I stumbled upon some information I have been looking for while doing something else. I was watching a lecture by Bart Ehrman on the Gospel of Thomas. If you know your Gospels, this was the one found in Egypt as part of the Nag Hammadi cache in ~ 1946.
The Gospel, not part of the New Testament canon but originally written in Greek and translated into Coptic (Egyptian – Greek dialect) during the formative years of Christianity, was a collection of Jesus sayings. The Gospel is partly Gnostic. Gnostic Christianity is a heretical form of Christianity that was popular at the time the Gospel of Thomas was written.
One saying was especially interesting. Actually it is the very last saying of the book: number 114. Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life”. Jesus answered, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You must admit that this is a strange one. Using the historical-critical method of reading ancient texts, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the perplexing Jesus saying.
For you who don’t know about the “historical – critical” method of reading and understanding ancient texts, it has to do with who the author was, when was he writing, to whom he was writing, why was he writing (his purpose) and what his words would actually mean to the people living in that era; not to us in 2007.
This “historical – critical” method has been endorsed by mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism. Opponents of this method are fundamentalists that believe the Bible literally; every word written by god or inspired by god with literal meaning for all ages, including ours.
This is an indefensible position bordering on the absurd. It refuses to deal with the reality of historical knowledge and is best avoided because sensible dialogue is not possible with these people.
Anyway, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the different way that ancient man looked at gender. Today, we see the human being (part of the animal kingdom) as either male or female; two kinds of human being.
In ancient times, including the time the Bible stories were written which included all the non-canonical Christian texts, gender was looked on as two (2) degrees of a human being; not two (2) kinds. The female was just not a developed male.
I know this is a little hard to grasp so hold on. They looked at nature in a straight line. On the left you had rocks, soil or dead stuff. Further on you came upon plants, then animals, humans and eventually ended up in the realm of the gods.
The male was closest to the gods and the female came before the male. Simply put, the female was an unformed male in the continuum of nature. This imperfect male had no penis (inverted penis = vagina), was soft (no muscles), no body hair, high voice, weaker; a human being that just did not make it far enough to become a male.
So going back to the Gospel of Thomas, for women to enter the kingdom of heaven (gods) they first had to become males since that was the order of things – kapish? And that is what Jesus meant with that saying – at least it is one explanation.
This way of thinking is described as the “Ideology of Dominance” and was the prevalent mode of looking at life throughout the ancient world.
Basically, it was OK for the strong and powerful to dominate the weak. For this reason slavery is tolerated and accepted as normal. St. Paul even cautions slaves to obey their masters in the New Testament.
Women were of course weaker and therefore dominated by the stronger males. We have seen this throughout history and even to this day in some of the more primitive Islamic societies. Well maybe even in the more civilized (Saudi Arabia) societies; they still subscribe to the ideology of dominance as did their forbearers.
On a sexual level (ancient sexual ethics) the men were the “penetrators” and the women were the “penetrated”- the dominator and the dominated.
Taking this further into ancient Greece and the accepted homosexuality in their social model (this is the information I was looking for) the adult male could have sexual relations with a “boy” an unformed adult male, but could not have sexual relations with another adult male (at least it was considered taboo).
An adult male could have sex with an adult male slave due to the domination principle.
After a military victory the male winners raped the male losers as the ultimate humiliation.
I am taking this long route to make a point about homosexuality and the Bible. We know that today right wing Christians condemn homosexuality because it is condemned in the Bible.
My point is that homosexuality as we know it today, did not exist in the days of the Bible. Homosexual acts obviously existed and were practiced by the Greeks as well as Romans in perfectly accepted pederasty. Who was condemned was the adult male that allowed himself to be penetrated by another adult male; the penetrating adult male was not condemned.
I know this is a little hard to grasp but I posit that Bible translators who knew about our concept of homosexuality but not about ancient sexual ethics translated parts of the Bible incorrectly, i.e. if homosexuality as we know it did not exist in the ancient world, how can the ancient Biblical text condemn it – plain and simple.
