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#1 02-04-09 8:30 pm

elaine
Member
Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 1,391

Women in Religion

Have you ever wondered why all well known religions are strictly run and administered by men?  Even when women comprise half of the world&#39;s population, yet are second class citizens not only in many work situations but always in the religious world. <BR> <BR>In the ancient past, women were high priesteses.  This was quite standard throughout the Near East in the centuries when goddesses such as Astarte, Isis, and Istar reigned supreme.  In fact, for maniy peoples, god WAS a woman <BR> <BR>A goddess was worshiped for her fertility and also revered a the wise creator and source of universal order.  At this time, women bought and sold property and traded in the marketplace, and the inheritance of title and property was passed from mother to daughter. <BR> <BR>What happened?  How did men take over religion?  Take over everything? <BR> <BR>Clues are in the Old Testament; and the answer has to do with the battle between Hebrew monotheism and Israelites&#39; lapses into pagan worship of &#34;false gods and goddesses.&#34;  Particularly the goddess Ashtoreth, a Queen of Heaven to the Canaanites, and her male consort, Baal.  The Canaanaites had a flourishing civilization in Palestine and southern Syria in the second millennium B.C.  But the Old Testament supporters of monotheism were highly critical of the Canaanites&#39; &#34;corrupt religion.&#34; <BR> <BR>Harsh references to the Israelites worshiping Ashtoreth &#40;also called Asherah&#41; are in Judges and Samuel: <BR> <BR>Judges 2:13, Judges 3:7; 1 Samuel 7:3,4. <BR> <BR>The time frame for Judges and Samuel is about the eleventh century B.C. and it is here in Hebrew Scriptures that men, particularly Levite priests, destroyed the worship of goddesses and restricted the role of women as priests.  With this came the final destruction of the matrilineal system, and the subsequent triumph of monotheism of a single male God, and of the all-male priesthood. <BR> <BR>The popular Hebrew word for God, <i>Elohim </i>, which appears more than 2,000 times in reference to the God of Israel, is plural and translates in its oldest usage as god.&#34;   <BR> <BR>The singular, <i>eloha </i>, is relatively rare in the Bible outside of Job.  In the Near East, the plural <i>elohim</i> was used to address pagan gods, a single god, and also female deities. <BR>Hebrew priests portrayed goddesses as wanton, depraved, and pagan, and took control of religion. <BR> <BR>Men masterminded a takeover, stripping women of power and blaming them for everything bad that occurs in the woman &#40;through Eve&#39;s deception by the serpent&#41; and made the initiation into their all-male club the rite of circumcision, which made man&#39;s snatch away of the reins of religion from the goddess, and thus claim the divine right the goodess&#39;s home turf. <BR> <BR>Even today, many Jewish men pray &#34;Blessed ar Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not mae me a woman.&#34; <BR> <BR>Paul blamed woman for the Fall &#40; 1 Tim. 2:11-15&#41;. and in his letter to the Ephesians women are told to submit to their husbands.  The further denigration of women was reinforced by many of the early church fathers: <BR> <BR>&#34;The woman taught once and ruined everything.  On this account....let her not teach&#34; &#40;St. John Chrysostom, 5th century A.D.&#41;. <BR> <BR>Augustine said &#34;Whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the tempress that we must beware of in any woman.&#34;  He seems clearly puzzled that God should have made the female sex:  after all, &#34;if it was good company and conversation that Adam needed, it would have been much better arranged to have two men together as friends, not a man and a woman.&#34;  Woman&#39;s only function was childbearing. <BR> <BR>Tertullian was even stronger and visceral:  &#34;Do you not know that you are each an Eve?  The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age:  the guilt must of necessity live too.  <i>You</i> are the devil&#39;s gateway; <i>you </i> are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; <i>you </i> are the first deserter of the divine law; <i>you </i>are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.  <i>You</i> so carelessly destroyed man, God&#39;s image.  On account of <i>your </i> desert, even the Son of God had to die.&#34; <BR> <BR>This is the Christian heritage passed down to women and is still alive and thriving.  Is it any wonder that women have kept Christianity alive by passing it along to their children and are still the larger group in most churches.

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