I second what Sonia says.
Most of what Jesus taught is un-workable rhetoric and some, like his no divorce rule for women is downright anti-love.
Is it - the divorce rule was meant for men not for women. In the laws of Moses a man can divorce his wife by issuing a certificate of divorce - but a woman cannot divorce her husband; there is no provision for this.
IN one school of Pharisaic Judaism, a man could divorce his loyal wife who had borne him children on grounds that she was no longer pleasing for him to look at, or she burnt the food too frequently etc. This is what Jesus is talking about here - it’s not anti love it’s for the protection of women. If it’s been used against women - to keep them in marriages with abusive husbands for example - this was not the original intention that the historical and textual evidence points to.
If you mean that Jesus sayings are anti ‘free love’ and libertinism - well yes that’s true; too right it is and with good reason. People are classed to care for each other - it’s the only thing that keeps us human.
Good to meet you Episcopus Vagantes 
In Christ our Hen
Dick (who got bored with his holiday recently but must get back to it 
)
Hi GB
I’ve read through this thread and I am sympathetic towards your points. You should know that not all of us here believe that there are no errors or mistakes within the Bible (in fact I’m sure there are actually a great many here who don’t believe that). So that video from ‘God on Trial’ that you posted is probably something that resonates with a lot of us and some of us may even agree with the conclusions in that video. I, for one, do not hold the position that the Bible has no errors, though I do believe the Bible is extremely important, helpful and even beautiful.
C.S. Lewis once wrote in a letter that when there is a conflict between the inerrancy of scriptures and the goodness of God, the latter is, and indeed has to be, more certain. If I see anything in the Bible that seems to challenge the goodness, justice or love of God, then either I am wrong (a strong possibility ) or the Bible is wrong; maybe even a mixture of both. I know in my heart that God is a just judge and I follow that God-given conscience (which is actually what most Christians do - no Christian believes what the Bible says just because it says so, even if some irrational ones seem to think that they do.)
I would appreciate it if you expanded on what your problems are. I don’t at all agree with you, for example, that God spends “half of the Bible” punishing the innocent. Sometimes if you surround yourself with the wrathful, violent, ‘harsh’ pictures of God it can slightly warp you into thinking that that’s all the Bible does. It isn’t.
EDIT: I completely agree with Dick’s post above in reference to your point on Jesus’ comments about divorce. I was going to write something along the lines of that but forgot. But he’s right - Jesus’ general forbidding of divorce was for the protection of women, not against
Not sure I am following this part… The Bible always speaks of reconciliation. For an example: If my wife left me, and said ‘I never want to see you again’ - Does that give me permission to seek out a new spouse? I would argue no, not unless she found a new husband or sexual partner. In that scenario, then I would be free, since the damage has been already done. But if she were to remain celibate, I do not believe there is grounds for seeking a new partner but to remain in hope that we would one day reconcile. And my argument for this is that God can bring two people together, even when it looks like there is no hope. Additionally, even if she did join herself with another person, that doesn’t mean I have to separate from her. Remember Gomer? 
In my opinion, people take divorce too lightly and when they do, I think they automatically presume they are free to re-marry. I don’t think that is Biblical, especially with the story of Gomer and the idea that nothing is too impossible (hopeless) for God to fix and restore. We of all people should believe that, if we profess to be universalists.
Edit ** I see the first line is not from you, but was a quote from Gnostic Bishop. Using the quote feature would have better communicated this.
Do you agree that divorce laws should only apply to men divorcing women?
Should all laws not apply to all regardless of gender?
Regards
DL
Hi GB
I’ve read through this thread and I am sympathetic towards your points. You should know that not all of us here believe that there are no errors or mistakes within the Bible (in fact I’m sure there are actually a great many here who don’t believe that). So that video from ‘God on Trial’ that you posted is probably something that resonates with a lot of us and some of us may even agree with the conclusions in that video. I, for one, do not hold the position that the Bible has no errors, though I do believe the Bible is extremely important, helpful and even beautiful.
