Mary Was No Virgin

[Darth Wong]

... the primary point of this text is how this threat by the townspeople violates the value of hospitality (contrast 18:1-16).

Ah, so inhospitality is yet another crime punishable by grotesque death in conjunction with collateral annihilation of your family and friends in the OT. What's the point of even bothering to list what it is that God punishes with death in the OT, since it's pretty much everything?

Hospitality is valued so strongly in this context that this text positively portrays Lot's offer of his virgin daughters in place of his guests. Though the text presupposes that a father would have extreme difficulty offering his daughters to such violence, Lot's virture is demnostrated by his willingness to go to such a length-and put his own body in danger (vv. 9-10)-to avoid violation of his guests."

Which works if you assume that the daughters are mere property rather than living beings with their own rights, for whom such a choice cannot be made on their behalf. Standard OT mentality, unfortunately.

[The Dark]

... the primary point of this text is how this threat by the townspeople violates the value of hospitality (contrast 18:1-16).

Ah, so inhospitality is yet another crime punishable by grotesque death in conjunction with collateral annihilation of your family and friends in the OT. What's the point of even bothering to list what it is that God punishes with death in the OT, since it's pretty much everything?

True, though hospitality was valued by all Middle Eastern cultures of the time (try looking for information on the "salt bond").

Hospitality is valued so strongly in this context that this text positively portrays Lot's offer of his virgin daughters in place of his guests. Though the text presupposes that a father would have extreme difficulty offering his daughters to such violence, Lot's virture is demnostrated by his willingness to go to such a length-and put his own body in danger (vv. 9-10)-to avoid violation of his guests."

Which works if you assume that the daughters are mere property rather than living beings with their own rights, for whom such a choice cannot be made on their behalf. Standard OT mentality, unfortunately.

Standard ancient mentality. Find me a culture from the mid-1000s BCE where women weren't considered property. There may be one (I haven't heavily studied that era), but women were considered lesser people until...well, they're still considered lesser today, given the lower wages they're paid. The last big change (in America, anyway) was the 1920s, when they finally got the right to vote. It's been a long and trying path for women's equality.

[Darth Wong]

Standard ancient mentality. Find me a culture from the mid-1000s BCE where women weren't considered property. There may be one (I haven't heavily studied that era), but women were considered lesser people until...well, they're still considered lesser today, given the lower wages they're paid. The last big change (in America, anyway) was the 1920s, when they finally got the right to vote. It's been a long and trying path for women's equality.

Dunno about 1000 BCE, but Cleopatra ruled Egypt at Julius Caesar's time, and the Native American tribal councils had women in positions of power before the Europeans arrived. In any case, full equality is not necessary for the granting of basic rights such as "not being given away to a mob against your will".

[Perinquus]

Standard ancient mentality. Find me a culture from the mid-1000s BCE where women weren't considered property. There may be one (I haven't heavily studied that era), but women were considered lesser people until...well, they're still considered lesser today, given the lower wages they're paid. The last big change (in America, anyway) was the 1920s, when they finally got the right to vote. It's been a long and trying path for women's equality.

The ancient Celts actually gave women near equal status with men. This applies to the Irish, British, and Gaulish Celts. Interestingly, after Ireland became Christian (around teh 5th century), a lot of the rights women formerly enjoyed began to disappear, though they still had more than in most other European cultures at that time.

[The Dark]

Standard ancient mentality. Find me a culture from the mid-1000s BCE where women weren't considered property. There may be one (I haven't heavily studied that era), but women were considered lesser people until...well, they're still considered lesser today, given the lower wages they're paid. The last big change (in America, anyway) was the 1920s, when they finally got the right to vote. It's been a long and trying path for women's equality.

Dunno about 1000 BCE, but Cleopatra ruled Egypt at Julius Caesar's time, and the Native American tribal councils had women in positions of power before the Europeans arrived. In any case, full equality is not necessary for the granting of basic rights such as "not being given away to a mob against your will".

