of my skull, and I gave up when I had read about two thirds of the pages. The next summer I tried again, with the same result. I read from the beginning and gave up when I had read two thirds of the pages.

I contacted a Professor at the theological institution of the University of Lund, close to Malmö, and asked him if I had missed something important about the Koran's view of women. He told me that I had read most of the important stuff.


General similarities and differences between the Bible and the Koran

I was extremely surprised that the Koran “sounded” and felt” so much like the Bible. I recognized the solemn kind of language from the Bible, for example. Of course I read it in Swedish, and I have no idea what it would have sounded like in its original ancient Arabic. (Muslims often claim that the Koran must not be translated, because only in its original language can its full meaning be understood.)

An intriguing difference between the Bible and the Koran is that the Bible is like a cacophony of voices. In the Old Testament, for example, there are at least sixteen different books describing the prophecies by sixteen different prophets from Isaiah to Malacchi, and most likely these sixteen books were written by sixteen different people, too. And then I haven't even counted Ecclesiastes, whose book is written from the first person perspective, so that Ecclesiastes speaks to us as “I”. And then there is Song of Solomon… and Psalms… and Job… and Esther… and Proverbs… and…

And in the New Testament, there are four Gospels, giving four different accounts of the life of Jesus, written by four different people. There are several letters from Paul, but there are also letters from Peter, James and John.

In the Koran, however, there is one voice speaking to us, monotonously, for 114 Suras (chapters) and, in my copy of the Koran, 485 pages. That is Muhammed's voice.

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. The story that I can remember about Jesus in the Koran is that Jesus was a prophet who started prophesying already when he, Jesus, was a little baby in his crib. Interestingly, the Koran says that Mary was in fact a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, but that doesn't mean that Jesus was the Son of God. Mary's virgin birth was just another miracle, no different from other miracles wrought by God. The Koran claims that Jesus was not the Son of God, “only” a prophet.

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.

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. Perfection on Earth is something that the Muslims must create themselves, by making sure that everybody in their society lives according to the rules and laws of the Koran. However, even obeying the Koran is not enough, according to most Muslims traditions. That is because it is said that Muhammed made a lot of “oral prophecies” that he never wrote down, and in order to achieve societal perfection, everybody has to obey all those other rules as well. These other rules, thousands of them, were written down by other people and collected in other holy books. It is in these other holy books that you find highly controversial rules, such as the rule that girl children must be circumcised, i.e., sexually mutilated. Probably you also find the rule that women must cover their faces, not just their hair, in those other holy books that Muhammed definitely did not write down himself.

Is the Koran warlike? I didn't particularly ask myself that question as I read the Koran, because at that time Islam hadn't become widely associated with political violence and terrorism. Nevertheless, the way I remember it, the Koran often talks about the right of Muslims to take arms to defend themselves against those who threaten them. It never says that Muslims should attack other people who don't bother them.

We should perhaps remember that the Old Testament is very warlike and cruel in places, and the books of Judges and Joshua contain passages that can actually be described as small-scale genocide. There is nothing like that on the first two thirds of the pages of the Koran.

On the other hand, in the New Testament there is really nothing that truly justifies going to war at all.

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.

There are other verses too, which make it even clearer that paradise is open to women as well as to men. (But please don't ask me to find those verses.)

Are there female heroines in the Bible and in the Koran?

To me this question is particularly interesting, because I think this is one of the important differences between Christianity and Judaism on one hand and Islam on the other. Because there really are female heroines in the Bible. Of course, it depends on how you define the word “heroine”. 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. If giving birth to sons is what it takes for women to be heroines, then I guess we can start offering women mass abortions of female fetuses right away and offer every woman the chance to be a heroine by giving birth to sons.

No, but there are other heroines in the Bible. There most certainly aren't many of them, but there are at least three: Deborah, Jael and Ruth. Deborah and Jael play extremely important roles when it comes to defeating the army of an enemy of the children of Israel in chapter four of the book of Judges. Ruth is another sort of woman. She is brave, warm-hearted and unconventional. She loves her mother-in-law, Naomi, and leaves her own country to follow Naomi back to Israel, when both these women have become widows. Then in Israel, she gains protection and security for both Naomi and herself by getting herself the husband that she and Naomi prefer. Ruth takes Naomi's advice and gets into her chosen man's bed to make him interested! I love it. I also love what Boaz, Ruth's chosen man, said when he first saw Ruth: "Whose young woman is this?" (Ruth 2:5) Well, surprise, Boaz! Ruth belonged to herself and made her own choices.

