Do you think Christianity would ever had existed if Mary had given birth to a girl instead of a boy? Would Jesus have had the opportunity to preach and gather a following, or would they have expected her to be a dutiful wife and mother? Even if she could have gotten her ideas across, would enough people have taken her seriously? And even if Christianity did take hold, how would the history of the Church (and the world) have been different?
Well…being the daughter of God one might suppose she would have found a way.
However, in that day and age it certainly would have been a tougher sell for a woman than a man. Even if she did manage to hang in there long enough to get her message out it is doubtful as many people would have followed her simply because she was female.
Even today societies are male dominated…back then that was even more true. Occasionally a woman made a splash on the political scene but on the whole it was rare. When talking about forming an entirely new religion God’s daughter would have had a much harder go of it (but I still can’t shake the feeling that being God’s daughter would mean she couldn’t fail).
You have to remember, the ignorant, superstitious clods who were around at the time Islam, Judaism and Christianity were founded were a bunch of sexist pig dogs. If Jesus had been a girl, she’d have been raped and/or stoned to death or something along those lines in short order, without any followers to tell her story.
A culture as patriarchal as 1st Century Palestine would never have accepted a woman as a religious authority.
I suppose a few genuine miracles would have gotten some attention if we’re talking about a real divine incarnation and not a mythologized human.
I’m with DtC on this one.
Even a casual reading of the Gosples shows a rather sexist attitude on the part of 1st century Middle Easterners. Even going beyond the Patriarchal system of earlier centuries.
I’m not even sure that authentic miracles would’ve helped. According to The Law, “Thou must not suffer a witch to live.”
Sure, there were a few female prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures (Deborah comes to mind), but, by and large, it was like a James Brown song. IOW: It’s A Man’s World.
Never mind 2,000 years ago. If Jesus showed up as a female today, I doubt that she would be taken seriously, especially by the church and Christianity.
Wouldnt make any difference, and in heaven, “there is neither male nor female”. What sex anyone is, is irrelevent to Christianity.
Christianity is interested in your soul and your heart, not your genetalia. Jesus as a male was still a pretty radical fellow, and out of the ordinary.
I dont think anything would have been different if Jesus was a girl. She still would have been disliked, dispised, ignored, mocked, persecuted, tortured, and crucified by many people at the end anyways.
There have been many instances in old times where countries have been ruled by females, by queens, or where leaders have been female like Joan of Arc. Any truely great person, is followed, regardless of what kind of “plumbing” she or he has, Queen of Sheeba, Queen Elizabeth, Catherine the Great, etc.
God is most likely a combination of the male and female, he is complete, and is not limited to what we consider to be “male” limitations, God doesnt need a Mrs. God to make him “one”.
All things considered, I think she would have had a tougher time with disciples, and gotten crucified a helluva lot quicker.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus was not loved by all, and that he did not have a good time at his crucificxion even though he had male organs.
I also seriously doubt that Hitler would have been less loved by germans if she was female, or less despised by jews if she was female.
The point is, that once you are notorious, or a god, or a ruler, what particular sex organ you may happen to have been born with is most irrelevent.
http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=201262&messageid=1055239795
Go here for an interesting & VERY controversial take of what Jesus may well have endured.
I wish Jesus had come down in a female body. God needs to know how it feels to suffer from cramps every month.
I think the OP is a very interesting question and should bring us into face to face confrontation with the inequality of women ever since patriarchy was established. I have very serious problems with that. It’s true that Deborah was an Old Testament prophetess, and the medieval Spanish Arab scholar ‘Alî ibn Hazm argued that women can be prophetesses in Islam, too, and Mary the mother of Jesus is considered a prophetess by some Muslims (no one has ever made a cogent argument that women cannot be prophets, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence)—see Mary the Blessed Virgin of Islam by Aliah Schleifer.
Being a mystical feminist, the idea of a woman Messiah has a very strong appeal for me, and the near impossibility of contemplating anyone actually pulling that off in 1st century Palestine fills me with sorrow.
I see human history as having moved beyond the period where prophets and messiahs can actually come into being, so I don’t hold any hope for a woman Messiah appearing in the foreseeable future, much as I would enjoy a treatment of that theme in good fantasy and science fiction literature.
