Since it seems you are unable to look closely at your own sacred literature, perhaps you will find this interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle_and_women
Paul and Acts mention more than a dozen women by name who are obviously included in the structure of the early church framework.
Uh, yes--he does.
Except he wasn't speaking of women holding leadership positions at the time. Context does seem to be important. That statement was in regard to salvation.
You are absolutely right--context is
incredibly important. Usually context includes the actual social, cultural, economic and religious history at the time. It has little to do with pietistic approaches to scripture.
Since the conservative notion of Salvation as being some sort of sacrifice or a ticket to Heaven (this modern way was first articulated by Anselm of Canterbury) and--more importantly--Jesus himself never attached the fact of his own death with any sort of "salvation" theology. And there are several instances in the New Testament that clearly show the careful reader that salvation is all about
this life, not anything that is supposed to come after we die.
Jesus offered salvation to many people before he turned his face to the final trip to Jerusalem. What you may not realize is that John's gospel has Jesus going to Jerusalem three times--which would mean three different years according to the Passover festival, while the synoptics record only one visit.
And who would that have been?
The names of those who wrote in Paul's name are (so far) lost in antiquity. What people don't realize is that attaching a famous person's name to one's own written word gives those words an authority. It was a very common practice in the first century.
Paleographic scholars have determined that the language syntax as well as the philosophy described in the non-Pauline letters is vastly different from the linguistic and theological structure of Paul's authentic letters.
Remember how the "Unabomber" was captured? His own brother read the manifesto the bomber released to the media and was able to clearly see the sentence structure and the ideas were clearly those of his brother. Based on this, he went to the FBI and the Unabomber was captured.
I wonder if this consensus was mostly female. :think:
I wouldn't think so. As far as I have been able to determine, the notable biblical scholars who are female are a distinct minority. But people such as Paula Fredrickson, Karen Armstrong, Karen King and others, have definitely put feminism in the foreground of Jesus preaching and deeds.
Well, you know what Peter had to say about Paul...
Right on.
There was a clear division between the early followers of Jesus (his brother John, Peter and some others) and those who followed the theology of Paul.
Savage attacks on family values?...Yeshua? Such as?
Where do I start?
--For one thing, Jesus' own family was unable to understand him and thought he was literally "out of his mind."
--Jesus clearly preached that the Kingdom of God believers were the true family. Not the biological one.
--A woman in the crowd blessed Jesus's mother for nursing him and raising such an incredible son, and Jesus's answer was basically "No, blessed are those who know the will of God and follow him."
--A follower asked to go back to his family for a funeral and Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead."
--Jesus pointed out the conflicts between young adults in a family and the older adults in the family. He predicted the division.
--Jesus separated the children from the patriarchal family of his day by welcoming children (who were basically social nobodies) into the Kingdom of God.
The family of Jesus's time was ruled by an autocratic, authoritarian and obedience-based father who could determine who lived or died. The contextual history tells us they could leave an unwanted child in the wilderness to die. They could verbally command a divorce and the wife had no choice but to follow the divorce.
I just remembered another saying of Jesus that speaks to the family: "Call no one on earth your Father."
There are many, many more anti-family values sayings. Jesus' parabolic teaching and his short sayings completely overturn the default world of his day--and ours.
To me, that's the challenge of Jesus for our churches.
I just don't understand why it is so hard for women to accept the parameters God has given them.
The reality of Jesus's God and the interpretations of God by human beings and apostles are two different things. Women and men today can no longer accept the ancient theological ideas from the first century.
No one likes being told what to do, so it is no surprise that women or anyone else should accept the "parameters God has given them."
When I pay attention to context, I can see that the New Testament is full of different theologies, metaphors, real history, oral tradition and legends. And I see a clear difference between the God of Jesus and the God of the conventional wisdom.
Whenever we encounter a Jesus who doesn't "walk his talk" and demonstrates human hypocrisy and other all-too-human traits, we can be sure the real Jesus was a presence that demonstrated the existence of the Holy for his early followers.
There is an established Christian faith which demands its members to give their assent to a list of impossible and Iron Age religious beliefs, and there is the Kingdom of God faith which demands we find a relationship to Jesus and pick up our own cross and follow.
Belief vs. Behavior is the simple way to state this.
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