# What if Jesus was female?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 22, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611 "2009-06-22T17:11:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@lurking\_guest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurking_guest)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/21 "2009-06-23T04:41:15Z")
rrect.
No woman, in the time of Christ, would ever have been “heard.”
If “God” were going to send some “Messenger” to Humanity at that time and in that Culture…it certainly could NOT have been a women.
‘She’ would NEVER have been heard.
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### Author:  [@Sacrilegium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sacrilegium)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/22 "2009-06-23T04:42:09Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#):
>
> Biblical writing refer to god as a man, but does anyone imagine God with testicles ?
Well, that classic pic of FSM with the meatballs does kinda look like it…
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### Author:  [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/23 "2009-06-23T06:03:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Kali…
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…I just flashed back to the part in Temple of Doom where the priest rips the heart out of the sacrifice victim.
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/24 "2009-06-23T06:11:38Z")
I’m pretty sure that God has a micropenis. It’s the only explanation for his rage.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/25 "2009-06-23T06:38:40Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> It certainly hasn’t escaped the notice of many throughout the centuries, both pro- and anti-Christian, that the religion is much more amenable to female modes of thought than any of the major competitors. That can certainly explain why women have always played a much larger role in shaping Christian thought than that of Judaism or Islam, for instance. Hence, I’m not sure how the hypothetical female Jesus could have made Christianity all that much more female.
I don’t believe your argument follows. Being the most amenable does not preclude being more amenable still further; being superior to others does not mean ultimate superiority. I can think of several ways the hypothetical female Jesus could have made Christianity “all that much more female”; a wider acceptance of female priests, at all ranks; a greater call, made earlier, for gender equality, both within and without the church; and, if nothing else, supplying another female role model for Christians to follow. I’m surprised none of the pro- or anti-Christians you cite have thought of these ideas.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/26 "2009-06-23T06:52:09Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#):
>
> Similarly, given Jesus was ghostly sired by the Holy Ghost, is it not possible he lacks the genetic heritage that would ascribe testicles to Him.
>
> Has Jesus ever proved his manhood by fathering a child ?
Oh God, here comes Dan Brown. RUN AWAY ! 😛
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/27 "2009-06-23T11:02:27Z")
Hey wouldn’t that make Mary Magdalene a lesbian? Alright!
Maybe Mary was really the directing genius behind the whole thing.
Mary; “you’re not just a teacher Jesus you’re the son of God, the Messiah”
JC; " Really Mary? Are you sure?"
Mary; “Oh yeah baby, I’m sure. Just listen to me”
She was after all, the first one to claim " He is risen"
Maybe Christianity was started by a con woman who manipulated some love sick Rabbi 2000+ years ago.
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### Author:  [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/28 "2009-06-23T11:04:41Z")
[quote=“The\_Flying\_Dutchman, post:19, topic:500611”]
Biblical writing refer to god as a man, but does anyone imagine God with testicles ?
QUOTE]
And the heavens parted to reveal the scrotum of the LORD. And he did place his sack upon the earth and the doubtfull were smothered in skin and ballsweat. Verily the LORD did teabag the promised land and silenced those who doubted his manhood.
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### Author:  [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/29 "2009-06-23T11:11:11Z")
Jeez, you guys don’t know anything. God is female and Jesus was black[!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120655/)
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/30 "2009-06-23T11:19:23Z")
> [@orcenio](#):
>
> Jeez, you guys don’t know anything. God is female and Jesus was black[!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120655/)
Jesus wasn’t black. He just had a black apostle who was written out of the Bible. And God loves shuffleboard.
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### Author:  [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/31 "2009-06-23T11:32:16Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Jesus wasn’t black. He just had a black apostle who was written out of the Bible. And God loves shuffleboard.
Bah! White folks only want to hear the good s **t: life eternal, a place in God’s Heaven. But as soon as they hear they’re getting this good s** t from a black Jesus, they freak. And that, my friends, is called hypocrisy. A black man can steal your stereo, but he can’t be your Savior.
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### Author:  [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/32 "2009-06-23T12:17:10Z")
A woman would just entice a man to spread her message, I would think.
Kind of like Mary of Magdelene actually did.
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/33 "2009-06-23T12:23:55Z")
I think they wouldn’t consider a female because the story was written by a man and man considered himself to be God. Just as the psalmist said.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/34 "2009-06-23T13:42:52Z")
If Jesus came back as a female today, many religious would not alone her to be a head of their churches.