So as far as I can see, there are three women in the Bible (and all of them in the Old Testament) who make their own choices and who do the right thing by doing so. Three heroines are not a lot, but three is better than nothing. And there are no heroines like Deborah, Jael and Ruth either in the New Testament or in the Koran. As for Mary, all she really does is say yes to a decision that has apparently already been made by others.

I believe it is crucially important that there are heroines in the Bible, even though they are so few. Thanks to Deborah, Jael and Ruth, Christian and Jewish women can use the holy book of their religions to ask for the right to try to be heroines themselves, and to ask for the right to make their own decisions.

Is there obvious misogyny in the Bible and in the Koran?

There is definitely misogyny in the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament. There are some horrible passages in Ezekiel and Isaiah that describe, in sadistic detail, the punishments that will befall sinful women. Ecclesiastes says that woman is more bitter than death (Ecclesiastes 7:26). And Exodus 22:18 demands that witches must be put to death. In view of that, I think it is no coincidence that the Christian world has seen witch hunts, where women were singled out as instruments of the Devil and were burnt at the stake. The Islamic world has not seen anything like that. And indeed, when I read the Koran, I found no obvious misogyny in it. There were no descriptions of the horrible evil of women, no gleeful descriptions of ghastly punishments of women, and no mention of witches.

There is not a lot of misogyny in the New Testament, but there is some, at least in the Book of Revelation, where the City of Rome is described in detail as a sinful, lustful woman.

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.

The Koran says something rather scary in the fourth Sura, verse 38. Would you believe that when I was looking for a translation into English of this verse, I found a site that would translate almost the entire fourth Sura but not verse 38, apparently because it is seen as controversial? So I will try to translate it myself:

Men shall be the heads of their wives because of the priority that God has given to some people rather than to others, and because of the costs that men have to meet; therefore righteous women shall be submissive and careful of what is hidden, because God respects them. And as for those, from whom you fear obstinacy, warn them, send them away from your bed, and physically punish them, but if they then obey you, don't seek to punish them further.

As you can see, the Koran appears to say that a man has the right to beat up his wife if she doesn't obey him. This is an important difference between the Bible and the Koran, because the Bible never gives a husband the right to use violence against his wife.

Another verse from the Koran that this Internet site would not translate fully was 4:19, so again I will translate it:

If a woman of yours commits a nefarious deed, then you shall call four witnesses against her; if they witness against her you shall keep her locked inside, until death takes her or until God provides her with some other means.

As horrible as this sounds, it should be remembered that there are rules in the Old Testament that sentences women to death for certain crimes. Death penalty for women is not peculiar to the Koran.

What does the Bible and the Koran say about polygamy?

The Koran makes it very clear that polygamy is allowed. It says in Sura 4:3 that a man may have two, three or four wives.

The Old Testament does not discuss polygamy as such, but on the other hand there are so many heroic Old Testament characters who have more than one wife: Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David, to name a few. Only Solomon is criticized for having too many wives:

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.

Well, at least the New Testament forbids polygamy, right?

Wrong. It doesn't. Nowhere in the Bible is there a ban against polygamy. The absolutely only restrictions against polygamy that you can find in the Bible are these two passages:

1 Timothy 3:2
Titus 1:6

And elder or an overseer (or a bishop) of a congregation is not allowed to have more than one wife. This restriction does not seem to apply to any other men, though.

Therefore, if it was possible to convert a group of polygamous Muslims to Christianity, it doesn't automatically follow that they would give up their polygamous ways. If they took the time to really read the Bible and look for restrictions against polygamy, all they would find is that they would not be allowed to be bishops or elders of a congregation if they had more than one wife.

However, even if the Bible doesn't forbid polygamy, this form of marriage has nevertheless always been anathema in Christian communities. It is and has always been impossible to practice polygamy and ask mainstream Christians to respect you for it. Interestingly, for the longest time polygamy has always been impossible among Jews, even though there is certainly nothing in the Old Testament that says that it is wrong. The reason why Jews shun polygamy is probably that polygamy was so severely frowned upon in Christian Europe, where the Jews spent so many centuries of their Diaspora.