C.S. Lewis once wrote in a letter that when there is a conflict between the inerrancy of scriptures and the goodness of God, the latter is, and indeed has to be, more certain. If I see anything in the Bible that seems to challenge the goodness, justice or love of God, then either I am wrong (a strong possibility ) or the Bible is wrong; maybe even a mixture of both. I know in my heart that God is a just judge and I follow that God-given conscience (which is actually what most Christians do - no Christian believes what the Bible says just because it says so, even if some irrational ones seem to think that they do.)
I would appreciate it if you expanded on what your problems are. I don’t at all agree with you, for example, that God spends “half of the Bible” punishing the innocent. Sometimes if you surround yourself with the wrathful, violent, ‘harsh’ pictures of God it can slightly warp you into thinking that that’s all the Bible does. It isn’t.
EDIT: I completely agree with Dick’s post above in reference to your point on Jesus’ comments about divorce. I was going to write something along the lines of that but forgot. But he’s right - Jesus’ general forbidding of divorce was for the protection of women, not against
You think the denial of rights is a good way to protect women!
Then let’s deny all but men with big dicks their rights. It is a real man’s duty.
You seem to think God punishes the guilty more than the innocent in scriptures.
Show where God shows his benevolence and count the bodies and then I will give you a count of the babies he has murdered and we can compare.
Remember before you begin that most are on that wide road to hell and not the narrow one to heaven.
Regards.
DL
Why are you bringing a non-universalist bible and it’s rules into a Universalist context?
If your God is going about fixing people, what of their free will?
What if a woman who gets beat twice a week does not want to be fixed to put up with such garbage?
And if God is to fix the man, why not fix all men who hit? Why not fix the whole world?
Regards
DL
Dick’‘s already explained - the women didn’t have the divorce rights, men were divorcing their wives for little to no reason, leading to the women probably being seen by much of that society in a revoltingly bad light. Jesus’ point about divorce was made towards men, telling them they couldn’t get divorced for anything other than sexual immorality. It was never a denial of rights for women because they didn’t have the rights, nor were they seen as being able to have rights. They would get divorced and thrown out for selfish reasons on behalf of the men and Jesus was protecting them against that
Only fools will think that to deny women equal rights is a good way to protect them from what men will do.
I am well aware that the law was only for men. Jesus endorced it and that is why Jesus is not a moral man when it comes to marriage and divorce.
Regards
DL
I’d love to know how Jesus was denying women’s rights
He endorsed let no man put asunder and did not say to allow women the same divorce rights as men. If God, his commandments also places women with possessions. Less value than donkeys if memory serves.
Regards
DL
Me too
You’re on the wrong track guys. The times were misogynistic, sure enough, but Jesus was all about breaking barriers - in him is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female - we’re all in the same Hands.
Women on other sites I’ve checked agree. Here’s one sample:
“Jesus elevated the status of women. No, he was NOT a misogynist. Women were the first ones privileged to see the risen Christ. Jesus loved us too and died for us also! At the time Jesus was on earth a male could divorce his wife for any silly reason.Many were divorcing their wives for mostly nothing at all. Some would deal with their wives wretchedly.(Some things never change) Jesus said that a man should stay with his wife unless there were grounds for adultery. Adultery was the only exception given. Remember reading about how he told a crowd who was about to stone a woman on the grounds of adultery, that he who is without sin cast the first stone? He showed her extraordinary compassion and kindness when he saved her life from an angry mob about to kill her.We also find him witnessing to the woman at the well. Willing to share the Gospel with her also. He healed them and tenderly ministered to them. No one could ever say Jesus was biased against women. Society at that time was biased against women. Still is in many ways! Jesus came to set us free and showed how we are all equal in God’s eyes. He gave us worth. We are daughters of the Most High God.We will inherit the kingdom along with men. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”
I expect blowback, of course. But a cavalier dismissal of Jesus because of an inadequate understanding of his attitude toward women just don’t cut it.
Did he give them the same divorce rights?
Did he say that women could rule over men?
Chapter and verse if you think he did please.