The Gospel, not part of the New Testament canon but originally written in Greek and translated into Coptic (Egyptian – Greek dialect) during the formative years of Christianity, was a collection of Jesus sayings. The Gospel is partly Gnostic. Gnostic Christianity is a heretical form of Christianity that was popular at the time the Gospel of Thomas was written.
One saying was especially interesting. Actually it is the very last saying of the book: number 114. Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life”. Jesus answered, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You must admit that this is a strange one. Using the historical-critical method of reading ancient texts, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the perplexing Jesus saying.
For you who don’t know about the “historical – critical” method of reading and understanding ancient texts, it has to do with who the author was, when was he writing, to whom he was writing, why was he writing (his purpose) and what his words would actually mean to the people living in that era; not to us in 2007.
This “historical – critical” method has been endorsed by mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism. Opponents of this method are fundamentalists that believe the Bible literally; every word written by god or inspired by god with literal meaning for all ages, including ours.
This is an indefensible position bordering on the absurd. It refuses to deal with the reality of historical knowledge and is best avoided because sensible dialogue is not possible with these people.
Anyway, Professor Ehrman tried to explain the different way that ancient man looked at gender. Today, we see the human being (part of the animal kingdom) as either male or female; two kinds of human being.
In ancient times, including the time the Bible stories were written which included all the non-canonical Christian texts, gender was looked on as two (2) degrees of a human being; not two (2) kinds. The female was just not a developed male.
I know this is a little hard to grasp so hold on. They looked at nature in a straight line. On the left you had rocks, soil or dead stuff. Further on you came upon plants, then animals, humans and eventually ended up in the realm of the gods.
The male was closest to the gods and the female came before the male. Simply put, the female was an unformed male in the continuum of nature. This imperfect male had no penis (inverted penis = vagina), was soft (no muscles), no body hair, high voice, weaker; a human being that just did not make it far enough to become a male.
So going back to the Gospel of Thomas, for women to enter the kingdom of heaven (gods) they first had to become males since that was the order of things – kapish? And that is what Jesus meant with that saying – at least it is one explanation.
This way of thinking is described as the “Ideology of Dominance” and was the prevalent mode of looking at life throughout the ancient world.
Basically, it was OK for the strong and powerful to dominate the weak. For this reason slavery is tolerated and accepted as normal. St. Paul even cautions slaves to obey their masters in the New Testament.
Women were of course weaker and therefore dominated by the stronger males. We have seen this throughout history and even to this day in some of the more primitive Islamic societies. Well maybe even in the more civilized (Saudi Arabia) societies; they still subscribe to the ideology of dominance as did their forbearers.
On a sexual level (ancient sexual ethics) the men were the “penetrators” and the women were the “penetrated”- the dominator and the dominated.
Taking this further into ancient Greece and the accepted homosexuality in their social model (this is the information I was looking for) the adult male could have sexual relations with a “boy” an unformed adult male, but could not have sexual relations with another adult male (at least it was considered taboo).
An adult male could have sex with an adult male slave due to the domination principle.
After a military victory the male winners raped the male losers as the ultimate humiliation.
I am taking this long route to make a point about homosexuality and the Bible. We know that today right wing Christians condemn homosexuality because it is condemned in the Bible.
My point is that homosexuality as we know it today, did not exist in the days of the Bible. Homosexual acts obviously existed and were practiced by the Greeks as well as Romans in perfectly accepted pederasty. Who was condemned was the adult male that allowed himself to be penetrated by another adult male; the penetrating adult male was not condemned.
I know this is a little hard to grasp but I posit that Bible translators who knew about our concept of homosexuality but not about ancient sexual ethics translated parts of the Bible incorrectly, i.e. if homosexuality as we know it did not exist in the ancient world, how can the ancient Biblical text condemn it – plain and simple.
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