From Named to Nameless, from Bad to Insipid: Eve between First Testament and Qur'an

Abstract

In this article I will present a comparison of the character of Eve as she appears in creation narratives both in the Firsts Testament (Old Testament) and in the Quran. My primary purpose is to bring to life the character of Eve in both texts and to examine how the Quran has adopted the narratives from the First Testament and what this has meant for the character of Eve. As far as I can ascertain no scholar has produced a work solely on the topic I have chosen, but there are sections of scholarly works which relate strongly to the topic. Of the works which include a consideration of Eve in First Testament and Quran, three are worthy of note Dorothêe Sôlle and Joe Kirchberger's (1994) 'Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature' the anthology 'Eve & Adam': 'Jewish Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender', edited by Kristen Kvam et al (1999); and John Phillips' 'Eve: The History of an Idea' (1984). 'In Great Women of the Bible', Sôlle (1994) highlights individual women, including Eve (in Gen 1:26-29; 2:1-25; 3:1-24; 4:1-2), as the central characters of biblical stories. Extra-biblical materials from ancient, medieval, and post-medieval sources follow the biblical commentary. In this latter section of each chapter, Joe Kirchberger (1994) surveys the history of interpretation, including the Quranic references. Whilst Sôlle (1994) adds insightful commentary that uses the biblical texts to draw out the meaning of the particular woman in the story, the same cannot be said of her co-author. Kirchberger (1994) paraphrases relevant Quranic passages on the women but, in an ironic twist, appears to maintain the silencing and exclusion of the women in these stories as we find them in the Quran.