Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Jesus the feminist

Okay, let's see if I can get all of my thoughts in order without dropping a bunch. And of course, these are all my own little opinions.

Ann mentioned:
See, that's where the distinction comes in with Christianity. There is a lot of sexism in the Old Testament, but you can't tie it exclusively to Christianity. Both Christian and Islamic religions have their roots in Judaism, which follows the OT exclusively. When pointing fingers at one religion, you might as well point fingers at all three.

Unfortunately, when a culture is set in their ways, it is really hard to change it, especially when those in charge prefer things the way they are. Jesus came along, preaching love, happiness, and equality, but many people, clergy especially, were going "Whoa, hold a minute, that's not the way things are done!" Those who liked the change readily accepted it, but it was hard to get everyone swayed.

You keep mentioning the religious right, Ann, but you have to remember that they are a very small part of the religious culture in the US. They seem bigger because they are the most vocal, and they just LOVE attention. They preach, they shout, they yell, they point fingers. Unfortunately, though they call themselves Christians, they tend to follow the OT more than the New. Jesus tells us to love and accept one another, and those without sin may cast stones. But though they sin, they find the biggest boulder they can throw. They preach to help one another, but they'll kick the "sinners" out of their clique faster than Superman can fly around the world. Many Christians I know are actually appalled by what the so-called "religious right" preach.

... okay. I think I lost my point again.

Um, now, Terry's point about virgin births. I can't say I recall anything about virgin births, but there's a lot of mythology to troll through. However, there are a lot of stories where a god impregnates a moral woman. Just look at the Greek and Roman mythologies. Hercules, anyone? There are a lot of christian customs that came from pagan customs, however. The Roman Church knew that in order to convert people to this new religion, they couldn't force them to give up all of their old customs. Christmas is the major example, taking place of (mostly) Winter Solstice celebrations.

Where was I again? I think I'd better go find those lost thoughts.

I can't say anything about any christian or church movements about things you spoke of, Ann. I haven't actively participated in a church since I entered my teens. I've found that most churches scare me, but that's just because of my bias against organized religion. Backwards, ain't it? Living in the Bible Belt, I get accosted every once in awhile by people prosellytizing, or see people preaching on the side of the road, and I have to wonder how much they practice what they preach. No, not everyone is like that, but the louder someone is, it seems the more they have to hide.

Absolutely, Karen! Remember that I called this thread "Jesus the feminist". I called Jesus a feminist because there is nothing in the Gospels that suggests that Jesus thought that women were the cause of immorality and evil in society! There is nothing in the Gospels that suggests that Jesus wanted to raise the level of righteousness and morality in society by making women more obedient and submissive.

However, it is not true that all of the New Testament is nonsexist. In many of the letters in the New Testament, women are repeatedly told to obey and be silent.

Carol, you mentioned the Whig interpretation of history. Like you, I don't think that winners always have to win by making war. Instead, they can simply "win" by becoming dominant and becoming the ones who write the history books.

Personally, I believe that one victim of the Whig interpretation of history is Jesus himself, the historical Jesus. Personally I don't doubt that the real Jesus was quite Jewish in many of his beliefs. However, the Jesus Christ of the Whig interpretation is a lot less Jewish than the real Jesus would have been. Consider. Isn't it true that almost all Christians believe that when they go to heaven after death, it is just their souls that will ascend to heaven, not their bodies? And yet, when the Gospels tell us about the risen Jesus, they make a point of it to demonstrate that his body is alive. Jesus eats. People tocuh him. Thomas puts his finger in Jesus' wounds. Why was it so important that Jesus' body should be alive?

This is my answer. When you read the Old Testament, it is very clear that the Jews believed that a person's body and soul were inseparable. One could not exist without the other. Therefore, the Jews were waiting for a time when all the graves would open up, and all the dead people would become (physically) alive again and rise from their graves and stand before the throne of God to be judged. However, the Romans who took over Christianity believed that the body and soul were indeed separable. For them it was unnecessary to raise the bodies of the dead, because those who had won salvation could simply leave their dead bodies behind when their souls ascended to heaven. Oh, but what did it take to win salvation, then?

It is a Jewish idea that you have to be good and do good things in order to earn salvation. According to Judaism, it is not enough to just believe something in order to be saved. That is why I don't really believe that the historical Jesus would have said what he says according to John 3:16. Here Jesus supposedly says that all you have to do in order to be saved is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and your personal saviour who gave his life for you. I find it so much easier to believe that Jesus would have said what he said in Matthew 25:31-46. That is where he said that in order to be saved, you have to have done good to poor, sick and despised people. This would simply be so much more in character for Jesus the Jew, who so often defended the poor, the sick and the despised ones.