If he did not, then he did not preach equality did he?
Even his commandments place women just slightly of less value of a man’s possessions than donkeys.
Regards
DL
What do you disagree with about ‘let no man put asunder’ (‘let no man separate’)?
As for why he didn’t directly say that women should be allowed the same divorce rights as men, we’re dealing with pure speculation. First of all, that wasn’t the question he was asked - he was asked, in both Mark 10 and Matthew 19, if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. In the Matthew 19 passage, the question has a little more detail; “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” The phrasing of that question shows that Jesus was not answering a question to do with women’s rights for divorce, nor is his answer the legal terms that we ourselves are bound by; if someone is being abused within a marriage for example, they are more than entitled to leave that marriage - I’m completely certain that Jesus would be fully in favour of people leaving an abusive relationship. In these two passages about divorce, he was working within the culture in order to change it. Divorced women were not seen the way divorced women are today - Jesus’ response was entirely in protection of women, not the other way round.
We don’t know that he never publicly endorsed giving women equal divorce rights, though I am fully certain that Jesus is for absolute and total equality of genders. Maybe he did say that women should have equal divorce rights and it wasn’t recorded? Maybe he didn’t because of the culture? - God meets us in the position we are in, without ever compromising the position he wants us to eventually be in. You’re binding the notion of Jesus being moral to him publicly saying that women should have equal divorce rights, when you have no idea whether that would have even helped people progress. After all, 2,000 years after that, women still do not have equal rights in many places all over the world, arguably even in the ‘enlightened’ west. If it’s taken this long, how do you know Jesus saying that would have made a difference? Do you not think that instead, commanding men to not selfishly abuse their own rights is a step towards granting women the same rights as men?
Come up with some actual examples and maybe we can discuss them.
A number of facts, with scripture references as well:
What would be the status of women in the Western world today had Jesus Christ never entered the human arena? One way to answer this question is to look at the status of women in most present-day Islamic countries. Here women are still denied many rights that are available to men, and when they appear in public, they must be veiled. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, women are even barred from driving an automobile. Whether in Saudi Arabia or in many other Arab countries where the Islamic religion is adhered to strongly, a man has the right to beat and sexually desert his wife, all with the full support of the Koran. . . .This command is the polar opposite of what the New Testament says regarding a man’s relationship with his wife. Paul told the Christians in Ephesus, ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ And he added, ‘He who loves his wife loves himself."
Jesus loved women and treated them with great respect and dignity. The New Testament’s teaching on women developed His perspective even more. The value of women that permeates the New Testament isn’t found in the Greco-Roman culture or the cultures of other societies.
In ancient Greece, a respectable woman was not allowed to leave the house unless she was accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Men kept their wives under lock and key, and women had the social status of a slave. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up they were not allowed to speak in public. Women were considered inferior to men. The Greek poets equated women with evil. Remember Pandora and her box? Woman was responsible for unleashing evil on the world.
The status of Roman women was also very low. Roman law placed a wife under the absolute control of her husband, who had ownership of her and all her possessions. He could divorce her if she went out in public without a veil. A husband had the power of life and death over his wife, just as he did his children. As with the Greeks, women were not allowed to speak in public.
Jewish women, as well, were barred from public speaking. The oral law prohibited women from reading the Torah out loud. Synagogue worship was segregated, with women never allowed to be heard.
Jesus’ treatment of women was very different:
The extremely low status that the Greek, Roman, and Jewish woman had for centuries was radically affected by the appearance of Jesus Christ. His actions and teachings raised the status of women to new heights, often to the consternation and dismay of his friends and enemies. By word and deed, he went against the ancient, taken-for-granted beliefs and practices that defined woman as socially, intellectually, and spiritually inferior.
The humane and respectful way Jesus treated and responded to the Samaritan woman [at the well] (recorded in John 4) may not appear unusual to readers in today’s Western culture. Yet what he did was extremely unusual, even radical. He ignored the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices along with prevailing view that saw women as inferior beings.
