maryhelena

No - I do my own interpretations.....

ThermalCry

I kind of figured, it would just be extra interesting if there was some gnostic text out there that went along with this. Doesn't make the interpretation any less cool though, thanks.

maryhelena

I suppose one could use the Adam and Eve scenario. Paul says it was the woman who was deceived - ie an intellectual context. Wisdom is personified as female, Sophia. Again, a non physical context, an intellectual context. Ideas etc. And of course, the original dying and rising god - was a goddess, Innana. Thus - 'woman' can represent our human capacity for spirituality, for intellectual evolution. It's also women who produce the children, offspring So, spiritually, its our intellect that produces our ideas - but out intellect is not free - it's bound to our physical bodies. Hence, an analogy along the lines of the subjection of women to men - could have some support re the elements that make up our human nature.

bacht

I think the more common model in the 2nd C was the dualism of male = spirit = good, female = matter = bad. One outcome of this thinking is celibate asceticism.

There was also the ancient association of women with children and household management, and the association of men with wider extra-domestic activities. This was quite marked in classical Greece eg.

I think there was also a concept of androgyny = wisdom, Jesus would fit this.

Julio

Well, it sounds neat, but I am 100% sure, absolutely sure, that the original writer meant it in the literal way.
For some weird reason not explained, he abhorred the subjects women usually brought in.
Elsewhere, Paul infers that there was much backbiting in his churches against him [can't remember exactly where it is, now].

andrewcriddle

1 clement Andrew Criddle

Julio

Thanks for the correction.
I need to read that stuff again; it has been a while since I did the last time.

OLDMAN

it seems to me to be just more of the same. Keeping women in their place. That is the whole reason for Eve being the one who caused the fall. Have any of you considered why God is male in the first place? There is no practical reason for God to have a penis, is there?

ThermalCry

Of course there is! Do you think an all-powerful, all-knowing God would actually have to sit DOWN to pee? Heresy.

bacht

It's possible that the monotheistic male god of the Jews was a fairly late development. It would seem to have been promoted by the priests in Judah, following the royal monolatry of Josiah, though the Samaritans did the same afaik. The figure of personified Wisdom was female, possibly a holdover from an original goddess consort of YHWH.

Theologically the difference between a male creator and a female creator is that the former uses mind and the latter uses their own body. I think this is supposed to contrast free will versus the endless deterministic cycles of nature.