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Biblical Misogyny

Entry 681, on 2008-01-22 at 22:50:19 (Rating 4, Religion)

On the surface the Bible seems to treat women as unimportant, as second class citizens, or even as evil influences on men. So many of the female characters in both testaments are portrayed negatively that the Bible can easily be viewed as being anti-women. Of course if you read it more carefully its obvious that this isn't the case. The Bible is actually full of admiration for women and even hints that god might be female or at least have significant female characteristics. It is well ahead of its time in regard to equality.

At least that's the opinion offered in an article in the local newspaper this morning. Its a load of nonsense of course. Christianity in its original form (as portrayed in the Bible) doesn't treat women as equal to men at all. That doesn't mean that its not possible to find a few verses which can be re-interpreted to being positive to women, but the old game of changing the meaning of the Bible to suit current knowledge or morality doesn't really convince me. The Bible is a bigoted, irrelevant, pile of antiquated nonsense and all the re-interpretation in the world won't change that!

OK, so there are parts (especially in the New Testament) which support a certain amount of tolerance, kindness to others, and other positive philosophies, but as a whole the message is overwhelmingly negative. And there are plenty of other sources of positive and progressive philosophy, some of which even pre-date the Bible, so what's so special about it? The answer is nothing. The Bible is important only because it was politically expedient to Emperor Constantine and his successors to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and it has just grown from there.

So I accept that there is some good in the Bible but on balance the world would be a lot better off without it because I think it has been used as the source of a lot more negative philosophy than positive. All the positive philosophy can be better sourced elsewhere without all the attendant negativity and superstition.

So I'm afraid that, yet again, I disagree with our religious commentator. Maybe one day he will get it right, but based on his past performances I doubt it. But to be fair I shouldn't really expect a religious commentator to agree with the opinions of a rabid atheist like me! I actually quite enjoy being in the minority. As Mark Twain said: when you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Comment 1 (1035) by WF99 on 2008-01-23 at 13:03:12:

Have you seen the Wikipedia article on Women in the Bible? It's pretty interesting.

Comment 2 (1036) by OJB on 2008-01-23 at 16:05:15:

Yes, that is quite interesting. My conclusion would be that the treatment of women in the Bible is at best variable, at worst very poor. In some places it is favourable, and in others definitely not. And a lot of it is open to interpretation. And there are contradictions too.

In summary, its fairly typical Bible: written by many different people, self contradictory and open to interpretation to such an extent that a lot of it is meaningless. The two Genesis myths for example. How do we reconcile those?

Comment 3 (1037) by WF99 on 2008-01-24 at 12:24:29:

I believe that the Genesis 2 account (God made Eve from a rib) is perfectly in line with Genesis 5, and that Genesis 5 (God made man and woman in his image) is just a general overview. In the way of Eve's original role, "helper" may have meant "servant" or "mate" - I really couldn't tell either way.

Comment 4 (1105) by OJB on 2008-02-02 at 20:42:53:

But there's a lot more to it than that. The whole order of creation is different. It seems more likely that these are two completely separate primitive creation myths which have been assimilated into the Bible from different sources. And now Christians have to make up some sort of post hoc justification to explain it. No doubt you've seen by blog entry titled "Convoluted Rationalisations"?

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