He started a conversation with her—a Samaritan, a woman—in public. The rabbinic oral law was quite explicit: “He who talks with a woman [in public] brings evil upon himself.” Another rabbinic teaching prominent in Jesus’ day taught, “One is not so much as to greet a woman.” So we can understand why his disciples were amazed to find him talking to a woman in public. Can we even imagine how it must have stunned this woman for the Messiah to reach out to her and offer her living water for her thirsty soul?
Among Jesus’ closest friends were Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who entertained him at their home. “Martha assumed the traditional female role of preparing a meal for Jesus, her guest, while her sister Mary did what only men would do, namely, learn from Jesus’ teachings. Mary was the cultural deviant, but so was Jesus, because he violated the rabbinic law of his day [about speaking to women].”{8} By teaching Mary spiritual truths, he violated another rabbinic law, which said, “Let the words of the Law [Torah] be burned rather than taught to women. . . . If a man teaches his daughter the law, it is as though he taught her lechery.”
When Lazarus died, Jesus comforted Martha with this promise containing the heart of the Christian gospel: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26) These remarkable words were spoken to a woman! “To teach a woman was bad enough, but Jesus did more than that. He called for a verbal response from Martha. Once more, he went against the socioreligious custom by teaching a woman and by having her publicly respond to him, a man.”
“All three of the Synoptic Gospels note that women followed Jesus, a highly unusual phenomenon in first-century Palestine. . . . This behavior may not seem unusual today, but in Jesus’ day it was highly unusual. Scholars note that in the prevailing culture only prostitutes and women of very low repute would follow a man without a male escort.” These women were not groupies; some of them provided financial support for Jesus and the apostles (Luke 8:3).
The first people Jesus chose to appear to after his resurrection were women; not only that, but he instructed them to tell his disciples that he was alive (Matt. 28, John 20). In a culture where a woman’s testimony was worthless because she was worthless, Jesus elevated the value of women beyond anything the world had seen.
Jesus gave women status and respect equal to men. Not only did he break with the anti-female culture of his era, but he set a standard for Christ-followers. Peter and Paul both rose to the challenge in what they wrote in the New Testament.
In a culture that feared the power of a woman’s external beauty and feminine influence, Peter encouraged women to see themselves as valuable because God saw them as valuable. His call to aspire to the inner beauty of a trusting and tranquil spirit is staggeringly counter-cultural. He writes, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”
Equally staggering is his call to men to elevate their wives with respect and understanding: “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” Consideration, respect, fellow heirs; these concepts sound good to us, but they were unheard of in the first century!
The apostle Paul is often accused of being a misogynist, one who hates and fears women. But Paul’s teachings on women reflect the creation order and high value God places on women as creatures made in his image. Paul’s commands for husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 provided a completely new way to look at marriage: as an earthbound illustration of the spiritual mystery of the union of Christ and His bride, the church. He calls wives to not only submit to their husbands as to the Lord, but he calls husbands to submit to Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). He calls men to love their wives in the self-sacrificing way Christ loves the church. In a culture where a wife was property, and a disrespected piece of property at that, Paul elevates women to a position of honor previously unknown in the world.
Paul also provided highly countercultural direction for the New Testament church. In the Jewish synagogue, women had no place and no voice in worship. In the pagan temples, the place of women was to serve as prostitutes. The church, on the other hand, was a place for women to pray and prophecy out loud (1 Cor. 11:5). The spiritual gifts—supernatural enablings to build God’s church—are given to women as well as men. Older women are commanded to teach younger ones. The invitation to women to participate in worship of Jesus was unthinkable—but true.
Misogyny in the Church
Author Dorothy Sayers, a friend of C.S. Lewis, wrote:
Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there had never been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as ‘The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.
She continues: “There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.”{12} And this is one of the unfortunate truths about Christianity we have to acknowledge: over the centuries, many Christ-followers have fallen far short of the standard Jesus set in showing the worth and dignity of women.
