Mr.
Chairman…
Ahem, that
is, I meant to say: Chair
Chair, it
has been observed that the Bible has a decidedly sexist bias having been
written by men for men.
Seemingly
Jesus himself is one of the chief culprits here:
To appoint
twelve males as apostles would seem to indicate that he was not immune
to prevailing first century Jewish prejudices involving the severe
dis-empowerment of women. His choice of these men seems also to be wanting in
discernment including as it did the ‘bad apple’ Judas, although measured
against the mediocrity of the other eleven, he at least showed a measure of
resolve. Jesus could surely have done better by including certain women of
noble character and spiritual stature such as Martha and Mary Magdalene.
Further, he unfailingly addressed God as ‘Father’ and never as ‘Mother’. This too must be considered unacceptably patriarchal in the light of current enlightened mores relating to these matters.
It would seem then Chair, that one of the chief tasks of this commission would be to educate Jesus.
It is worth
mentioning however that in pursuing this objective we might well encounter
considerable difficulties, not least of which is that Jesus is God, and
indeed were we to attain our goal we might discover that the situation had
become less sexist but more ‘Godist’.
Peter Frow
September 2022
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