The way I see it, polygamy is nothing short of disastrous if you want to create a society that respects the idea of equality between the sexes. How can you possibly have equality if a man can have many wives, but a woman may have to share her only husband with other women?

And as long as polygamy is accepted in Muslim societies, I don't think equality between the sexes is possible there.

Comparisons between Jesus, Paul and Muhammed

I'm going to start by comparing Paul and Muhammed, because I really think that they have a lot in common. Both are the principal founders of their religions. Obviously Muhammed is the founder of Islam, but in my opinion, it is Paul rather than Jesus who is the founder of Christianity. Paul tirelessly travelled around the Middle East of his time, arguing and canvassing for Christianity. Muhammed also travelled a lot, whereas Jesus never left his home province of Palestine. Both Paul and Muhammed also wrote down their revelations and thoughts about their religion, expounding in writing on what is the will of God. Jesus, by contrast, never wrote anything down.

Of course, an incredibly major difference between Paul and Muhammed is that Muhammed was a soldier and a general, who brought his religion to others by force and by war. Paul had absolutely no army and never tried to use any sort of force or threat to bring his religion to others. Instead he cajoled, occasionally flattered, and reassured the leaders of the mighty Roman Empire that he wasn't criticizing or questioning the Empire or its leaders.

Paul and Muhammed are both patriarchal in their outlook on women, but they are not misogynists. They don't hate women. They don't want to make life harder for women than it already is. Indeed, they both want men to look kindly, if a bit condescendingly, on their wives. On the other hand, both Paul and Muhammed want women to know their place in society and to be obedient and submissive. Both Paul and Muhammed think that women should obey certain laws that apply only to women.

In my opinion, it is impossible to have equality between the sexes if men and women have to obey different laws.

Jesus, on the other hand, never once said that women should obey any laws that applied to them only! He never said that men and women should obey different laws. Never once did he say or do anything that is incompatible with the idea that men and women should be treated equally by the law.

Also, Jesus repeatedly defended precisely the kind of women that his society despised the most: the “fallen” women, the “sinful” women, the whores, the adulteresses. Interestingly, Christianity has continued to despise and punish precisely the kind of women that Jesus himself defended: the “fallen” women, the whores, the adulteresses. When it comes to its view of women, Christian congregations have often been exceedingly bad at listening to what Jesus said on this subject.


The separation between church and state: A comparison between the Bible and the Koran

Islam was founded by a man who was a soldier and a general. He spread his religion by war and by force. In Muslim countries, Islam became the law of the land right from the start. Breaking the rules of the religion was equal to committing treason against the state. In many cases, disobeying the tenets of Islam carried the death penalty.

Jesus lived in the province of Palestine, which was occupied by the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus had no army with which he could overthrow the forces of Rome and found his own state where he could make his own laws. Similarly, when Paul travelled around the Middle East in his efforts to spread Christianity to as many people as possible, he took pains not to alienate Rome. In his letter to the Romans, 13:1-7, Paul says this about the submission to (worldly) authorities:
By saying this, Paul ensured that Christianity from the start was a matter of private lifestyle and private conscience; it was a private matter, purely and simply. It had nothing to do with the state and the law. From the start, there was this very clear separation between church and state in the Christian religion.

And because there was this separation between church and state in the Christian religion, it was impossible for Paul and the other “founding fathers” of Christianity to ask for harsh punishments for those who disobeyed the Christian rules. It was impossible to say that a Christian woman who disobeyed her husband should be executed for this, for example, because executions could only be carried out by the state. In Christianity, therefore, breaking religious rules never carried the death penalty.

Later on, when Christianity became dominant, church and state merged in Europe. So many people were executed for religious crimes. So many women were executed for adultery, and a few were executed for practicing witchcraft. And the law did not apply equally to men and women.

To me, it is crucially important that the church and state remain separate in Western civilization. I think that this separation between church and state is the key to such things as democracy and equality between the sexes. To me, the main reason for why we in the west have democracy and gender equality, whereas they don't have any of that in Arabic and Muslim societies, is that they don't have any, or much, separation between church and state (or in their case, between mosque and state).

So please, let's keep church and state separate!!!!!

Ann