In the second century Clement of Alexandria believed and taught that every woman should blush because she is a woman. Tertullian, who lived about the same time, said, “You [Eve] are the devil’s gateway. . . . You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert, that is death, even the Son of God had to die.” Augustine, in the fourth century, believed that a woman’s image of God was inferior to that of the man’s.{13} And unfortunately it gets even nastier than that.
Some people mistakenly believe these contemptuous beliefs of the church fathers are rooted in an anti-female Bible, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. People held these misogynistic beliefs in spite of, not because of, the biblical teachings. Those who dishonor God by dishonoring His good creation of woman allow themselves to be shaped by the beliefs of the surrounding pagan, anti-female culture instead of following Paul’s exhortation to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2). The church in North America does the same thing today by allowing the secular culture to shape our thinking more than the Bible. Only nine percent of Americans claiming to be born-again have a biblical worldview.{14} The church in Africa and Asia does the same thing today by allowing animism, the traditional folk religion, to shape their thinking more than the Bible.
It’s unfortunate that some of the church fathers did not allow the woman-honoring principles found in Scripture to change their unbiblical beliefs. But that is the failing of imperfect followers of Jesus, not a failure of God nor of His Word. Jesus loves women.
Effects of Christianity on Culture
As Christianity spread throughout the world, its redemptive effects elevated women and set them free in many ways. The Christian ethic declared equal worth and value for both men and women. Husbands were commanded to love their wives and not exasperate their children. These principles were in direct conflict with the Roman institution of patria potestas, which gave absolute power of life and death over a man’s family, including his wife. When patria potestas was finally repealed by an emperor who was moved by high biblical standards, what a tremendous effect that had on the culture! Women were also granted basically the same control over their property as men, and, for the first time, mothers were allowed to be guardians of their children.{15}
The biblical view of husbands and wives as equal partners caused a sea change in marriage as well. Christian women started marrying later, and they married men of their own choosing. This eroded the ancient practice of men marrying child brides against their will, often as young as eleven or twelve years old. The greater marital freedom that Christianity gave women eventually gained wide appeal. Today, a Western woman is not compelled to marry someone she does not want, nor can she legally be married as a child bride. But the practice continues in parts of the world where Christianity has little or no presence.{16}
Another effect of the salt and light of Christianity was its impact on the common practice of polygamy, which demeans women. Many men, including biblical heroes, have had multiple wives, but Jesus made clear this was never God’s intention. Whenever he spoke about marriage, it was always in the context of monogamy. He said, “The two [not three or four] will become one flesh.” As Christianity spread, God’s intention of monogamous marriages became the norm.{17}
Two more cruel practices were abolished as Christianity gained influence. In some cultures, such as India, widows were burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres. In China, the crippling practice of foot binding was intended to make women totter on their pointed, slender feet in a seductive manner. It was finally outlawed only about a hundred years ago.{18}
As a result of Jesus Christ and His teachings, women in much of the world today, especially in the West, enjoy more privileges and rights than at any other time in history. It takes only a cursory trip to an Arab nation or to a Third World country to see how little freedom women have in countries where Christianity has had little or no presence.{19} It’s the best thing that ever happened to women.
Notes
DaveB
Thanks for that good post.
Please have a look at that link I put just above.
The second century St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.”
The Church father Tertullian explained why women deserve their status as despised and inferior human beings:
“And do you not know that you are an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert that is, death even the Son of God had to die.”
The sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, “Woman is a temple built upon a sewer.”
In the tenth century Odo of Cluny declared, “To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure…”
St. Thomas Aquinas suggested that God had made a mistake in creating woman: “nothing [deficient] or defective should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then.”
Regards
DL
Yes, it is true that many of Christ’s followers did NOT follow his example and the example of his apostles.
They were wrong, as far as I can tell. But, they are not the standard, thankfully, for most of the Western world.
I am a Canadian and live in what we think is the most equal nation on earth and yet, our courts are full of women looking for equal pay for equal work.
Where do you see women considered equal with men excepting the lip service that all Western nations give to women?
None of the Western nations are walking our talk.
Regards
DL