Violence against women and divine command
Jan. 8th, 2008 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatarperegrineA lawyer avers, in today's Peninsula, that "women are physiologically not geared to be in a judge's role since their performance can be affected during menstrual cycle, pregnancy and delivery," and more generally that "they are emotionally disposed which can be disadvantageous for a judge's job."
While troublesome, this sentiment is less disturbing than that of a Yemen Times article entitled There Must Be Violence Against Women, which accuses human rights organizations of failing to recognize the necessity of violence against women to maintaining family life. ("Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it," the author says. In related news, a Qatari resident just bashed his wife's skull in for not being at her office during the day, which he took to mean she was having an affair.)
Al-Kholidy's article is slightly confusing; for example, it argues that the Qur'anic injunction to beat your wife is a mistranslation, but then says that failing to beat women would lead to the downfall of Islamic values. But it does bring up an interesting conundrum. If you accept that God says husbands should (in some cases) beat their wives, then any movement to eliminate violence against women is irreligious. More broadly, if God has handed down a set of guidelines for how to run a society, any attempt to run society differently is problematic.
Both the Bible and the Qur'an have all kinds of unsavory verses that recommend beating one's children, stoning adulterers, killing heretics, and so on. It seems to me that one of the biggest differences between Christianity and Islam as practiced in the world today is that most Christians are perfectly happy to explain away those verses, whereas Muslims seem to have a harder time ignoring God's more troublesome edicts. Progressive Christians say that these archaic laws don't represent the will of God for our time. Outside of American academic discourse, I've never heard a Muslim suggest that.
I've often wondered what the difference is between Christianity and Islam that the unsavory laws are, on the whole, interpreted so differently. Is it inherent in the differences between the Qur'an, which outlines a comprehensive system of organizing society, and the New Testament, which focuses more on the individual? Is it a result of Christianity's ambivalence towards the Law? Or is it just that biblical interpretation has been shaped by centuries of Western humanism? After all, Christianity as practiced outside the U.S. and Europe is much more likely to side with Mr. Al-Kholidy on this issue.
Lest I come across as sounding biased against Islam and towards Christianity here, I will say that this is one of the issues that disenchanted me with Christianity. If American Christians are unlikely to agree with Al-Kholidy that women need to be beaten, or with Abu Nida that women lack the "balanced disposition" to become a judge, it is not because the Bible is imbued with feminist values; as far as I can tell, Western feminism developed despite Christianity, not because of it. The same is arguably true of all values I care most about -- equality, self-determination, tolerance, rationalism. It's hardly a celebration of Christianity if we manage to be civilized by ignoring scriptural injunctions to be otherwise.
While troublesome, this sentiment is less disturbing than that of a Yemen Times article entitled There Must Be Violence Against Women, which accuses human rights organizations of failing to recognize the necessity of violence against women to maintaining family life. ("Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it," the author says. In related news, a Qatari resident just bashed his wife's skull in for not being at her office during the day, which he took to mean she was having an affair.)
Al-Kholidy's article is slightly confusing; for example, it argues that the Qur'anic injunction to beat your wife is a mistranslation, but then says that failing to beat women would lead to the downfall of Islamic values. But it does bring up an interesting conundrum. If you accept that God says husbands should (in some cases) beat their wives, then any movement to eliminate violence against women is irreligious. More broadly, if God has handed down a set of guidelines for how to run a society, any attempt to run society differently is problematic.
Both the Bible and the Qur'an have all kinds of unsavory verses that recommend beating one's children, stoning adulterers, killing heretics, and so on. It seems to me that one of the biggest differences between Christianity and Islam as practiced in the world today is that most Christians are perfectly happy to explain away those verses, whereas Muslims seem to have a harder time ignoring God's more troublesome edicts. Progressive Christians say that these archaic laws don't represent the will of God for our time. Outside of American academic discourse, I've never heard a Muslim suggest that.
I've often wondered what the difference is between Christianity and Islam that the unsavory laws are, on the whole, interpreted so differently. Is it inherent in the differences between the Qur'an, which outlines a comprehensive system of organizing society, and the New Testament, which focuses more on the individual? Is it a result of Christianity's ambivalence towards the Law? Or is it just that biblical interpretation has been shaped by centuries of Western humanism? After all, Christianity as practiced outside the U.S. and Europe is much more likely to side with Mr. Al-Kholidy on this issue.
Lest I come across as sounding biased against Islam and towards Christianity here, I will say that this is one of the issues that disenchanted me with Christianity. If American Christians are unlikely to agree with Al-Kholidy that women need to be beaten, or with Abu Nida that women lack the "balanced disposition" to become a judge, it is not because the Bible is imbued with feminist values; as far as I can tell, Western feminism developed despite Christianity, not because of it. The same is arguably true of all values I care most about -- equality, self-determination, tolerance, rationalism. It's hardly a celebration of Christianity if we manage to be civilized by ignoring scriptural injunctions to be otherwise.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 05:17 am (UTC)A distinction needs to be made which I fail to find here. The Bible contains both the Hebrew Scriptures (HS) and the New Testament (NT). The HS covers many books written over many years with a wide variety of ethics.
The HS does contain an injunction for stoning an adulterer.
Nothing of killing adulterers is found in the NT. When Jesus was faced with men about to stone a woman, he told them, in effect, to look at their faults before judging hers. She wasn't stoned.
There are Christians who still live under the tent of the Law. But one cannot affirm the control of the HS injunction to stone without clearly denying the teaching of Jesus. Obviously, some who call themselves Christians do just that. They are unable to distinguish the NT from the HS, just as some Jews cannot make distinctions within the HS.
The section of Matthew’s Gospel called the Sermon on the Mount has Jesus time after time saying “You have heard it said”, that is in the HS, “But I say to you”.
And try "love your enemy" on for size. It's hard to follow that and do violence to anyone.
My friend, Rabbi Les, is convinced that there are many verses in the HS which ought to be excised. He says they don’t fit with Judaism today. But don’t be confused by thinking those verses are in the NT. (Now, what verses in the NT I would eliminate are another story!)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 03:44 pm (UTC)Hmm. I tried not to make that distinction, because my dad taught me that it's an overgeneralization, and unfair to Judaism, to characterize the God of the Hebrew scriptures as wrathful and the God of the New Testament as loving.
"Nothing of killing adulterers is found in the NT. When Jesus was faced with men about to stone a woman, he told them, in effect, to look at their faults before judging hers. She wasn't stoned."
This is a story I always pondered in terms of my own consistency of interpretation. Generally if a story appears in John and not the synoptics I'm skeptical that it's an accurate representation of the historical Jesus... which would mean that I think Jesus probably never really said that. But I sorta want him to have said it. :-)
"(Now, what verses in the NT I would eliminate are another story!)"
:-) That's why drawing the distinction didn't seem fair. If it was as simple as saying that HS rules can be ignored but the NT is really the spirit of Christianity, then we still get stuck with women covering their hair because they're the glory of men....