There’s nothing as creepy as the way religions historically try to control and subjugate women, trying to turn them into nothing more than breeding stock.
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Frank Herbert, Dune universe - axlotl tank
Scary look into deep future or have we lucky swerved the outcome?
Imagine how long I’d last as a professional in the public eye if I said women should not be allowed to teach. I’d be banned, cancelled and bankrupted by the end of the week.
It’s OK in the bible though. How that abhorrent rag has never been massively edited (odd that humans can improve the divine word of god) is beyond me.
The whole abortion and no contraception thing = lots more paying Catholics. Odd that.
Too early for this?
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I remember my mum going absolutely nuts at me for watching this.
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The Apostle Paul did say that women should not teach men. 1 Timothy 2:12. He said it in the context of what was happening in Ephesus in the first century. It is the study of hermeneutics to know this stuff.
The society of the first century is far removed from ours, in terms of it being very patriarchal. To demand that the people share the same cultural norms as ours is unrealistic.
Even so, the place and prominence of women was very much elevated in the ministry of Jesus, and then also in the early church. Women absolutely did teach in the early church, and rightly so. This is in the Biblical record. Women prayed out loud, prophesied, taught men, and were leaders in the church too.
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But here’s the problem. If we all agree that Paul’s wrong, why are any of his teachings in the bible? Isn’t it supposed to the the book by which we should live our lives?
As I’ve said before, either the bible is the word of god or it’s acknowledged to be an amalgamation of texts from mostly unknown authors. Male authors who definitely were not nor guided by god.
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I don’t agree that Paul was wrong. He wrote what he did, specifically about women not teaching men, for a particular context. His guidance helped to spread the gospel message.
Pretty sure we’ve been here before. Do you believe that any of the following is true please:
1: The bible is all from god
2: The bible was written by humans without divine intervention
3: Some hazy middle ground
There’s no point in the conversation.
I interjected because evidently you don’t understand the context in which Paul said what he said about women teaching men. Beyond that I don’t see any evidence that you are allowing for the society and culture of the time. We could easily apply modern day norms to most periods in history and find their world out of step with ours.
Specifically on the place and prominence of women - which is why I engaged, as what you were saying should not go unchallenged - they were very much elevated in the ministry of Jesus. And to repeat, women did teach in the early church, they prayed out loud, they prophesied, they taught men, and they were leaders in the church too.
To engage in the other listed questions just reads like whataboutism to me. It is too exhausting to proceed, without a framework or purpose to the conversation.
Believe in God or don’t. Enjoy the Bible, read it, rate it… or don’t. It’s very much a free world. If you don’t believe in God, and if you hold that the Bible is a bunch of balls, have at it!
Mind you, I do find it odd that you want to talk about it.
But you didn’t answer the question. Please don’t make the assumption that I don’t “understand” the context. I don’t care about the context, I care if people believe the bible to be the perfect word of god. Because if they don’t, what’s the point? And if they do, ouch.
I think it was written and advertised to appeal to as many people as possible by humans, not god. I’m yet to be even fractionally convinced otherwise.
Paul’s words are divine or not. If they’re not, why are they in the bible?
As to why I’m interested, I object to the years I spent in church and now take quite a keen interest in pulling it apart. For reference the bad book is on my bedside table because the Silmarillion isn’t particularly funny.
Fair enough that you are interested in the Bible and religion, but I’m not sure that trying to pull it apart on here is achieving anything. Have you persuaded anybody of anything?
In this instance, I engaged because you talked about what Paul said about women being allowed to teach, and you used it as a reason to bash the Bible.
I pointed out that there was a specific context to his comment. Then I also pointed out the elevated place of women in the ministry of Jesus, and also the roles women had in the early church. They prayed in the public assembly, prophesied, taught men, and held leadership roles in the early church. It was all quite remarkable actually, given the patriarchal society they lived in.
Anyhow… got to go to a work meeting.
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You said.
You didn’t answer my question and we all know why.
THIS is what I commented on.
Let’s stick to that please.
And let’s not insult each other.
I didn’t insult you. I pointed out that you didn’t answer my question and if I still believed in god, I wouldn’t either as it’s uncomfortable.
The point is, if I can be so bold, that this is an example of special pleading
Whenever critics of the bible point out that a passage or instruction is a bit dodgy, what we’re met with is some sort of, slightly patronising, comment that we don’t understand the context, or you need to have studied in some special way to understand it, or you can’t take it as face value or something.
And that sounds, to the unindoctrinated, an awful lot like you making excuses for something that doesn’t meet today’s moral standards, because you know it’s unacceptable, but you just can’t let go of the book.
