Women

 

                                            Women

 

Several years ago, I chanced upon an essay written and posted to Facebook by an individual who styled herself as “Lila.” Her thesis was that the status of women as secondary to men was ordained by Heavenly guidance and any women who pursue careers outside the home or take issue with male dominance are somehow heretical and/or violating what she views as the “natural order” of things. At the time, I was focused predominately on national political issues or related subjects such as COVID and economics. I made some notes, but the issue languished until I recently  found the notes in my “documents” folder while searching for something else. After a review, I decided I was remiss in letting this one slide, so I’ll begin with my original opening sentence, which I wrote as the beginning of a brief response to the individual, whose actual, identity I do not know, and enlarge considerably on the subject continuing in that vein. If this sounds a bit like a history lesson that’s because it is. It’s what I do.        

 

Lila, this may well be the most well phrased and yet almost nonsensical defense of the deprecation of women I've ever read.

I must assume from your post that you are a Christian, which means that nothing related to how we treat others (some of which you include in your apologia) which derives from the Old Testament is valid anyway, since your boss described a “New Covenant”, consistent with his teachings and personal behavior as described in such of the synoptic gospels as we have traditionally been “allowed “ to read.

        The secondary status of women which evolved in early Christianity, and continues to a great extent in Evangelical settings, doesn’t stem from Jesus in any sense, but rather generally reflects the personal opinion of Paul; and even more so, the early Bishops who were, by the third century, creating a hierarchy (translates as "positions of authority and power") for themselves. As non-royalty, the only other option for a power-driven person in the Roman Empire was religion. This continued even into medieval Europe and later, where, typically, the eldest son inherited land and title and the second son entered the priesthood. If the family was "connected," he could become a bishop in no time at all.  As recently as 2022, twenty-five Church of England Bishops are still automatically granted seats in the House of Lords in the UK. There is only just very recently a proviso that one of the minor Bishops seats may be filled by a woman. Even a Methodist and a Chief Rabbi, (men only!) have been so seated. All this was cemented by the early systematic reduction of women to relatively inconsequential positions in the Church. Even those women who were sainted and were reverenced, had essentially no temporal authority over males.

Note: She ("Lila") then alleged that anyone who read the Bible with a different interpretation was “reading someone else’s mail.” As a cynic who is, nonetheless, more than passing familiar with the document in question, I decided to engage her on her own turf. 

Your claim that someone who sees the matter differently than you do is "reading someone else's mail" would seem to indicate that you believe that the Bible was written not for the world, but for select individuals (like you), not for anyone who can think critically. That’s just sad. It also implies than no one who is not already a believer could read the Bible and become one.  And finally, remember that the Bible you read isn't all the writings from the period which relate to Jesus.

The OT, of course, was not written contemporaneously, but as much as a thousand years after many of the described "events," so it is much less "history " than fable. Heck, even Homer was writing of events (The Trojan War) at a time much closer (within about 400 years) to the alleged events.

Likewise, the synoptic gospels were not written by the apostles who accompanied Jesus, since almost all of them (like Peter) were semi-literate. It is a sure bet that Peter never wrote in Greek, if at all. Additionally, some of the most powerful scenes in them (the synoptics) cannot possibly be even first-hand accounts such as Jesus' conversation in the wilderness with Satan, for which there is no witness, (yet there is verbatim dialogue!), or the scene in the garden where even with all the Apostles asleep, we again have verbatim dialogue between Jesus and God? Really? and who wrote that down? Paul, however, raised in a well to do family in a formerly Greek, later Roman city (Tarsus)  was schooled in Tarsus and later, Jerusalem, was well educated, and literate in Greek and used that skill to create the image of Jesus as he wanted the world to see it, yet he never met the man either (don’t give me that “Road to Damascus” bunk).

So, in summary, claiming to "know" what Jesus said, or even meant, was wishful thinking. Even if we assume that what is attributed to Jesus is what he actually taught, it was soon distorted into a different focus, from a personal religion to a “corporate” one. Every nation state (all of Europe) which made Christianity the state religion also derogated and relegated women to secondary status, while (exclusively male) Church primates quickly became advisors to kings.

The first step was to make the scriptures unavailable to the common person, who, being almost universally illiterate, were reliant upon the newly empowered, literate, clergy to read it and interpret it for them. (This would result in the Catholic Church continuing the Mass in Latin, understood by essentially no one not of the elite, from, at the latest, the 6^th century, into the late 20^th century (1965), when the first vernacular Mass was celebrated in Ireland.

By the late 200’s AD, most of the “traditional” Gospels which supported the new theme of a male dominated clergy and a secondary status for women, were accepted as such. Reasons for this are several. First off, converting Jews and Greeks, both of whose cultures subordinated women by religious credo, custom and tradition, was much easier if Christianity followed suit. Secondly and just as important was the opportunity for men, in societies already male dominated, to gain power without being born to it. This became even more obvious after Constantine's commission in 331 of fifty copies of the Bible for the Church at Constantinople. Now, endorsed by the Emperor, Christianity’s early power brokers had the highest authority to form the Bible as they desired, regardless of those “other books, which tell a slightly different story. At the Council of Hippo, held in north Africa in AD 393, a group of church leaders recognized a list of books that they believed to be scripture. They cherry picked those which fit their desired narrative.  

The "gospels” (Mary Magdalene, Timothy, Peter, Levi and around thirty other scriptural writings which didn't "make it" were rejected by that early Church council. What do they have in common? All differ from the “accepted” version as early church power brokers wanted it. More significant for the purposes of this discussion, several show the importance and equal status of Mary Magdalene as an apostle. Here is a snippet of the “Gospel of Mary” in the Nag Hammadi library (discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.) :” “Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered.  Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well.”  Why might Peter have acted as he did? Perhaps the “also non-included” Gospel of Philip is instructional. Here’s a verse or two: “And the companion of the [savior] was Mary Magdalene. He loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples… [damaged text]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness." Apparently, in Jesus case, he liked what he saw! Apparently author Dan Brown did also, since this forms one of the principal premises of “The DaVinci Code,” condemned, naturally,  by The Roman  Catholic Church.

So, Lila, whomever or wherever you are, feel free to rationalize why you accept or condone the Far Right’s relegation of women and their right to control of their own bodies to the trash heap of religious dogma, but don’t claim it’s because the Jesus you claim to worship wanted it that way. It’s far more likely Josh Hawley, Mike Pence, or Matt Gaetz you’re thinking of.