You are an endless font of uniqueness - but this is a peak even for you. By this, women have no reason to be christians - and Jesus’s sacrifice has no influence on women one way or the other. And presumably, either all women go to heaven regardless of what they do, or all women go to hell because all sin sometime - with no middle ground, beucase there is no savior for women who can separate the wheat from the chaff.
Assuming I took this even slightly seriously, I’d say that “irrevocably broken” is an excellent descritption of this gender-limited interpretation of scripture. Though if you’re a woman and inclined to party and sin it would be might conveneint - there’s no reason whatsoever for a woman not to behave in a completely heinous manner under this theology!
Obviously, if you DON’T believe Jesus was divine, this is all a moot point.
But if you DO? Well, I don’t buy the suggestion that God HAD to make Jesus male on the grounds that people just wouldn’t have listened to a woman with the same message and the same powers.
Believing that ANY human being is divine would be extremely difficult for most people. It was no easier for Peter, James, John and the Gang to buy that a humble carpenter from Nazareth was the Son of God than it would have been to believe in a woman.
Many, maybe MOST of the people who heard Jesus speak thought he was a lunatic or a charlatan. Only a few saw some kind of divine spark and followed him. Presumably, only a few would have seen that same spark in a woman. And if they had? They’d have seen the same miracles the male Jesus performed, they’d have been equally awed, and they’d have become convinced that, crazy as it seemed, they were in the presence of God.
It’s no easier to believe that a MAN could resurrect the dead Lazarus than that a woman could. It’s no easier to believe that a MAN could cure the blind and the lame than that a woman could. And it’s no easier to believe that a MAN you saw executed could come back to life on the third day than that a woman could.
If followers had seen a woman do such things, they’d have been just as awed, and just as convinced that their teacher was no ordinary human being. And they’d have been just as inspired to run out and tell the world about it.
The idea that God “couldn’t” have sent a female Messiah due to the sexism of the times seems silly to me. God wouldn’t feel any compulsion to abide by temporal human customs. And since Jesus himself was CONSTANTLY challenging his followers’ assumptions about God and the world, it seems silly to suggest that he wouldn’t have dared to shake up their notions of gender roles.
As Chesterton noted, people who are unable or unwilling to challenge the mores of their times do NOT end up nailed to crosses!
An excellent point, but Jesus was such a paradigm-shifting leader in so many other ways, having a Queen and not a King of Heaven wouldn’t be too big a conceptual leap, I think. If you posit an omnipotent God determined to see her succeed in her 33-some years on the planet, why couldn’t He have made Jesus Christine especially charismatic and persuasive? I know, I know, free will, but with so many miracles already to her credit, a divine woman in a patriarchal time nevertheless could open doors and be listened to, and followed by, even the most chauvinistic of men.
As to what effect it would have on later human society, assuming that Christianity took root, developed and spread as it did in our own world, women would’ve probably been far more valued and respected than they otherwise were. Then again, many Catholics who venerate the Virgin Mary are still just as adamant that women can never become priests, so I don’t know.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a daughter is given, and the government shall be upon Her shoulder; and Her name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Mother, the Princess of Peace.” - Isaiah 9:6 (as revised)
And, to repat an earlier point, it does NOT follow that belief in a female deity leads to equality or respect for flesh-and-bloos mortal women.
The men of Athens worshipped the goddess Athena, and named their city after her. Did that translate into respect or equality for real women? No!
It would be wrong to expect a female Jesus to do much more for earthly women’s equality than Athena or Isis or Freya did for Greek, Egyptian or Viking women.
Nothing about Jesus being a woman implies God is a woman. And a Jesus Christene that claimed to follow a female god would be viewed as referring to a different god, or blaspheming pretty hard about the Abrahamic one, and would not have fared well in either case - entirely independent of her own status as a female.
Well, that would lead us into a discussion of the nature of the Holy Trinity, which is probably, er, definitely beyond the scope of this thread. The Isaiah rewording was just a lark.