Let’s take the bible at face value. Some of it is lovely, wonderful, beautiful verse and enduringly valuable and robust code for living. And some of it is barbaric, horrifying backward values that would get you rightly sectioned if you tried to live by today.
You simply don’t get to praise the good, while giving the bad the ‘ah yes, but what Jesus meant to say…’ or ‘…but if you apply the context of 1st century Roman occupation…’ treatment.
If you don’t believe the book has special supernatural power, then it makes absolute sense. It’s the accumulated wisdom of ancient people, compiled over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Some of it has survived because it still works. Some of it hasn’t because it’s shite.
With my atheism I can look at the bible and take what is still useful, and reject the rest, with no illusion that I’m doing anything other that filtering this ancient text through my modern, more developed, ethical sensibility. You’re doing exactly the same, but you have to create quite absurd rationalisations and excuses for the horrible stuff, because you cling to the belief it’s divine.
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A point was made about the Bible saying women are not allowed to teach. Then that was used as a stick to beat the Bible, and compare it to the modern day work place. So, I engaged…
Women can’t teach? That’s not really true. In that passage (I quoted the reference above as it wasn’t mentioned) Paul was addressing a specific situation in Ephesus that was hindering the gospel. Any Bible scholar would know the details.
I tried to educate but Klopptimist said he didn’t care about context. If that is the case, then respectfully, you shouldn’t be trying to debate something you don’t really know about.
I mentioned earlier in the thread I have a theology degree from a red brick Uni in the UK…. it doesn’t make me any more or less qualified to believe in God than anyone else, but it does make me qualified to comment if I see a shit argument being constructed that erroneously makes the case that the Bible says women can’t teach.
Some basic Rafa-style facts:
The ministry of Jesus elevated women in a very counter cultural way, given the patriarchal society of the time. Jesus was way ahead of his time on that. Any serious Bible student would know that.
As a point of comparison, it took wider society until the early 20th century to allow women to vote, for fucks sake. Even updating it to today, in wider society women are paid less in the workplace. And how many women are senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, for example? Wider society has been suppressing women for the duration, and continues to do so today. But anything in the Bible that appears to minimize or restrict women is seen as unenlightened religious shite, and people stick the boot in. Fucking hypocritical. Anyway, I digress…
With regard to promoting women in a way that went against the grain of the culture, the early church had women pray in the public assembly, prophecy, teach, and also have leadership roles. Any Bible student would know that.
One could accept those basic facts, from people who know, or, alternately, one could say boooo, hisss! The Bible didn’t allow women to teach. It’s an abhorrent rag.
I am no Bible scholar and good or for bad, my faith in God is simply that, a faith. Do I throw away facts? No I don’t, it’s just that my faith appeals to a deeper level of my person that was critical to me at a certain point of my life.
The Bible being contentious is not new. It has been for as long as it has been around. As believers, we of course believe it is ‘God breathed’ and the words written by different people inspired by God for various reasons.
On Paul, when he wrote those letters, he has no idea human civilization is going to progress the way it did. He probably don’t even know his letters would be compiled into a book called the Bible when he wrote them. And yes so context is important as when reading any historical text. But context does not take away the fact that when applied to current context, it might be irrelevant or even seen violently out of place, as possibly with any historical texts.
So to me when I read the Bible, to me I ask myself, who is the recurring central person, it is God, Jesus. And Jesus of all persons, emphasize how important women are. In fact, Jesus was probably the rebel of those days, He came and overturned the religious context of those days. He was hated by the authorities and religious teachers because He wanted to emphasize that all these so called religious rules setup by men are not important, it is the Grace and Love we need.
So today whenever I see some of the shit dished out today in our modern world, even in the organization called the Church, I go back to what Jesus did in the Bible, He lived His short life preaching everything except what was accepted back then and emphasize on love and grace. And I always applied that she ever I felt so shit about this world.
Will my answer satisfy everyone especially those who needs proof, evidences etc. I don’t have proof and evidence. I only have faith. And everyone is different and I hope whether we think the Bible is shit or not, we will just focus on love and grace. I guess we will not go wrong with that.
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You might have mentioned it once or twice, yeah. 
It doesn’t really impress me much tbh. It’s like trying to justify the truth of the Harry Potter books, and saying you have a degree in Potterology to back it up.
The deep philosophical study of nonsense, doesn’t make it not nonsense.
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However, the black mark against Jesus is that he popularised the notion of hell - the idea of infinite punishment for finite crime.
How many lives have been subsequently been led in fear and suffering because of that Pearl of wisdom?
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