@SD:
Well, I still think it's approaching something rather nasty and not very female-friendly, but I'll concede that your "If I walk up to a girl" analogy fits and it wouldn't be rape...it's not exactly a good thing, and I'd still find God to be rather a prick if he said "Yo baby, I'm gonna have sex with you" (obviously with more, erm, divine language, lol) but I can see that view of it.
And of course Zeus basically had the whole "Yo baby" thing going for him...which again, wasn't viewed very nicely (at least part of the time) but still...
I think we can at least agree there's a fair amount of misogyny there either way you slice it?
I'll confess I don't know Ruth (haven't gotten to her yet) but as far as Mary M. goes...
Wasn't her "big thing," as it were, having her sins cleansed by Jesus?
Granted she was there with the Disciples, but still, that hardly equates to the take-action sort of feminism I'm talking about with the Greek goddesses and heroines...
REALLY out of place and time here, but amongst the Disciples/followers, she almost seems like the "token chick" of her day before that was even a thing...that seems to me, from what I know, to be her most recognizable feature:
Woman...follower of Jesus... cleansed of her sins/demons by Jesus...possibly being a prostitute (though from what I understand that's in dispute) and...?
Not exactly heroine material, and what sort of hero is that when your great accomplishment is that a man cleansed you of your sin?
I'm not picking and choosing here, SD--I am, in all honesty, going off all I know, which isn't as much as everyone else here, I'm sure, but I am reading through it, and after all, I do believe what I do claim I can back up textually.
So far, our two great female heroes of the NT:
A mother giving a virgin birth to Jesus, and a woman having Jesus cleanse her sins, and then being present for his Crucifixion.
I understand that it's Jesus' story/he's the main character...but hell, at least Paul and John the Baptist and other such characters...DO THINGS.
The women so far are almost the ancient equivalent of Lois Lane or Princess Peach...in fact, they're worse than Lois, I'd submit, because at Lois Lane DOES do something and report and she's an active character, she just keeps getting captured all the time...
"As for justification after the fact...LOL. Seriously dude? Everything took a long time to make its way into print then. You can't honestly have a book about Jesus before any of the important things in his life happen, most of which happened after he was 30. Your phrasing makes everything that was ever written in history ever "justification after the fact."
I believe I directed that mainly not at the Jesus story, but the one above it, ie, the genocides in the Bible, the Amalekites in particular...
I mean, for so much of the Bible, God is rather vague in his language, so much so that we have people to this day...well, doing what we're doing right now, debating about his actions and what he exactly meant or did and how and why and so on.
BUT, when it comes to which tribes he's going to help the Israelites kill...SUDDENLY he's pretty exact and doesn't waste time naming names.
;)
And he comes off in those parts as a character/device written by people who were explaining how they had just slaughtered an entire ethnicity and yet were doing so via orders from a "perfect, loving God."
Just saying.
As a final note on "after the fact"--
If we do take your "yes, everything was written after the fact back then" thing as truth...well...
1. For one thing, what becomes of Moses dictating the first books directly, and
2. Even setting Moses aside, I'd submit that feeds into my point a few threads back about how the Bible is a partial compilation of stories, as you say, written after the fact, so those stories left out/in the Apocrypha and outside the canon...well, if it's all "after the fact," how are we to tell what is the "real word of god" from something...well...merely "written after the fact?"
@Crazy Anglican:
(I feel like I'm almost jumping the gun here with our debate ongoing...) :)
I guess that does raise an interesting question as to...well...what DO you call it if a being impregnates you with no sex involved?
Immaculate Insemination indeed. xD
(On a closing note:
What IS IT about the Judeo-Christian theology that seems so concerned with sex? I mean...it seems so vital that Mary be a virgin...and that, if true, Mary Magdalene be a prostitute so Jesus can cleanse her of her sins...and then you have all the fun things regarding foreskins and conception and all that...
Judeo-Christian theology seems very uptight about sex...does no one else find this odd? After all, again, look across the ancient world, and you see quite a few cultures having quite a bit of fun--for lack of a better phrase--with sex, and being far looser with it, and indeed, not caring o much about someone's orientation at that...we have the famous case of the Sacred Band of Thebes and select Spartan regiments that were openly homosexual...the Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, all these storied ancient cultures were perfectly fine with sexuality, and seemed to celebrate it--with the Judeo-Christian religions, sex and sexuality and orientation almost become something that it seems everyone is ashamed of and apologetic for...
Why? I'd be tempted to chalk it up to another case of Judeo-Christian dogma being prohibitive against females and homosexuals and the like--we see more openness sexually in Rome, Greece, and Egypt, and we find powerful women and even cases of homosexuality there, whereas if we turn to the Bible, again, not nearly so much.)