Divine Women - BBC 2 Tuesdays

[cathy]

I missed the first one of these but caught the second last night. It's about the role of women in religion before anyone asks (and its still on i player). Given the attitudes of the RC church and a lot of fundamentalist christians it was quite enlightening about the role of woman in the early christian church. Maybe it should be on the scripture thread but I don't think there is any scripture in it.

And it was also very interesting about children being born sinners and where that 'creationist' view really came from - so bear with me, tis relevant!!!

There was a quick look at the role of priestesses in ancient Greece and Rome, where it would appear that being some kind of a priestess was the only way to have any rights at all - tho in Rome it meant remaining a virgin so real trade off. Then she moved on to the early christian church and suggested that in its first three centuries women were priests and even bishops and were equals in spreading the religion! She showed evidence of female priests from the catacombs and a mosaic in a church with a depiction of an episcipa (she said female latin for bishop) which had been tampered with to change the name from Theadora to Theador. And she cited a gospel called Paul and Thecla which isn't in the bible about a girl called Thecla who helped St Paul after hearing his sermons and running away from an arranged marriage.

Apparently because Paul preached a lot about the end of the world at a time when people were desperate to increase the population he gave women, initially, the idea that they didn't have to have children (which I can only guess was a utterly terrifying prospect for a lot of them before medical care, gas and air and epidurals). Again giving the impression that it was a way for women to have any rights.

She managed to find a strict catholic explaining why women can't be ordained and then - shock - an RC priest who said that was wrong. He said Jesus had had female followers and that Paul had clearly been in favour as well and found something about someone called Phoebe that he trusted to interpret one of his letters.

But the bit relevant to creationism was where she explained how this had changed. Apparently St Augustine - who in other respects she said was very good - on becoming celibate hadn't lost his sex drive. So (like a lot of celibates) he took it out on women becoming a misogynist.

And in the process he came up with the original sin idea, we all hold the first sin which he claimed was Eves fault for tempting Adam - yawn. Interestingly that led him to also came up with the idea that we are all born sinners with sin - by virtue of the fact we are born as a result of sex.

So the children being born sinners, the one the creationists hold so dear, seems to be only 1700 years old rather than 6000 if I'm understanding this correctly? And I may not be. And it certainly isn't an idea from Genesis.

Don't know if I've understood it all correctly. I was only half watching whilst doing work stuff. But if I did they're even talking b&&&&&&ks about the worthless sinners stuff.