|
Post by nventr on Jun 10, 2012 14:17:53 GMT
But they were Christians. The Christians were empowering and extending rights to women. In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Peter gets his hand slapped by Andrew who says something like, "If the Lord found favor with her, shouldn’t we?” There was also the back and forth between the Paul and Peter groups. Paul would come in and organize a group one way, then Peter would come and change everything all around. Or Paul would walk into a Peter camp and reorganize. They truly hated each other and had opposite views on what Christianity was and who should be a Christian. The other thing that has to be taken into consideration is that church worship at that time was nothing like what we experience today. Today no one just stands up and speaks in church, unless you are the minister or the designated scripture reader. The sermon we know today was more like a spiritual discussion group session which is very like this forum. The leader started the topic, usually a reading from the Torah and the group either added comments or asked questions. I’ve been in groups like this and we have seen it here, where a segment of the group just does not get the gist of the subject matter or because their inner being is not in harmony with the teaching style. It can really irritate those who “got it” the first time or who are on the same page as the speaker and want to push on to new material. When someone gets totally combative or is in need of a straight jacket then all you can do is ban them, so that they do not run off the upstanding members who have interesting and valid things to contribute. Many times Paul shows a true understanding as to why the women in particular are such a problem. - They should be silent and pray directly to God. (This is the Virgin or Grail Path. It is also a right of passage in most cultures for women to be put in a cave or dark tent for several days of solitary meditation upon reaching menses)
- If they want to understand what he, Paul, is talking about ask your husband who has had this experience of warring with the ego. Women of the time ( and even now) were to bring forth life and to do what ever necessary to keep the progeny, especially the first born son, living. They have never had a thought to themselves. They are all about what the family needs. Speaking of death as if it is the way to go, is so unfathomable. The Jewish faith understood this fact and did not allow women into the sacrificial court of the temple.
|
|
|
Post by billmcelligott on Jun 10, 2012 18:40:13 GMT
But they were Christians. The Christians were empowering and extending rights to women. In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Peter gets his hand slapped by Andrew who says something like, "If the Lord found favor with her, shouldn’t we?” Well to be precise fledgling Christians still under guidance as section of Corintians in the Bible tells us. A number of Historians make the case for Mary being the head of one Group in the power struggle. As with Hebrew social activity it was the Females that organised the meetings and the discussions but they were still segregated as Jews and Muslims are today. I am confident it was most likely disorganized as it was still taking shape, the only template they would have had would have been the Hebrew one. As experienced by the Desciples. Yes , throughout history the Female vulnerability has been what the Male has exploited. Some would say it is the natural order of things and would point to the animal kingdom as proof. As Abraham had many wives so does the Male dominate the herd or the pride. Christianity should have changed all this I would agree, but it does seem to have much of the old ways still embedded in it. The real strength of a Man is to care and be considerate, my Father taught me that for each Macho man there is a bigger Macho man just round the corner.
|
|
|
Post by 345 on Jun 10, 2012 22:42:15 GMT
But they were Christians. The Christians were empowering and extending rights to women. I can see where you are coming from, but I don’t think you can really talk about 'Christianity' as being a homogenous religious identity until well after AD600. Furthermore you don't seem to make the critically important differentiation between 'Christians' and 'Christianity'. About the only time that women's 'empowerment' was actively advocated (outside martyrdom) was during the Apostolic period of the first decades of Christianity. In all other periods, we find that the levels of empowerment and enfranchisement among Christian women very closely aligned with the levels of social/cultural enfranchisement of women in the wider society. This broad and sweeping statement specifically includes Gnosticism and other heretical movements. Your use of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene as evidence of a universal move towards empowerment among early Christians doesn’t really convince me as it is a minority text that is heavily allegorical and was treated as such back in the day by the vast majority of readers. Later on, when Christianity found itself with the ability to begin to dictate social conditions in wider society after the Roman church was confirmed as an Imperial institution, it unfortunately used its authority to actively disenfranchise women (original sin etc etc)- the opposite of what you claim. This is not to say that there are no examples of empowered women in the NT or Church history, but they are representative of specific circumstances and not representative of an entire gender or movement. In short, it would be hard to argue that Christianity broke new ground in its attitude towards women prior to the establishment of the Roman Church as an Imperial institution, and from that point on Christianity actively eroded woman’s roles and positions in society. /Peter Gower
|
|
|
Post by 345 on Jun 11, 2012 1:56:46 GMT
The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown us that women were having a period of freedom and leadership in the first 200 years of Christianity. However, once the Councils of Nicaea took place all the rights were revoked and society went back to the patriarchal model. I think it would be difficult to argue that proposition conclusively. The role of Women in the Qumran Community, and, indeed in the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is far from being as clear cut as you have written. For a start the vast majority of Dead Sea Scrolls (lets call them Qumran texts), are copies of Old Testament Biblical books, in which nothing much exciting has arisen (though 1QDeutJ has some interesting variations), especially in regards to the role of women. Of the sectarian texts (i.e. those texts we presume were written by the community that hid the scrolls), one of the most important texts, 1QS, the Community Rule, does not mention women at all but 1QSa (Messianic Rule) gives women a substantial social role. The point I am making is that what we can discern about the role of women from the Qumran texts is contradictory and not as unambiguous as you make out. The last of the Qumran texts are likely to have been written before AD60 at the very, very latest and the vast majority would seem to have been written c. 1-2Cent. BC. And again, it was written by a minority hetrodoxical Jewish sect in the middle of nowhere. I am not sure such texts would even suggest, let alone prove, that Christian women in Rome, France or Britain were enjoying a period of freedom and leadership 100-300 years later I think you mean the Ecumenical Councils rather than the Nicean Councils, as the two Church councils at Nicea took place 450 years apart and there were about half a dozen other important doctrine-defining councils between the two- and the majority of Protestants don’t recognise the second one as well. Furthermore, from memory, neither Council at Nicea significantly changed the status of women within Christianity- though I will be happily corrected on that count. Certainly to say that the Nicean Councils revoked “all the rights” of women a bit too much of a streatch /Peter
|
|
|
Post by billmcelligott on Jun 11, 2012 6:29:14 GMT
I have spoken to some that believe the power struggle in very early Christianity was between Mary and James [brother of Jesus]
But no proof it just seems likely.
