Malihe Maghazei1, Ali Muhammad Valavi2, Sadegh Aeinevand3, Susan
Bastani4,
Abstract:
A critical analysis of reader-text, especially the sacred texts as the important topic of
hermeneutic, is one of the focal points of attention among scholars of humanities. This
paper, through a comparative study between the Bible and the Qur’an, concentrates
on the image of woman in the account of creation. The paper first shows that there are
deep differences between these two sacred texts concerning the image of woman. Then
it argues that throughout the Judaea-Christian history and the Islamic traditions
multi and contradictory interpretations and understandings of the account have been
produced by religious authorities, scholars and critics. The main purpose of the paper
is to show that despite the differences between the two texts, there is a common
paradigm between Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions regarding the image of
woman. This paradigm is that the authoritative discourses of both traditions have
used the creation story, as a theoretical tool to downgrade women. Certainly, many
factors are influential in producing this paradigm including disposition of the authors,
extratextuality (the context of reading) and intertextuality (relationship of texts). In
this paper, the notion of intertextuality will be emphasized, as an important factor in
bringing about this paradigm.
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