Literary theory and the Bible using feminist theory. The bible speaks about women not what most of them (especially the feminists) nowadays want to hear. The bible openly shows that women are somewhat inferior to men and are supposed to assume subservient position, which nowadays raises many questions and debates. In the following essay I am going to speak about what the bible said about women. I will try to use the direct quotes and examples from the bible to corroborate any thoughts about what the bible says about women. I will present various educated findings in the following essay, too.
I would love to start by saying that although there are numerous discriminatory and derogatory statements against women in the Bible, the letter of apostle Paul to the church of Corinth seems to comprise the greatest amount of rebukes, anger and repudiation towards females. Paul advices his friends in Corinth not to allow women to have much freedoms or to remain active in church. Some of Pauls statements certainly can nowadays be interpreted as harassing and illegal, yet one should be aware that these statements existed. We see that the Bible states that men and women have different roles and status in relationship to the church and even the chain of command leading to God: But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 11:3 Here is clearly stated the chain of status all the way to God. God is the head of Christ.
The Essay on Milton's Paradise Lost And His Justification Of The Ways Of God To Man
When John Milton decided to write, he knew from the start he wanted his creation to be that of an epic. Paradise Lost is just that. It is Milton’s own take on the biblical story of Satan’s fall from grace as well as man’s fall. Milton was not only armed with an extensive knowledge on the Bible, but in everything a man of his time could learn. With his wisdom he emersed himself ...
Christ is the head of the man and the man is the head of the woman. Herein is the explanation of why women do not have a role teaching in church as well as no other role which is higher than a man. The body does not teach the head. The subject does not lecture the king. Such statement certainly means that men should assume all governing positions and women should only be used as facilitators to make the work of men easy and productive. Certainly, this biblical statement is not what the feminists want to hear and therefore, they usually abandon this letter to Corinthians.
Some of the feminists state that whatever was said about the mens dominance was said for the people of Corinth alone and only for the time being of Paul who wrote this letter. In other words, it is believed that if God wanted us to discriminate against females, there would not be a statement that all men were created in the image of god and are equal. Because equality can be easily understood and applied to society, that is the notion that people should consider of the prime importance. Because if we take into account that everything which is said in the bible is true (thus equality is true for all) we should continue with the pursuit of equality (Fiorenza, 134).
If the discriminatory statements of Paul were not meant specifically for the church of Corinth, where could have been a reverse discrimination against men, then they would be contradicting the statement on equality as also mentioned several times in the bible (Fiorenza, 135).
And because the Bible cannot be contradictory to itself, the Pauls statement was indeed meant for his period of time and indeed women of nowadays should demand the respect from men.
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 1 Corinthians 11:7-9 The chain of status or command is consistent and this is certainly against the equality between a man and a wife. Where is there room for a female pastor, when the woman is in subjection to the man and is to keep silent in church? It goes on to say that woman was specifically made for man. Man was not made for woman (Metzger, 809).
The Essay on Life Women Men Aphrodite Gods
Is femininity in mythology? Yes because there is a division between men and women in mythology. Biology tells us that we are two different people. Men and women see the world in different ways. Women are passive, intuitive, submissive, and subjective. Women value love, communication, beauty, and relationships. Men are aggressive, rational, dominant, and objective and they value power, competency, ...
Since this hearkens back to the very beginning, there is no room for change, modern thinking or enlightenment to modify it. Eve transgressed, and women are always in subjection to their husbands. Note the last phrase. If a woman does not follow the role spelled out here, she is blaspheming the word of God. The role for older women according to other biblical verses is to teach the younger women their proper role. What is the role of the younger women? To keep house! To be obedient to their own husbands and to be chaste.
A female pastor is blaspheming as soon as she takes the job! Any women who leaves her house-keeping, homemaking role to go into the workplace, and fails to be with her children and submit to her husband is committing blasphemy (Callaway, 25).
The feminists state that there should be equality between men and women and such statement appears to be rather fair and reasonable. Yet if we were to look in the bible, the letter to Corinthians, we would see that although, this may sound unfair, yet it is stated clearly that women were created for men and not vice versa. In other words, the feminists do not argue that the original bible did not have statements against women, yet they rather stress that because everybody is sinful in the eyes of God and no one is without a blemish, women were also discriminated against in the scriptures. It is a well known fact that God themselves, did not write the bible but rather used the male prophets to do the work. Being men, the prophets were just like everybody else on the face of the earth sinful and thus could not accurately write what the God meant (Fiorenza, 138).
Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous, scatological, male war god (Vuuren, 29).
One should not forget that the major feminists do not question the validity of the statements put in the Holy bible yet rather try to persuade everybody that the statements that were written about the inferiority of women were written for specific audience at the time the bible was written. Also one should remember that it was the feminist movement that pointed out the idea that the modern society cannot be governed by some book written more than 2000 years ago. In conclusion I would like to say that overall the Bible does not give women more rights than men and therefore discriminates against them as it was shown in the quotes above. Even though I personally do not agree with the discriminatory issues that women still face nowadays, this is at least what the Holy bible hints : woman is not as important as a man, is inferior to him and should assume secondary subservient role. The feminists, on the other hand, pointed out to the fact that all people were created equal, and should the discriminatory statement against women in the Bible were not meant for a specific audience that died a few thousand years ago, then the Holy Book would be contradicting its own constituent parts. Another thing, that was supported by the feminists is that the book written more than 2000 years ago should not serve as an important and updated guide to life to the person of the XXI century. References: The Holy Bible B.M.
The Essay on Role Of Women Society Feminists Men
Different authors have different approaches to the same issue. In this paper I will contrast and compare how the authors Alexis De Tocqueville, Holly Dover, and Christina Hoff Sommers, tackle the myth of the role of women in society and what the role of women should be according to them. De Tocqueville De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who came to America to study the American penal system. ...
Metzger & M.D. Coogan, “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, (1993), P. 806 to 818 M.C. Callaway, “Women in the Old Testament”, a chapter in M. Smith & R.J. Hoffmann, “What the Bible Really Says”, Harper San Francisco, CA, (1999), P. 20 to 105. Karen Armstrong, “The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity’s creation of the sex war in the west,” Elm Tree Books, (1986) Pages 52 to 67. Nancy van Vuuren, “The Subversion of Women as Practiced by Churches, Witch-Hunters, and Other Sexists,” Westminister Press, Pages 28 to 30.
H. Ellerbe, “The Dark Side of Christian History,” Chapter 8, Endnote 103, Page 136 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation, Prentice Hall, 2001..
