Adam and Eve.....is this a feminist issue?

[MargaretGraceBondfield]

Just had the misfortune of listening to radio 4 with a reading of Adam and Eve. I can't think that I've heard the story for years. But I was struck again at the role Eve plays.

When I listen to this story, as an atheist, I am astounded that people still believe it.

It must be. It's the original story of why women are not to be trusted and ought to be subject to the will of man.

I remember at school reading something that said that women suffer pain (periods, childbirth) as pay back for tempting Adam.

So there you have it: woman as fall guy, back to the beginning of time.

Also the concept of nakedness...tis truly bizarre.

Lilith is an interesting character.

Also the fact that Adam was clearly too dim-witted to think for himself. What should we make of that??

LOL, Lilith always reminds me of Frasier...

It's the original story of how women are responsible for men's behaviour isn't it? How come Adam isn't called to account for his lack of resistance to her temptation?

I was listening to Radio 4 this morning and they were reading the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. It was really shocking - 2 angels came to his house, he thought they were men, offered them hospitality, then the men of Sodom came to his house demanding that he send out the two strangers "that we might know them". Lot is so horrified at being asked to break the laws of hospitality and allow the men to be raped, that he offers his daughters to the crowd instead.

FFS. I was gobsmacked over my muesli.

I listened to the same thing, I was so shocked by the obvious misogyny.

The story of Lot, his daughters, his wife and the angels is deeply morally bankrupt in so many ways. I find it genuinely astonishing that anyone can read it and come up with an explanation for it that can possibly show god's actions in a good light.

Me too! I was almost offended by the humble and righteous way it was read.

Yes it would be interesting to hear the fundamentalist Jewish/ Christian explanation of why offering your DD's to be gang raped, is a more morally acceptable thing to do, than to offer your male guests for same.

I'm not entirely sure of the details, but as far as I can remember, Adam is created in the image of god, and Eve is an afterthought formed from a spare rib to keep him company. She then lacks the moral fibre to avoid temptation and gets man thrown out of paradise, and is further punished with the pain of childbirth. So yes, a feminist issue!

Interestingly, there are other earlier examples of ingrained anti-women thinking, very ancient Greek thinking divided the world into good/bad pairings including light/dark and of course, male/female.

Male superiority as a concept is embedded within Western thinking as far back as we can go, and continues throughout the ages. Female experience is just not considered. Is it any wonder that there is no easy fix for feminism, living as we do in a culture which has our exclusion at its very roots?

That gang rape story is shocking I'd never heard it before.

There is an interesting interpretation of the pain in childbirth thing which goes as follows.
Fall from innocence = knowledge/evolutionary leap to humanity = large head at birth = pain for relatively narrow female pelvis. Neat.

My little boy came home from school telling me how Roman fathers would sit at the end of the bed when a woman was giving birth and he would decide whether the child lived or died!

isn't the daughter killed and cut into pieces with bits sent to each tribe?

That's a different and even more horrible bible story lovepink

Well it's more direct about what the follower is expected to do and how to do it. Sura 14 (I think or could be 3.14) advises a man to take his wife into the bedroom quarters and beat her, not to embarrass her on the street...so all fluffy really.

And there's the bit about how a man's testimony in court is worth that of two women. Oh and the bit about how men are in charge of women. And the whole multiple wives thing. But apart from all that, it's just peachy.

It still bewilders me that any intelligent human being takes any of this shit seriously.

Stewie- you are thinking of the word Almah meaning woman of independent means ie not belonging to husband or father. Its thought Mary may have belonged to the temple ie temple virgin.
During biblical times women were not allowed to speak in court as it was considered that they didn't know truth from lies.
Loving this thread!

Plus ca change frankly, when it comes to rape trials.