Talk:Biblical sexism

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Editorial notes Needs more analysis

Paul often seems not to have had the slightest clue whether he was a misogynist or a women's rights advocate:

Corinthians, 14:34-35: "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

but

Galatians 3:26-28: But I tell you there is ... neither man nor woman ... for you are all one in Jesus Christ. --ויִכִּ נתֶּרֶפּרֶתֵּר ^{שְׁלֹום!}

Personally, I think Paul was gay. All that casual misogyny, "confirmed bachelorhood" and man-love for Jesus and others, makes you kinda wonder... --Kels 15:39, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

"Fucketh not the buttocks of thy neighbor...unless it is quite tight and juicy...that is...no...don't do it...er..right."162.82.215.199 15:41, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Don't you self-flagellate at me, young man! --Kels 15:00, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Counterexamples?

One of my favourite tactics when confronting fundie xian types who proclaim that subordination of women is divinely ordained is to point out that none of the scripture they cite to "prove" women's inferiority involve Jesus speaking directly. Even if Paul did say women's proper behaviour is "silence and all submission", how can that overrule the words of their God 'Him'self?

In particular, the story wherein Jesus defended Lazarus's sister's choosing to learn directly "at His feet" with the male disciples, rather than doing "women's work" in the kitchen, is fairly well-known even to many non-xians. He certainly didn't suggest in that passage that Lararus's sister Mary should wait and let a mortal man interpret anything for her later.

There are also, however, multiple passages in which Jesus specifically enjoins individual women to go out and spread 'His' word, including the specific instruction that they speak directly to men. The Samaritan woman at the well is one such woman; and in all of the varying (i.e., inconsistent) Gospel tales of who Jesus first appears to after returning from the dead, the initial witnesses are women and are instructed to go out and evangelise (literally "announce good news" in the original Greek) directly to men. What does it matter whether self-proclaimed "Apostle" Saul of Tarsus "suffered" women to teach or not, if he was contradicting what, according to literalists, were God's exact words?

I've yet to meet any xian sexist who could explain how any mortal man's opinion could supersede a command(ment) given directly by Jesus... and pointing such inconsistencies out to them has in many cases led to such people finally reading their Bibles and applying their own "God-given" reason to the text, rather than accepting at face value the cherry-picked verses presented to them, narrow interpretation included, by preachers or others claiming to be Biblical literalists who don't pick and choose which parts of the Bible they like, the way "those other so-called Christians" do.

This is a method I've had success with even in the American "Bible Belt", particularly with otherwise "good" and intelligent people who have simply never applied that intelligence to "information" everyone they knew accepted without question. In a way, presenting such people with Biblical evidence that the narrow-minded, hateful picture of their belief system they've been inculcated with is intellectually dishonest can be considered "witnessing" rationality to them, not unlike the way many xians "witness" to the "unsaved". Whether a person, after such an interaction, is "converted" to atheism, agnosticism, a less-judgemental version of xianism, or merely a person more inclined to question what they're told than to accept anything on "faith" alone, I still count nearly every such interaction I've had a victory for reason and rationality.

tl;dr version: Counterexamples exist and should be included on this page to promote rational thinking. —69.183.231.96 (talk) 04:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

1 Corinthians 7:4

"The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife." is not a sexist bible verse, because it says that both the husband and the wife have power over each other's bodies. If it were sexist, it would only say that that the husband has power over the wife´s body. But it also says that the wife has power over the husband's body.