1/24/09

Sura 20, boobs


Chapter 20, named Ta Ha (two random letters), starts out saying the Koran is a warning, then retells the the stories of Moses and Adam again. These versions contradict the Biblical accounts, and also the other versions in the koran: for example in chapter 7 it blames the golden calf incident on Aaron, like the bible, but in this version some guy named Samiri was behind it all (85-87).
Mo also mixed his stories up with older myths. All of them had a tree of life, and the Babylonian Enuma Elish and the Akkadian Adapa both have a food of immortality that the heroes didn't eat. But in verse 120 Mo has Adam eat it. Whoops!

As soon as they ate, “their hidden parts were exposed to each other.” Before that Adam's dangly bits were not exposed? How did that work? And until they ate, Adam never noticed Eve's boobs, but then he was suddenly grossed out, the way men always are by things like this. The whole point of the Bible story was a made-up tree of knowledge that could show those horny old pagans, who thought sex was OK, that it was really OMG DirtyNastyShameful! It seems to have escaped Mo's notice that immortality wouldn't do that.

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