Perhaps this has been asked before, but I was wondering: Why wasn’t Jesus born as a woman? A possible explanation could be that men were more respected in that time, but being the child of God, you would think either sex would have had the ability to convince people of his/her cause and gain respect. Was it just random chance? Any one have an explanation here?
Women had no power in Bible times, and therefore a female Messiah would not have had the ability to convince people of Her cause and gain respect. She would have been a non-person to begin with, solely by virtue of her possessing the wrong set of gonads, and she would have been ignored at best, locked up at worst.
A man could divorce his wife just by saying to his wife, “I divorce you”. That’s not a society that’s going to pay much attention to a female walking around preaching, “Repent…”
I passed this along to my girlfriend, Anal’s Curvy, who just shook her head and said, “I hate this debate.” Then she bitched about her women’s studies classes, praised Tori Amos, and finished with, “Jesus was a woman.”
Scary.
“Why wasn’t Jesus a woman?” Probably had something to do with the genitalia;) In any case, it’s essentially what DDG said … the society was patriarchal, and as such few women, if any, had power, and probably (certainly?) not the sort of power it would take to cause the uprising and general stir that this individual is credited with causing. And if that individual can’t cause a stir, s/he can’t very well cause enough trouble to warrant public execution.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Under Jewish law, a bill of divorce has to be written up (which is a fairly exacting document with strict rules). In addition, if a man divorced his wife, he had to pay her the sum stipulated in her kesubah (marriage contract), which (at a minimum of 100 shkalim) was not a small amount.
Zev Steinhardt
Society’s patriarchical bent probably had something to do with it.
But also keep in mind that it wasn’t until very modern times that (most) women had enough spare time to go out and wander the world as Jesus did; between childbirth and raising and those things that needed doing around the home/farm/fields/what have you…
Biblical woman was probably pretty busy. Even Mary’s sister reprimands her for “wasting time” talking to Jesus rather than caring for her chores.
[off-topic]What I want to know is why the families of the Apostles didn’t protest that the men were failing their part of keeping up the chores. Maybe they did; it’s been a while since I read the Gospels[/off-topic]
Something about chromosomes…
Everyone knows God is a man and Jesus is the incarnation of Him. :rolleyes:
male answer syndrome. Guys probably need creation stories more than women. In the realm of birth women do and men talk. Expand that out to social structures men will be supporting the structure/religion. So who else would God chose to perpetuate stories than a man since man is the one who needs the stories. I guess a God who doesn’t use words doesn’t bother with male prophets.
Sure…As long as you’re assuming that Jesus was actually the child of god. If you don’t (and I definitely don’t), this counter-argument has no value.
So, I’d personnally just stick with the easy explanation. The supposed founder of the christian religion was a man plainly because most probably no woman could have managed to get enough attention at these time and place to reach a similar religious status.
For the exact same reason, Moses and Mohammed “hapenned” to be men too…Random chance, really?
Oh but** Jesus** was a woman.
Jesus was and is the personification of the female spirit that was born of the family unit and , through Jesus, moved into the greater community of man - World Culture.
Jesus brought but one message and that message was Love.
And up until recently the female of our kind embodied this sacred creed most perfectly.
Jesus may have indeed been a woman, or half woman.
I bewieve in earwy Jewish twadition Jesus is specuwated to have been the offspwing of a woman soldier named Pantera.
I mean, Pantewa.
Err, that would be ‘BBC speculation’. I too saw the special, and was singularily unimpressed, especially when they get all excited about finding the grave of a soldier with a name similiar to Pantera over in Germania. But that’s another thread.
There was already a Great Debates thread on this same topic last year.
What if Jesus had been a girl?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=195437
Simple. There is no evidence that I can recall that the disciples were married. (I think you meant disciples not apostles). After all, even today, students choose to study at remote colleges to avoid maternally directed domestic chores.
I can’;t remember ever having chores when I was a single man. When I was a boy my mother gave me chores. Now my wife gives me chores.
If Jesus was a woman, we’d have threads asking why Jesus wasn’t a man. Even God can’t win.
If you’re talking about 11 of the 12, they fit under both the title Apostle or Disciple.
Peter, at least, did have a mother-in-law, (Matthew 8) - which implies a marriage (whether the wife was still around is not clear.)
I think Reeder’s on to something here.
Being born of an earthly mother, with no biological father, Jesus would have lacked a Y-chromosome. Ergo, Jesus could not have been a man.
If He’d been a She, I would’ve posted a thread: Why wasn’t Jesus a Guy?
Maybe the Hebrew word for Messiah is a masculine noun? (Does Hebrew have gendered nouns?
On a purely hypothetical level it would’ve been really interesting to have God send a female Messiah.
Since Jesus is, according to Christians at least, the Son of God and God Himself, chromosomes would not be a real problem.