I hesitate to project the nonsense doctrines of modern fundamentalists backward to the originators of the religions. I see the originators, in their time and place, as trying to help human beings to understand their place in existence better and to reform social injustice. Even though I don’t subscribe to, for example, Christianity, I don’t think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater and vilify all religion just because some representatives of religions suck. I can see the good side in them as well as the bad side. To vilify all religions as evil is in its way just as unthinking and rigid as the fundamentalist mindset. Although I like reading EvilCaptor’s leftist political thoughts, and then to agree with him on politics, I was really offended by the way he excoriated Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, who by all accounts were good men who helped the people around them.
Especially, Jesus and Muhammad (I don’t know about Moses) were noted for being kind to women. For example, Jesus was gentle toward the woman taken in adultery and he was especially nice to Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. Muhammad also established women’s rights and equality in Islamic law and theology, and was never cruel toward women; in fact, he was so nice to his wives that the Arabs around him thought he was being dominated by his wives, and they couldn’t understand that.
The way I understand it, Jesus and Muhammad were decent, conscientious human beings trying to work within a patriarchal system. They wanted to reform the situation to improve women’s rights, but were up against an entrenched, very intransigent bloc of male chauvinists. They preached or showed by example how to treat women as equals, but after they were gone their successors reimposed harsh strictures denying women their rights.
Thus the religions that were founded in their names became known for intransigent male chauvinism, but the chauvinism came not from the orignators but from their successors. Consider that very early Christianity was known for attracting women converts; it was not considered a manly thing by the male chauninist Romans. Also, the very first convert to Islam was a woman, Khadîjah. Jesus and Muhammad wanted to, but could not, reform patriarchal attitudes against women. There was an old saying quoted by Isaac Asimov in one of his novels: “Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain.”
I assume that you also cant explain why the king of France would ever turn over his entire army to a little uneducated 15 year old peasant girl with no military training?
I am guessing that you could not have foreseen this also(before it happened ) if you were living in France at the time?
Joan of Arc.
It happened.
Joan of Arc was how many years after Christ?
Yeah and then the King of France abandoned her to be burned for wearing men’s clothing (the only charge they could actually pin her down on). Doesn’t exactly sound like an end victory for proto-feminism.
The King of France used Joan of Arc in the most literal sense, because he had no other person who could inspire his demoralized armies, let alone give them any sort of victory. In short, he had nothing left to lose. Then, when he didn’t need her, Charles did everything except execute Joan personally to remove her.
I like the way Bill Engval puts it: “What if Babe Ruth had been the Messiah? We’d all get shitfaced on Sundays”
I don’t believe I attacked those three personally. I was more attacking the people and cultures they lived among. I mean, they used to scourge women for things like adultery, which iirc involves havingt a red-hot poker shoved up their vaginas. And slavery – I remember some Biblical times apologists saying slavery wasn’t all that bad in the ancient world. Bullshit. Because I also remember archaeologists finding the remains of young women from Roman times and knowing they were slaves because their skeletons showed their limbs had been disfigured by having to carry extremely heavy loads at a young age.
Execution, torture, slavery – sorry, I know the people of the ancient world would probably work out just fine if they could be raised from birth in a modern Western society, but Jeebus, the way they lived sure did suck. And even if Jesus personally was a pip when it comes to women (and why were all his disciples male?) his followers most certainly were not, in fact, Paul undoubtedly belonged in a fucking loony bin.
That’s pretty much what I meant, EvilCaptor. Jesus and Muhammad lived in sucky circumstances. They tried to ameliorate the harsh conditions for folks the best they could, but the system was too intransigent to change much. What does anyone expect: they would just wave magic wands and instantly transform human nature for the better? At least they set a good example.
Good point, except at the beginning, I dont think anyone knew how the troops would react to being put under command of a 15 year old peasant girl. Certainly the upper brass, the generals, and such, would not have liked it, and must have been jealous. I just cant see any modern day president or ruler, giving control of his army to a 15 year old untrained peasant girl. I dont think the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States would take to kindly to it.
Evil Captor-do you have a cite for women being ravaged with hot pokers? It’s not that I don’t believe it, but that’s pretty out there.