mountainman

An explicitly fabricated "The Sophia of Jesus Christ" is found within the Nag Hammadi Codices at NHC 3.4. But also see NHC 5.1 and 3.3. Robin Lane-Fox summarises this as:

"A pagan letter of "Eugnostos the Blessed" (NHC 3.3) was then given a christian preface and a conclusion (NHC 5.1) and represented in another copy (NHC 3.4) as the "wisdom" which Jesus revealed to his Apostles after his death.

Sophia and Logos are mentioned a great deal at Nag Hammadi, as is the presence of a female narrator. In the Exegisis of the Soul, Homer is quoted as saying

Toto

Sophia was a feminine concept in Judaism, but Philo decided that Wisdom needed to be masculine. Hagia Sophia, a popular name for Greek churches, is translated as Holy Wisdom; the icon is an old man with grey hair and a dove.

jonibug

Therefore, the Jesus she created exhibited many feminine characteristics.

Horatio Parker

You mean this guy:

mountainman

The Gospels are explicitly militaristic.

Luke alludes to the Defence Budget.

Matthew alludes to a continuous war.
Where's the peace? It's explicitly rejected by Jesus.


The New Testament is not really a very nice series of books,

I prefer the Gnostic Gospels.

What do they say about the question "Was Jesus a woman".
The Gospel of Philip states that Jesus often kissed Mary.
Precise where - On her forehead? on her cheek? on her lips?
is the subject of serious academic debate.

Chili

If we make a distinction between creation and conception our life was first created ex nihilo in the mind of the male to be conceived in the germcell of the male and of which Jesus was said to be the incarnate son and that does not make him a female but the son of the father who concocted the spermatozoid. He so has sonship thru the woman and contains the womb of the father and even that does not make him a woman but it makes Mother Mary the Perpetual Virgin and the Immaculate Conception in origination and the seat of wisdom as such. Simply put, he was the monoploid son of the father and the woman was the material cause that still today gives substance to beauty and truth and hence is the home of us all.

archibald

I'm sure it's possible to still find 'masculine' elements (which of course may or may not have been added, emphasised or exaggerated by men, and of course, being a female Jewish prophet would not have precluded at least some conforming to patriarchal expectations, as for 'strong' women throughout the ages) but there's no doubt that a lot of the teachings had a softer message too, with paul apparently authoring arguably one of the greatest pieces of prose ever written on the subject of love (1 Cor 13).

One might even add that there are several comparisons between early Christianity and Feminism.

Note also the tendency to remain unmarried, emphasis on brotherly love, and historic association with King David, whose relationship with Jonathan arguably reads as thinly veiled homosexuality.

archibald

Well, that is more like the orthodox version we are left with today.

There are also other Jewish traditions, some of which appear to involve man (Adam) being created in order to provide a husband to a goddess.

'The Zohar tradition has influenced Jewish folkore, which postulates God created Adam to marry a woman named Lilith. Outside of Jewish tradition, Lilith was associated with the Mother Goddess, Inanna – later known as both Ishtar and Asherah. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh was said to have destroyed a tree that was in a sacred grove dedicated to the goddess Ishtar/Inanna/Asherah. Lilith ran into the wilderness in despair. She then is depicted in the Talmud and Kabbalah as first wife to God's first creation of man, Adam.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess#Judaism

Dating of the Zohar is uncertain, but there is a possibility it may be very early AD. Kabbalists treat it as such.

'Over time, the general view in the Jewish community came to be one of acceptance of Moses de Leon's claims, with the Zohar seen as an authentic book of mysticism passed down from the 2nd century.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohar

archibald

Those who think it possible that the gospels were concocted allegory (perhaps sourcing the OT for a right and proper masculine messiah, in light of a lack of there being one who actually arrived)......

...and those who don't think that need only think Margaret Thatcher.

As regards context, including historical conditions, it may also be simplistic to look for a sudden, overnight switch from patriarchal/masculine to matriarchal/feminine, or to put narrow limits on the definitions of either, or to think that the change would have had to be complete, rather than a (possibly gradual) change of emphasis.

Chili

Sure and there are all kinds of them, I suppose, but one must be careful following a mystic for they, either he or she, are at best ''enriched believers' and may or may not have correct opinion . . . but as believers they must also be doubters and really 'do not know,' which here is obvious in the Zohar tradition when it is claimed that 'God created Adam' which of course is not true. God created Man and created Man in his image and Adam here was created by conjecture in Gen.3 after the fall, yes indeed, when man first gained ego-awareness which is made clear with fig leave that validates the realization of the shame complex that did not exist in Gen. 2-25. So now man had an ego called Adam that is and remains a phantasm and should never be called man by a mystic.

I do agree with this Adam to marry a non-Jewish woman who would help him get this second identity crucified, wherefore then Mary was betrothed to Joseph and was not a Jew even though from Nazareth she came and made it her duty via Elizabeth, or vice versa, to get this ego crucified and this once again from behind the scene with John beheaded.

And then of course Moses was wrong for leading the 'children of Israel' into the promised land on short order by parting the water instead of learning first how to walk on top of the water, and so failed to mature and remain children of God but died nonetheless (all over Jn.6 including walking on water and the distinction made between bread from heaven and manna . . . that was second hand to them and kind of like wild oats without love to a woman).