so because we're the catholic church, we should be allowed to discriminate

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

or we'll close our

adoption agencies

I'm quite happy to accept that I am a crap theologian. Care to point me in the direction of all the females in leadership positions that I missed there ?
Why exactly do we have a Commandment about coveting maidservants, but nothing comparable about men ?
Mary is very prominent, but she doesn't actually do anything does she ? She gets preganant, gives birth in a shed, fades out any maybe comes to see him die. Not exactly much of anything is it ?

Jesus had a woman in his entourage, but note that she wasn't given the "rank" of disciple. Hardly an equal oportunity employer was he ?

Whereas it is entirely silly to cast the main God character as a man, the Bible is very clear about using "he" and "him". At least it was until more politically correct less accurate translations were produced.

And as nod to the original topic of this thread, whereas there is a little mention that gay men aren't good, I don't recall anything about lesbians.

Erm, my earlier posts names a few women in the Bible DC.

May I ask who you bank with?

pmsl

mother of god - a bit part

DC-you border on being blasphemous,it's really very offensive.

Us catholics practically worship the everlasting virgin Mary!

Don't encourage him tirnanog.

[ruty takes in a deep breath] Okaaay. Where do I start.
First, the Holy Spirit is spoken about in the feminine in Hebrew. So God is both male and female. And human and divine.
I could point you in the direction of some theologians for you to read DC, but it would probably be like you asking me to read a computer programming manual.
As for Christ not giving women the 'rank' of disciple in the bible, that is arguable. Many theologians argue that Mary Magdalene [a prostitute] and Mary and Martha are all disciples. There are also 'lost' gospels [i.e. the church forefathers got rid of them] where a rather different version of christ and his discipleship might have been seen. The lost gospels of Thomas and Judas have recently come to light and have shown us other kinds of insights into Christ. There is believed to be a lost gospel of Mary Magdalene [I am not talking about the bloody Da Vince Code here]

I could go on and on but won't bore everyone. But your argument is a bit reductive and lacking in theological rigour DC.

oh tirnanog, get a sense of humour. I'm sure Jesus and him mum had one.

I have to strongly disagree with you DC. imo one of the big things that the Catholic Church has over the Anglicans is that Mary is some would argue THE iconic figure.

Obviously, Jesus did consider Mary Mag a disciple, if not a wife as some would have it (I'm pretty sure the black madonna cult in eastern europe is in fact Mary Magdalene rather than Jesus' mum).

rhubarb i must have really got your back up if you're calling me sweetie now!

Daaaarling! xxx

Sophable-I do have a sense of humour-I've been laughing away at some of your postings on this thread!

Actually you have made some very valid points[leaves thread]

Sophable I agree that the Marian tendency in the Catholic church is very strong, but it's basis in the Bible is not strong. She doesn't get much of the story.

Whereas the Holy spirit may be feminine/neutral, my point was that God the Father is quite expliclty male.

I have read some theology, though not for some years. I wasn't aware of the attempts to get Mary M promoted, but that is at considerable variance with traditional teaching. That of course doesn't make it wrong...

Would just like to clarify, that I'm not attempting to defend or justify the misogyny of the big religions. I find the idea that God cares about our genetalia as more than slightly odd, which of course is at variance with almost all mainstream Christianity. That's only a small reason why I rejected it many years ago.
Unlike many scientists I can reconcile a personal God with the world I observe. However the vast bulk of organised religion is what I recognise from economics and polsci as the exercise of power over the ignorant. I didn't like being categorised as a sheep.

I tend to think the worship of Mary has been bad for women by creating the utterly impossible ideal of the virgin mother. I prefer Jesus's friendships with the more realistic Marys.

Bless you! You have faith under all that don't you?

God is referred to as male that is true. But we were all created in his likeness and I doubt, as you say, that he separates us just because of our genitalia. Men have done that.

It has been and continues to be argued that the church is more feminine than male. There were certainly just as many women prophets as men, but not all their testimonies made it into the Bible. I think Jesus tried to address the issue when he came down to earth. Mary was given a great honour, as was her cousin Elizabeth, and indeed she has been crowned as Queen of Heaven.

Jesus had a very theological discussion with the woman at the well in Bethseda (I think, I don't have my Bible to hand, can't be bothered getting it).

It is not certain what part Mary M played in Jesus's life. She was NOT a prostitute however as widely thought. The Bible does not go into much detail about Mary. She is supposed to have written her own Testament but this is unconfirmed and it's source, unreliable.

The Mary and Martha story is tops! Jesus took a lot of time out to preach to her, he treated her very equally at a time when women simply didn't get into theological discussions, the most they were allowed to have an opinion about was the new technology in brooms.

And at the last supper there WERE women present.

[returns to thread,briefly]You are very knowledgebable regarding the Bible,Rhubarb-it is quite impressive!

No I'm not, I'm shit.

You need Bloss - she's the authority on the Bible and does quotes and everything!

Jerome [347 ? 420] is best known as the translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. Jerome's edition, the Vulgate, is still an important biblical text of the Roman Catholic Church. He is recognized by the Vatican as a Doctor of the Church. So a pretty orthodox and early theologian.

In Jerome's commentary on Isiah 11, he writes

'In the Gospel of the Hebrews that the Nazarenes read it says, "Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me." Now no one should be offended by this, because "spirit" in Hebrew is feminine, while in our language [Latin] it is masculine and in Greek it is neuter. In divinity, however, there is no gender.'

Funny how that bit seems to have been glossed over...

why is it so important that MM was not a prostitute? Oh, forget it, I'm not going to argue.
But Bloss's interpretation of the Bible is very fundamentalist and i do not agree with it at all.

And DC God is a God of the Holy Trinity. That encapsulates God the Father, God the mother, and God the child/human being.

Not that important ruty, just a common misconception. Mary M might have been a sinner but it didn't mean that she was a lady of the night!

Shall I tell them how the whole prostitute saga started or shall I keep schtum?

I know Rhubarb, it is supposed to be a confusion of a few different characters. But the reason I like Caravaggio's paintings so much, is that he uses pretty worldy and rough looking criminal types as his models in biblical pictures. I like to think of all the disciples as dodgy types.

In the context of the time, Mary Magdalane may not have been a prostitute, but she was a loose woman, by the standard of the time, where a woman who had sex without the permission of her male owner could die for the sin.

Religious societies invariably have women as chattles, confined to the mother/wife/virgin daughter scenario. Indeed, from what I've read some scholars believe that the "virgin" bit of Virgin Mary is simply from the assumption in many languages that an unmarried woman has to be one.
Thus Mary M was not following an apporved path for women, which supports the idea Jesus as a bit of a social liberal (unlike his church).

Of course I'm contradicting what I said earlier
There are several "Jesus"es to be found, varying from social liberal to someone who makes Ratzinger look like Gandhi. Objectively we can't even be all that sure that he existed, and the records are "intrepreted" copies of anecdotes, there being a strange silence in the roman records of the time.

How do you know she was a prozzy DC?

It doesn't mention it in the Bible, it just says she was a sinner. Of course there were women Jesus knew who slept with other men, such as the woman at the well with whom he had such a theological conversation. He didn't judge her, but he did ask her to go home to her husband and not to sin again. He also stopped the stoning of a woman accused of adultery.

The Bible does not state Mary M's marital status, the whole prozzy comment was made accidentally by a catholic priest whilst on the pulpit. As Ruty says it was a confusion with other women characters. The church later gave a statement to say that there was no evidence to suggest Mary M was a prozzy (not exact words you understand). But the legend prevailed.