WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION: THE MYTH &THE REALITY- Part 2, NewAgeIslam.com

WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION: THE MYTH &THE REALITY- Part 2

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).

http://newageislam.com/women-in-islam-versus-women-in-the-judaeo-christian-tradition--the-myth-&the-reality--part-2/books-and-documents/d/2408

WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION: THE MYTH &THE REALITY- Part 6, NewAgeIslam.com

WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION: THE MYTH &THE REALITY- Part 6

The Old Testament in several places commands kind and considerate treatment of the parents and condemns those who dishonour them. … It is difficult to speak of the New Testament as a scripture that calls for honouring the mother. To the contrary, one gets the impression that the New Testament considers kind treatment of mothers as an impediment on the way to God. According to the New Testament, one cannot become a good Christian worthy of becoming a disciple of Christ unless he hates his mother. It is attributed to Jesus to have said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

http://newageislam.com/women-in-islam-versus-women-in-the-judaeo-christian-tradition--the-myth-&the-reality--part-6/books-and-documents/d/2426

Did Muhammad Ever Really Live? DISPUTE AMONG ISLAM SCHOLARS, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Did Muhammad Ever Really Live? DISPUTE AMONG ISLAM SCHOLARS

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your scholarship focuses on the early period of Islam and the Koran. What is the evidentiary situation? How could we prove that the Prophet lived?

Marx: You have to be a bit delicate about it. In general, when it comes to history, you can't point to any scientific proof. How would we, for example, prove the existence of Charlemagne? We can't conduct any experiments; we have to work with evidence. And, for this issue, the evidentiary thread is the Koran. In this case, the evidentiary situation is better than it is for any other religion. We know of manuscripts of the Koran and Islamic inscriptions already 40-50 years after the Prophet died. It would be hard to explain the Koran, if you took the prophet out of the equation. Ohlig claims that Islam was actually a Christian sect up until the Umayyad Caliphate, that is, the eighth century. In this case, I run into this massive issue: It doesn't match up with the text of the Koran. Why isn't Christ a more central figure in the Koran, then? You hear about Abraham, Moses and Noah much more frequently.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And what about with the format of the Koran?

Marx: That's the second evidentiary thread. As can be shown in even linguistic terms, the Koran is a kind of speech. It isn't a narration like the New Testament, a piece of correspondence like the epistles of Paul, an account of the Apocalypse or a Psalm. The genre only makes sense when I have a person that I can attach it to -- a charismatic orator, a prophet. Why would a community that doesn't have a prophet invent one after the fact and make up a text, which is then also Christian, as Ohlig sees it? Ohlig's thesis is uneconomical; it raises more issues than it solves.

http://newageislam.com/did-muhammad-ever-really-live?-dispute-among-islam-scholars--/islam-and-the-west/d/997