|
|
|
Post by nventr on Jun 11, 2012 17:39:24 GMT
First off, I would like to thank you guys for the first intelligent and respectful conversation on this board in months!!!!
We must all remember that the history is incomplete. We have a bunch of sound bites, banned gospels, and writings from a minority groups. Not to mention that if we had lived during this time in history we would have only the knowledge of the region in which we lived. There wasn’t an internet to see the news from the other side of the world. So building a time machine and going back in time would not help anything.
I agree that in the first 200 years after the resurrection the sect that was not called Christian and was not separated from the Jewish faith. Everything was in a metamorphic or primordial soup. People were passing their favorite stories of Jesus and the Disciples around in order to claim their spiritual view. There was the Peter vs. Paul element. The Thecla, the virgin who traveled with Paul, stories are quite interesting. Basically, the chick empowered herself. These stories not only made the Great Evangelist look bad, but also competed with the Virgin Mary stories and lost as did the Mary Magdalene stories. There was a bit of mixing and merging of the Mithras and Dionysos cults into the literature.
People were having feuds and civil unrest over doctrine which caused difficulties for the authorities. This is why the emperor required the bishops to gather, at his expense, and make a final decision as to what Christianity was, what books would be used, what practices would be standardized. This was for the benefit of the empire and not necessarily a personal conversion. Note: all the books chosen were from the earliest days of what is now known as Christianity. They did not accept gospels that were written more than 150-200 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
So many little things were blossoming. All the original Apostles knew Mary Magdalene as well as other women leaders personally and were exposed to women in spiritual leadership positions, even if they did not fully embrace this fact. That message would have been part of the "Good News!” If the gospel was meant for those who were subjugated, then women were at the bottom of the barrel and thus first in line to grab at this new idea. We know women organized the worship services in their homes. We know women funded the building of buildings specifically for worship. (There are mosaics thanking such women) We know women were leaders of the early “churches,” because Paul mentions them by name. So, who knows what literature any individual group or sect had access to or used in their spiritual services.
We also know that all this died when the church laid down the law and chose its doctrine.
|
|
|
Post by 345 on Jun 12, 2012 9:27:27 GMT
The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown us that women were having a period of freedom and leadership in the first 200 years of Christianity. I forgot to mention that if you wanted something more substantial to look at along these lines, the Nag Hammadi Library would be far more profitable than the Qumran Texts. The importance and significance of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' for the vast majority of mystics and laypeople has been vastly over-hyped. There really isn't a hell of a lot in it for folk like us (though it is certainly invaluable for scholars). Most of it is made up of fragments of copies of OT books we already have with a few sectarian documents thrown in which, again, really do not have much significance for anyone outside the broad area of Biblical archeology. The Nag Hammadi Library, on the other hand, is a cache of Gnostic texts which truly are a treasure house of the spirit. The story of their discovery, translation and dissemination is also remarkably similar to the Qumran Texts. /Peter
|
|
|
Post by nventr on Jun 12, 2012 15:29:19 GMT
Thank you for this information! I truly did not know that there were two different sets of material. I just figured it was all one batch and the names were interchangeable.
So,
Nag Hammadi Library = Gnostic Gospels or Banned Books
Dead Sea Scrolls = Qumran sect (yep, they aren’t very interesting)
|
|
|
Post by pennycooper on Jun 27, 2012 12:59:25 GMT
I love science and inventions:) and even i din't get what are the other alternatives
|
|
|
Post by curiosity on Jun 28, 2012 23:46:52 GMT
I love science and inventions:) and even i din't get what are the other alternatives I am huge fan of Leonardo Da Vinci. I am blown away by just how much he did within his lifetime. How many inventions may well have been brought forward because of his early concepts being tabled so far in advance of their need in society , such as the primitive helicopter he sketched. I read his CV and think ... I should look busier everyday or something! :-)
|
|
|
Post by Hubert (N. Z.) on Sept 2, 2012 3:51:39 GMT
Hi All, I've been off this site for quite a while, busy doing other things. I've now retired to Coopers Beach, Far North, New Zealand. So have time to investigate the more important aspects of life. Have just read an exceedingly enlightening book by Bro. Robert Lomas entitled "The Lost Key". Has there been any discussion on this site regarding it's findings?
Kind Regards, Hubert
|
|
|
Post by sid on Sept 5, 2012 21:59:30 GMT
|
|