In a recent Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes, Maureen Dowd, a professed Catholic, boldly compared the status of women in Saudi Arabia and the Roman Catholic Church. She made some criticisms of Catholicism and expressed a kind of hope that surely the biblical Jesus was better than the Catholic Church on women's issues - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11dowd.html]
"I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing. I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity. I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world. I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity."
Dowd also writes, "In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen."
However, this view of the Bible is overly kind and hopeful.
The various books of the New Testament were created by misinformed males, and this shows pretty clearly.
[In the following, I will leave out the even more problematic point that the gospels can hardly be trusted to be the authentic words of a historical Jesus, for which see http://sites.google.com/site/investigatingchristianity/home/wordsofjesus.]
1. First, in the canonical gospels there are NO females among "the twelve" disciples/apostles. Why would this be the case if women were considered on equal footing with men or of equal value? There is a completely obvious social distinction in the canonical gospels between the male disciples and the female followers of Jesus. This fact alone renders women second-class, i.e. inferior to men. If they had been considered worthy or equal, they could/would have been given equal status.
While some ancient Gnostic Christian texts do depict a greater role and importance for Mary Magdelene, Roman Catholics tried to destroy such writings (e.g. the Gospel of Mary, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene#Gospel_of_Mary).
2. Not only that, but the Biblical Jesus appears to support the "Mosaic Law," as primitive as it was (Mt 5:17-19; http://sites.google.com/site/investigatingchristianity/home/christian-morality-evolves). The Mosaic law certainly held women to be of inferior status, even to be the property of males (see #3 below).
The NT gospels certainly do not depict women on equal footing with men.
3. There is another detail sometimes overlooked precisely because of its own immensity and our 2,000 years of conditioning: The Biblical god is MALE, and Biblical god's human incarnation is male. Divinity itself is conceived as MALE. You would guess that the inventors of El and Yahweh imagined "him" to have a penis.
The rest of the New Testament, however, is even clearer about the inferior status of women.
Here are some passages for consideration:
1. 1 Cor. 11:7-10, 16.
Although Christians today do not usually care about this, the writer of Corinthians considered it immoral for a woman to pray with her head uncovered (1Cor 11:5), or for a man to pray with his head covered (1Cor 11:4). But his explanation is even more revealing:
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head, and because of the angels.” (1 Cor 11:7-10).
“But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither do the churches of God” (1 Cor 11:16).
There are a slew of obvious problems with this passage. For one, the writer simply believes the old Jewish myth of creation. Lacking any of our modern scientific discoveries in biology, anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, geology, chemistry, and even simple world history, the writer holds to the ignorant, male-chauvinistic tradition invented by some old bronze-age and/or iron-age Israelites, that Yahweh/El created the world about 4,100 BCE in 6 days, made man out of dirt with breath in it (Adam = "Mr. Dirt"), and then made female out of man's rib to be a helper for the man. Lack of proper historical and scientific education is the only reason that an unfortunate percentage of people today still believe this primitive ancient foolishness.
Notice that according to this writer, women are NOT the image and glory of God, but the image and glory of men. Women were created strictly for use at the hands of men.
Also, according to this, even the angels care whether a woman covers her head. The rest is bad enough, but the author invents even more fantastic supernatural excuses for the lower status of women. I suppose most modern Christians are either unaware of this passage, or have listened to a superficial excuse as to why such is no longer binding for Christians, or suppose that the angels one day simply stopped taking an interest in human women and their lack of head-coverings. ? Women should cover their heads for the sake of the angels?!!! Really? Why does the ignorance of NT writers escape the notice of so many in today's world?
2. 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 – “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”
It is completely obvious here that women were considered of secondary status and importance.
This passage is also noteworthy in that it ties the inferior status of women to "the Law." So let us briefly examine the second-rate status of women in the Jewish law, or the "law of Moses."
3. The Biblical character Yahweh and those ancient Jews/Hebrews who invented him considered women to be the property of men and generally inferior(just as did so many other cultures and their gods).
If you study the Mosaic law of the Bible, you will see that it primarily addresses men. It was written by men, to men, for men.
Example A. The 10th commandment, Ex 20:17, lists a wife among a man’s possessions: “You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his man-slave, nor his female-slave, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Notice that a wife belongs to her man, just as does the man's house, male slaves, female slaves, and animals.
Not only that, but as you can see, the 10 Commandments are addressed TO MALES.
Example B. If men were dissatisfied, they could divorce women (Deut. 24), but there was no provision for women divorcing men.
Example C. If a woman gave birth to a female child, she was ritually impure for twice as long than she would have been for a male child (Lev 12:2-5).
The obvious implication is that female children were less pure and less desirable than male children.
4. 1Tim 2: 11-12 – “Let a woman learn in peace, fully submitted; but I do not permit a woman to teach a man or exercise authority over him; rather, she is to remain at peace.”
5. Wives were expected to submit quietly to their husbands, even if their husbands were not so great, and their husbands were to be considered their masters, just as Sarah considered Abraham her master.
1 Peter 3:1-6: “Likewise, you wives should be subordinate to your husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives' conduct when they observe your reverent and chaste behavior. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear."
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The Biblical view of women relies upon tradition, myth, superstition, and authoritarianism.
And I am not sure there is sufficient reason to suppose that any historical Jesus, long lost and buried under the accumulation of layers of fiction and manipulated myth, would have seen matters in any more enlightened manner.
IF . . . IF he had, the Roman Catholic Church would have suppressed such a concept.