News Release:
Was Eve shameless, blameless or just insipid?
| 22/12/03 233/03 It all started with Adam and Eve and nothing much has changed in the battle between the sexes since then, with women never wining the eternal power struggle, a University of New England researcher has found. Her studies show the Qur'an (Koran) has a slightly more realistic view of women's sexuality than Old Testament stories which frequently portray women's actions as driven by desire which is somehow sexual and shameful. Toni Tidswell, a post graduate researcher with the School of Classics, History and Religion, believes these fundamental differences are echoed in the way Jewish, Christian, and Muslim societies have evolved since the scriptures were written. In her research she compares how several prominent women common to both the Old Testament and the Qur'an, including Eve, Potiphar's wife and the Queen of Sheba, are portrayed. Eve is seen in the Old Testament as the temptress who leads Adam astray, while in the Qur'an it is Adam who is tempted by Satan (Shaytan) to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and succumbs, while Eve is alluded to only as "Adam's wife", a character with no real role to play in the drama. Ms Tidswell contrasts Eve's image in the two texts as moving from "blamed to blameless, and shamed to insipid." Potiphar's wife, however, is a vibrant character in the Qur'an, who explains her seduction of Joseph (of the Technicolour Dream Coat) as understandable because of the angelic physical beauty and desirability bestowed on him by God.
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According to the Qur'an the women she invites to dinner to see Joseph cut their hands with their knives as they clutch them when Joseph appears. She is clearly vindicated—no one can resist Joseph. However, the Old Testament presents Potiphar's wife in the same incident as wicked and deceitful with no redeeming features. "The Qur'an treats this incident more playfully and realistically and seems more accepting of the argument that it is difficult for women to sexually resist the god-given beauty of some men," Ms Tidswell explains. "But in terms of power or influence, women characters in the Qur'an are virtually invisible." As for the Queen of Sheba, who certainly broke through the ancient glass ceiling, she appears in both texts as a wealthy, powerful and independent ruler, although in the Qur'an Solomon totally dominates the relationship between them. While she appears more powerful in the Old Testament, as she comes to Solomon seeking knowledge and wisdom, he deflects her quest for wisdom into sexual power games. Ms Tidswell says her research prompts her to conclude that attitudes towards women reflected in the two major religious texts of Judaism (used eventually also by Christianity) and Islam are largely unchanged today. Despite the feminist and liberation movements of the last 50 years, she believes that patriarchal views of women's experience still predominate and are unlikely to shift in any major way. Media contact: Toni Tidswell, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 3532. |
