The Bible is the revision of the Torah and the Quran is the revision of the Bible.
They all believe in the same God, they just reject each other's messenger.
The story of
Adam & Eve told by
Yev and Achmed.
Inspired by the
Torah, the
Bible, the
Quran, and
Ishmael by
Daniel Quinn
Yev: Do you know what Adam means in Hebrew?
Achmed: If I remember correctly it means man. Do you know the Arabic name for Eve?
Yev: I have no idea.
Achmed: Haiwa is the Arabic name for Eve, but to be completely honest she is not mentioned by name in the Quran, but referred to as Adam’s spouse (Quran 2:35, 7:189). She was created by God as a spouse for Adam so that they could live in the Garden together. They were warned not to approach a certain tree. This tree had a very sweet smell, the best in the garden, called qamh.
Unfortunately Haiwa was tempted by, Iblis.
Yev: Iblis can only be the devil called Satan, right?
Achmed: Correct. Although the term "devil" comes from the Greek diabolos, the Muslims derived the name from the Arabic, balasa, ‘he despaired,’ which can be interpreted ‘despaired of the mercy of God’ but he is also al-Shairan, Satan, and ‘the enemy of God.’ The latter aspect of Satan is a commonly shared belief of both Muslims and Christians. According to one tradition, when Allah ordered the angels to bow down to the newly created man, Adam, Iblis refused to do so because he, being made of fire, thought himself superior to a creature made of earth. He continues tempting humans, especially through the whisper (waswas, "he whispered") and false suggestion (haiif). In the end, it is believed, he will be cast into Jahannam (Hell). Another commonly shared belief held by both religions is that the universal existence of evil in personal lives is usually experienced as a consequence of a personal agent, the devil.
Although both Satan and al-Shairan are identified, Shairan also has a distinct existence, perhaps as the leader of the jinns, a personification of temptation. This coincides with the Muslim belief that each individual is accompanied by two personal spiritual entities; an angel who urges toward good and a shairan who urges toward evil.
So if Adam means man in Hebrew could you guess what Haiwa means in Arabic?
Yev: I must confess that I have no idea what Haiwa means. I obviously could guess, but I like to consider myself a man of science so I do not like a wild guess.
Achmed: I could give you a few hints if you want?
Yev: No, let me reconstruct the story first, maybe the answer will come to me then.
Achmed: Okay, be my guest.
Yev: The devil who had become Eve’s friend by his glib talking, urged her to eat from the tree fruit. Only by eating its fruit, he told her, would she be able to have children. When Adam learned what she had done, he followed her example, though more hesitantly, because he knew she would be cast out of paradise and he wanted to protect her against the hard life on earth.
Earth in those days was a bleak place, nothing but rock and thorn bushes. Eve learned to make a fire and to cook the food which Adam brought home: animals he had hunted (later they received cattle) and grain he had cultivated from which Eve baked bread.
Achmed: Haiwa gave birth to forty children, twenty sets of twins; each set a boy and a girl. Her eldest son Kabil (Cain) later slew his younger brother Abil (Abel). In this way Haiwa was punished for having eaten the forbidden fruit.
Have you gotten any closer to the answer yet?
Yev: Somehow I don’t think that Haiwa means woman, because that would be too obvious, right?
Achmed: You are indeed correct, Haiwa doesn’t mean woman in Arabic.
Yev: Okay, I give up. What does Haiwa mean then?
Achmed: Haiwa means Life.
Yev: Are you sure?
Achmed: I am sure.
Yev: But why call Eve life and not woman?
Achmed: With this name, the authors of the story have made it clear that Adam’s temptation wasn’t sex or lust. Adam was tempted by Life.
Yev: So?
Achmed: I’m pointing out, that in terms of population expansion, men and woman have markedly different roles. They are by no means equal in this regards.
Yev: Okay. But I still don’t get it.
Achmed: I’m trying to put you in the frame of mind of a non-agricultural people, a people for whom population is always a critical problem. Let me put it baldly: A band of herders that consists of 50 men and 1 woman is in no danger of experiencing a population explosion, but a band that consists of 1 man and 50 women is in big trouble. People being people, that band of 51 herders is going to be a band of 101 in no time at all.
Yev: So Genesis is the earliest form of birth-control?
Achmed: Indeed, birth, growing in population, is the 1st choice between good and evil.
You see, Adam and Eve spent 3 million years in a garden, living on the bounty of God, and their growth was very modest; this is the way it has to be. Like all the ‘primitive’ people everywhere, they had no need to exercise the gods’ prerogative of deciding who shall live and who shall die. But when Eve presented Adam with this knowledge, he said, ‘Yes, I see; with this, we no longer have to depend on the bounty of the gods. With the matter of who shall live and who shall die in our own hands, we can create a bounty that will exist for us alone, and this means I can say yes to Life, and grow without limit.’
Yev: I think I’m beginning to understand. By saying yes to Life and accepting the knowledge of good and evil are merely different aspects of a single act, and this is the way the story is told in Genesis.
Achmed: It’s subtle, but I think you understand it.
Yev: Yeah, when Adam accepted the fruit of that tree, he succumbed to the temptation to live without limit –and so the person who offered him that fruit is named Life.
Achmed: Correct. Whenever a modern couple talks about how wonderful it would be to have a big family, they’re re-enacting this scene beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They’re saying to themselves, ‘Of course it’s our right to apportion life on this planet as we please. Why stop at 4 kids or 6? We can have 15 if we like. All we have to do is plough under another 100 acres of rain forest –and who cares if a dozen other species disappear as a result?
Yev: In light of this explanation it would be better that Adam would mean mankind instead of just man.
Achmed: And why is that?
Yev: Well some Christians take the Bible very literally.
Achmed: They are unaware that some stories are just symbolical?
Yev: They probably would ask themselves what Adam & Eve would represent if they are only symbolic?
Achmed: What do you think it means then?
Yev: I think it means that every action has a reaction, that we at least should look ahead and try to predict where we will land before we leap and not just jump in blind faith and hope that we'll land in the right spot.
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Yep. I see islam as one of those "other gospels" that God through the apostle Paul warned us about in the book of Galations.