And that is a goddamn shame.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/35 "2009-06-23T15:04:10Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Hey wouldn’t that make Mary Magdalene a lesbian? Alright!
>
> Maybe Mary was really the directing genius behind the whole thing.
>
> Mary; “you’re not just a teacher Jesus you’re the son of God, the Messiah”
>
> JC; " Really Mary? Are you sure?"
>
> Mary; “Oh yeah baby, I’m sure. Just listen to me”
> She was after all, the first one to claim " He is risen"
>
> Maybe Christianity was started by a con woman who manipulated some love sick Rabbi 2000+ years ago.
Mary Macbeth!
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/36 "2009-06-23T18:01:45Z")
> [@Latro](#):
>
> A woman would just entice a man to spread her message…
Oooh, that is so hot.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/37 "2009-06-23T20:26:18Z")
> [@Sacrilegium](#):
>
> So what do you think? Would Christianity have flourished via Jessica Christ? How would Christianity - and history - have been different if Christ was female?
Jesus being female would have changed things a lot, almost to the point of unraveling the space time continuum, thought I’m sure God could handle that one.
God does live through the body of Christ, both brothers and sisters and mothers in the Lord (there is only one Father).
One reason is that man is the one who got the death sentence “'until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen 3:19b) for the sin of Adam, which is willful disobedience. Woman got a sentence that basically had to do with reproduction, no death sentence, for being deceived (1Tim 2:14) (basically placing restrictions on her to keep her on the correct path).
Because man (not woman) willing disobeyed man (not woman) has ‘become like God’ (Gen 3:22).
Because of this Jesus had to die as a man, as only man is required to die (what this I believe is only (unsaved) man will enter Sheol upon death). It was a willing act of obedience to God to undo the willing act of disobedience of Adam.
A female Jesus doesn’t work on so many more levels to the point that if Jesus was female the scriptures would be IMHO irrevocably broken, therefore totally useless, the ‘Christianity’ that would be build on that would be of man and not God.
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### Author:  [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/38 "2009-06-23T23:22:28Z")
If you take the NT as written (I don’t - I think it has some reality somewhere but lost under symbolism, like King Arthur) then no way could a woman of that time and place have gone on the road or spoken in a synagogue (remember St. Paul telling female converts not to _speak in tongues_ in synagogue?) or been listened to . She would have been married off before 14, maybe befor epuberty, and probably lived little different from a modern Saudi. Roman and Egyptian women were much freer but Greeks were not and their was the foreign influence in the East.
If you look at hereticised sects though, you will find Mary Magdalene given extremely high status as the _real_ ‘beloved apostle’ and the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) given equal status as the feminine counterpart of the Christ, though never incarnated on Earth. At the same time, wanting to create without a male partner is ultimately the reason for the abortion we call ‘creation’.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/39 "2009-06-24T16:53:17Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Jesus wasn’t black. He just had a black apostle who was written out of the Bible. And God loves shuffleboard.
Skeeball, not shuffleboard, SKEEBALL!!
I HATE Kevin Smith, and even I know that!
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-jesus-was-female/500611/40 "2009-06-24T21:38:43Z")
> [@statsman1982](#):
>
> All of these religions’ sacred texts clearly put women below men in the temporal pecking order (see, e.g., Paul’s letters to the apostles in the NT) … Simply put, Jesus wasn’t a female because we couldn’t allow him to be. It would turn things topsy-turvy.
I’m not sure I’d go quite that far – couldn’t the pecking order be preserved by a female Jesus who just never stopped yammering about her Father? _“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me,”_ she’d say, sure as _“the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.”_ And then she’d talk about what’s to come: _“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Daughter, but only the Father.”_ Also, of course: _“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”_ She’d then die on the cross – as per letting not her will, but His will, be done – after praying to Our Father Who Art In Heaven.
Couldn’t that stuff have been emphasized in countless sermons? Possibly by Englishmen who had no problem with a King’s daughter ascending to the throne so long as all the other women are second-class citizens?
I mean, yes, granted, there’s no way she gets taken half as seriously as Jesus back in the day. But is it so impossible for a sexist (a) to make one exception, for a woman (b) who reveres an explicitly greater male?
_“Truly, truly I say to you the daughter can do nothing of herself…”_
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