One of the most ironic bits of evidence of how Jesus has been taken over is, to me, that we don't even know him under his real name. You don't think that Jesus was his real name, do you? "Jesus" is a Latinized form of his real name, with a Latinized masculine ending, -us, which didn't exist in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Jesus' real name would have been Joshua or Jeshua. Interestingly, if you tell people that you believe in Jeshua, they won't understand what you are talking about.

I think Jeshua was the real person. Jesus is the Whig interpretation, the one who was taken over by the Romans. It is so utterly ironic that Jesus - Jeshua - was in fact executed by the Romans. It was Pontius Pilate the Roman who ordered the execution of Jesus. The province of Israel or Palestine was occupied by the Romans when Jesus was an adult, and it was the Romans who made the laws of the land. The Jews were not allowed to execute anyone. Only the Romans had the right to order the execution of a Jew. Isn't it unbelievably ironic that the Roman Emperor Constantin made Christianity the national religion of the Roman Empire around 325 B.C., in the name of a man whom the Roman Empire had executed around three hundred years earlier as an enemy of Rome?

(And isn't it unbelievably ironic that the Roman Empire, which had executed Jesus, used their Whig interpretation to blame the Jews for Jesus' death? And ever since then, Christian Europe has justified its pogroms and holocausts against the Jews at least partly by claiming that the Jews deserved it, since they had, after all, murdered Jesus.)

Anyway. The way I see it, it was Paul who really took over Jeshua and sold him to the Romans as the Romans' faithful servant, Jesus Christ. Consider what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 13

Submission to the Authorities

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

In short, what Paul says is that anyone who holds office or is in a postion of authority towards others has received his position and his authority from God. Therefore, anyone who is rebelling against worldly authorities is also rebelling against God.

Clearly Paul said this because he wanted to bring his religion about the risen Christ to the Romans. Paul wanted to convince the Roman rulers that his religion posed no threat to them. On the contrary, Paul assured the Roman authorities that his religion would back them up, so they could safely let his religious teachings inside their Roman heartland.

And because Paul backed up all Roman authorities, it stands to reason that he defended men's authority over women, too. That is why he repeatedly admonishes women to obey their husbands, to be silent and to comport themselves humbly.

Of course, that is not what Jesus said. Jesus never demanded obedience or submissiveness of women!

Karen, you said:

I wholeheartedly agree. It is absolutely true that not all Christians are like the religious right! And it is definitely true that not all Christians are sexists.

But this was the point that I wanted to make. If people claim that Jesus is their personal saviour, how can some of them use their Christian religion to argue for sexist measures in society, when Jesus himself never said that women should be controlled or reined in? How can some Christian people justify (and sanctify) their own sexism in the name of a man who was himself a feminist?

And just so that no one misunderstands me... no, I don't think that women must make "liberated" choices in order to be free from oppression. My point is precisely that women should be allowed to choose. They should be allowed to make their own choices. Period.

Ann

Yes - we reinvent historical figures, recharacterising them so to speak so that they espouse the values of our contemporary world. So Jesus is a a democrat, a feminist, an environmentalist and who who knows what down the line.

I guess it's that old clliche: Man created God in his own image.

I guess virtue is its own reward.
Sorry, Karen, typos do happen (as well I know!) but this one was too much to resist.

c.

You got me there, Carol. Jesus was not a "feminist". "Feminist" is a very contemporary word, with contemporary connotations. And Jesus was not contemporary, but a man of his time, two thousand years ago. We can only guess at what he would have said about our modern society. I'm convinced that he would have hated abortions, so in that respect he was certainly no "feminist". But the Bible gives us no clue about what he would have said about many other "feminist" issues. And in my opinion, we have no right to really speculate about what Jesus would have said about situations and conflicts and issues that he himself couldn't even have imagined.

But let me speak about one situation that Jesus would have recognized. I'm talking about unmarried mothers who have to take all the blame for their pregnancies themselves, and who have to raise their kids themselves on ever-shrinking rations of welfare because society cuts down the federal aid to them, ostensibly for their own good. Meanwhile the good people around them turn up their noses at them and thank God that they themselves are so moral and blameless.

I have no difficulty imagining what Jesus would have said about that. Because I'm convinced that his own mother was one of those women that the people of his time turned up their noses at. And he himself was the reason they would have given for despising her.

Ann

P.S. I don't think the Gospels give us reason to think that Jesus was a democrat or an environmentalist.

Sorry, Ann. Just me being obscure again.

What I meant is:
labelling Jesus as any of the things in my list would be how a person who has fallen into 'the Whig interpretation of history' trap would see or interpret what Jesus was about. The idea being that often we don't see the person in his/her historical or cultural context but rather in our own. Or, on the other hand, we might judge that character or person deficient because they do not live up to our contemporary standards or our own personal beliefs.

It doesn't mean I think that Jesus was a feminist.

c.