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never trust a woman
Categories: forty-blogs-of-lent
Tags: God, Church, Christianity, Christ, Bible, Easter
Date: 07 April 2012 04:42:29
Forty blogs of Lent
40
The politically incorrect Gospel
From the Easter Gospel reading:
John 20:1-18.
It would be good to read through the passage first before reading any more, because it contains something shocking - the story of the resurrection is told through a woman's eyes.
Now women cannot be trusted. Their testimony is unacceptable in courts. I repeat, women cannot be trusted.
OK, I am flaming. I do not believe the paragraph above. But it reflects the views of society at the time. (Or at least the views of the men in the society of the time, as a woman's view would not have counted.)
But that is what happened, a woman was the first to the tomb, a woman stayed around at the scene, unlike Peter and John who were running here and there. A woman remains the focus of the story.
It has been argues that Jesus chose men to be apostles, to bring the good news to the world, but look at verse 18:
Mary Magdalene left and announced to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Then she told them what he said to her.
The task of bringing the news to the disciples was given to a woman. A woman was the Apostle to the Apostles.
In it's day this was deeply shocking, very politically incorrect. It was so shocking that Origen of Alexandria, one of the earliest Christian philosophers, was unable to answer the critics, except to say that this was the way it happened despite it being deeply subversive as far as the society of the day was concerned.
In the Bible women are both seen and heard.
-o0o-
First published on 24 April 2011 on St Pixels blogs