*Shrug* By no later than the 1100s, Deborah ruled Israel as Judge of the Tribes. Most likely she ruled around the same time as Rameses X of Egypt. The dates range (depending on when other events are believed to have occurred) between the 1800s and 1100s, but given that David ruled as King roughly from 1010 to 970, Deborah ruled no later than the 1100s (given that there were seven Judges and a King between Deborah and David). And I agree with the full equality /= basic rights. I was trying to provide an example, and chose a poor one. I suppose possibly the Taliban would be a better example of modern day people with an ancient mentality.

[lgot]

(I think) I was the one who pointed that out. The Hebrews didn't entirely not give a damn about women. Ruth and Deborah were still important figures to them, and it's not often you see written records about a female political leader in the ancient Middle East (Ruth, the only known female Judge).

Of course, I am doing a exageration. But overall the Hebrews give a damn about their women. They are soon to be married, they have to legitim proprety rights, very few times they have right to accuse the husband of betrayal, the man could marry more than one woman, but otherwise was not likely. If you search for the names of the parents they will always say the name of the man and sometimes do not even say the woman name. There was more saying, paraboles about the woman's lack of trust, weak nature etc than about the woman great traits. And having Ruth and Deborah book is a prove of how they look well toward women is unlikely. In more than a thousand years of story, dozens of book look how few have main females rulling.

Eh...Phoebe was an early deacon of the church. Many of the first Christians were women, and dragged their husbands out of Mithra worship to join Christianity. The records for that were just suppressed by the male supremacist Catholic church (sorry to any Catholics who may be on this board, but the hierarchy of the Catholic church is male supremacist).

Hmm, of course there is more sources for women of importance but just the fact the Hierarchy of Catholic church is male supremacist since the early begining (even if they have actually a huge number of female saints among the early christians) shows the bigger importance of the man (which is no surprise, the western world is still machist and we come from this kind of society after all).

It was the medieval period, but I don't believe it was Augustine who started the whole Cult of Mary. It was begun because of the "Christ as Judge" philosophy, which required a more "feminine" touch to balance, so the Catholics added Mary to their prayers as someone to intercede for them with Christ.

I am not sure, so I may be mistaken, but I did not mean the Mary cult but during Agostyne time I think there is a serie of correspondence that he was asked about jesus's brothers and such and if Mary was virgin only before or remained like so and he gave the answer "of course,virgin forever" which started the turnover that lately make the Virgin Mary be a short of divinity herself.

Dunno about 1000 BCE, but Cleopatra ruled Egypt at Julius Caesar's time, and the Native American tribal councils had women in positions of power before the Europeans arrived. In any case, full equality is not necessary for the granting of basic rights such as "not being given away to a mob against your will".

There is of course. But I think Cleopatra was famous for having a masculine role, of the leader mixed with her sexual symbolism. But she is more the expection of the rule. Just look for Example England, who in the last 400 years or so had 3 Queens of great importance (actually they are in the end more important than the males) when you could pick so few example in much longer period of time.
But the Greeks had some cults that the woman had huge importance. The celtics. The romans. But of course the huge number of cultures are male in the power and the hebrews are one of the more male like.

[Patrick Degan]

The ancient Celts actually gave women near equal status with men. This applies to the Irish, British, and Gaulish Celts. Interestingly, after Ireland became Christian (around teh 5th century), a lot of the rights women formerly enjoyed began to disappear, though they still had more than in most other European cultures at that time.

The Irish Brehon law still tended to predominate in the culture until the time of Elizabeth I. Under it, Irish women could hold property and divorce and remarry at their discretion. It wasn't finally extirpated until the English cracked down in force, starting with the imposition of the Protestant religion in the cities. With the Irish defeat at Boyne, the last traces of Brehon were annihilated utterly as Protestant rule was brutally imposed over the whole island.

In the Celtic Church, although women were not allowed to be priests or bishops, there was no distinction of rank or inferiority made in terms of the lay leadership between the sexes. That tradition disappeared as the Roman Church became supreme. And the only reason the Catholic Church accepted that women had souls at all at the Council of Trent (C.E. 985, I think) was because of the stubborn resistance of Celtic bishops who refused to accept Roman dogma.

[Tsyroc]

Mary Was No Virgin

[AndrewDiceClay]Yeah, I nailed her. She was okay.[/AndrewDiceClay]