to be disturbed and angry by what it says about women in the bible

[Kayugaduck]

I am making a concerted effort to read the bible (my dd has been given a good copy as a primary school leaver's present.) I can't believe what I'm reading. Starting from the beginning, Genesis. Talk of son after son being born, talk of women being punished for ever more by having pain in labour. I mean, come on! There is even the rape of Dinah.

I am horrified and shocked at what I'm reading and deeply disturbed.

Why is there no mention of the dinosaurs? It all sounds so cruel, farfetched and untrue. How are we supposed to believe in this?

I do feel spiritual however and am in awe of Life, nature etc but disagree that man should rule over all other lifeforms. Or that man should rule over his wife!

[flatcapandpearls]

I was about to post the same as colditz re food laws, will get back to my salt dough

[colditz]

It's because I can't remember how to do the slanty writing

[giveloveachance]

Well I don't think its very funny, I'm not laughing.

Some of the language used to describe the bible and Christians in this thread is deeply offensive.

daftpunk said, how many other religions are there people could have a laugh at? its just not funny to use the sort of derogatory language displayed here about any religious or cultural groups.

[gingerbunny]

all fairy tales have a dark side, the bible just has more than most other fairy tales.

[SecretNinjaChipmunk]

"Why is there no mention of the dinosaurs?" you just made me snort hot tea through my nose. have you never heard of creationism?

i can only suggest you make some notes on the bits you don't like and then discuss it with the vicar who gave the bible to your dc. or maybe let dc read it and ask him questions herself. mind you if she's just left primary school she may well not relish a read this long.

you will eventually have to let her make up her own mind about it all. being spiritual and in awe of life/ nature etc doesn't really have anything to do with religeon, if she reads the bible, she should read about darwin too.

[pseudoname]

to OP: wait till you get to the parts about the tyranny of absolute monarchs, incest, fratricide, kidnapping, slavery, and idolatry.

It reads like a copy of the Daily Mail if you think of it that way.

[daftpunk]

Giveloveachance:

I think you may have misunderstood me, I wasn't encouraging people to make fun of other religions, I was pointing out that Christians are an easy target.

having said that, i think you'll find religion is joked about quite a lot, comedians love a bit of religious humour, and so do I sometimes.

[FAQtothefuture]

I tend to agree with the view that Christianity - or the Bible - is an easy target.

How many times have you seem people say "oh the Qu'ran/Torah/any other religions sacred text" is full of such nonsense and Fairy Tales??

[giveloveachance]

Hi Daftpunk, don't worry i was not suggesting you were.

I agree that comedians do love a bit of religious humour, but I find nothing funny about what has been posted on this thread and much of the language used to describe the bible and God is deeply unfunny and offensive.

maybe the OP should rush ahead in her reading to Ephesians 4.29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

There is much indeed in the bible to place women in an honored and cherished position. It has to be read with an understanding of the historical and social political context of the times it was describing and bear in mind it strives to teach peace and tolerance as summed up in Jesus' sermon on the mount.

[giveloveachance]

that should have been, the OP and other posters ....

[TAFKAtheUrbanDryad]

FAQ - the Bible, the Qu'uran and the Torah all come from the same root, so really if someone's offensive about one they're offensive about them all!

Isn't the Torah the Old Testament? Cause Jews don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah? Or am I confusing it with something else?

[flatcapandpearls]

FAQ I bet they do say that the Qur'an etc are full of fairy tales.

I tend to lovingly mock my own faith, being a Catholic there is no shortage of material. I don't mean it disrespectfully and would certainly never use some of the words given above. Bit generally I think people feel they have more license to mock something from their own culture. In a similar way I suppose to Chris Rock (?) using the N word.

Of course some people are just rude.

I do think there is a lot of sexism in the early church, far more than in the early church.

I had a Jewish Feminist as my tutor for Hebrew and we would spend hours looking up refernces for the Goddess Asherah who is hidden in the Jewish Scriptures.

[flatcapandpearls]

The Torah is also found in the Old Testament. But yes if you being rude about an Abrahamic scripture you are taking on Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

[FAQtothefuture]

flatcap - ok then

fine me the threads on this website where other sacred texts are mocked in the same way as the bible.

Then do a search and find the threads where the bible in mocked.

....then come back and tell me how equal the mocking is.

[pofacedandproud]

Well the New Testament deliberately tried to redress the balance a bit, although the church 'Fathers' later tried to cover that up as much as possible. But Christ had female disciples [please we're not talking about Dan bloody Brown here] and Christ was pretty keen on treating men and women equally, which was quite novel at the time, especially when it came to spiritual matters. But the bible just reflects the patriarchy and misogyny of the time in which it was written, and the times of later translations. There are plenty of very important women in the bible, including in the Old Testament.

[pofacedandproud]

and the Holy Spirit is referred to by a noun of the female gender in the original Hebrew [later translated into Greek and turned male] So God is both male and female.

[daftpunk]

Giveloveachance:

Yes, I agree with you

[flatcapandpearls]

I dont think that it is equal, I just think people are more inclined to mock a religious tradition from their own culture and one they know about. We don't mock the qur'an, the vedas etc because most people don't know them. The bits of other faiths we think we know a little about we do tend to mock, so suicide bombers and women's dress.

[flatcapandpearls]

I also think that generally speaking the public face of Christianity handles attacks on its faith better than Islam for example. So you can call my God that very rude word above and I will not issue a death threat on you. Some Christians may, or they will at least think you will go to hell but that part of Christianity is kept private from the press, generally. But if you say something like that about Allah or Muhammad a section of Islam will issue a death threat - and it is that section of Islam which gets press attention. I used to think if it was to do with the fact that Islam is a relatively young religion - about 600 years younger than Christianity. If you go back 600 years in Christianity's history we were not known for our tolerance, But I dont think that is right anymore.

I respect anyone's right to think my faith is total bunkum, I wish people would not be deliberately rude but to be honest to me it is water off a duck's back. You don't last long in my line of work if you are over sensitive on religious matters.

So people can insult Christianity and feel quite safe and whats more they can do it with some subject knowledge.

[flatcapandpearls]

I just know listening to students in the classroom who are taught by me so have a good knowledge of the six world faiths that if they are rude and dismissive of religion they do it about all faiths and not just Christianity. ( Suddenly I question what I am achieving at work ) Infact listening to young people the religion they are the rudest about is Islam, interestingly the religion they show the most respect for tend to be Sikhism or sometimes Buddhism.

[BitOfFun]

Jesus teaches us how to turn the cheek and forgive those who trespass against us...

"Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father." [Matt. x, 33.]

"Whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness." [Mark iii, 29.]

"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee ... tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." [Matt. xviii, 15-17.]

Inconsistent, much?

[FAQtothefuture]

[alexpolismum]

pofacedandproud - the noun used to refer to the Holy Spirit in Greek is not masculine. It is neuter. I don't think this really makes much difference to the nature of God in the language. As with many languages that use genders with all nouns, there are some that you feel should be intrisically feminine for example, but which are neuter. For example, in modern Greek, the word 'koritsi' means 'girl', but it is neuter. It does not make the girl any less female. It's just the way grammar works. In the same way, the gender of the nouns used to refer to God/ the Holy Spirit etc does not necessarily mean automatically that God is to be seen as exclusively male or even neuter.

[BitOfFun]

[pofacedandproud]

good point alexpolis [bit rusty and doing it off top of my head] but still a shift away from 'ruach' The hebrew, feminine noun, and combined with 'theos' the greek masculine noun used for God, the female reference gets lost. I think it is pretty clear that the Christian God has historically been seen as exclusively male.