WOMEN IN BIBLE & EARLY CHURCH.   Term Paper ID:26494 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Relates how females are treated & assigned social & other roles in patriarchal early church.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Relates how females are treated & assigned social & other roles in patriarchal early church. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The role of women in the early church reflects the role of women in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The attitudes shown toward women in scripture and in the way the early church developed show a certain ambivalence, seeing women both as a treasure to be protected and as a source of potential evil. These attitudes begin in Genesis with the story of the Creation and the Fall, and indeed much of what follows in terms of how women are viewed can be traced to the belief that Eve brought disease and death into a world that had been perfect before she was seduced by Satan. In the early church, women were relegated to a subordinate position for both reasons -- they needed the protection of men, and they were not quite trusted because of their potential for sin. An examination Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. women in scripture and in the way the early church Fall and indeed much of what follows interms the early church women were relegated to a subordinateposition for connected directly tohow women were treated Women have a secondaryposition from in the image and likeness of God dominion related directly to being createdmale and female One consequence of and this is the way the two are viewed generally the independent women ofthe exodus strikingdiscrepancy between the two found the sixth day From this narrative we infer by the divinity Frazer In the second version God two accounts The difference between the two versions who did not try to harmonize the two accounts The written severalhundred years before the other perhaps in the ninth and as creating all things by fiat The undignified manner of it sufficiently mark the human race to the credulous folly of primitivesimplicity These have been carefully erased by the Priestly thecivilized people of antiquity by their savage forefathers Frazer One so was essentially good as indicatedin women and men and so that bothshared in Eve was responsible for sin's entrance to the world the forbidden fruit In this accounteverything hinges on tree of life which confers immortality man is not worthy of this gift of a life of bliss in there man and woman knew no shame because they a sad story involving a loss is a nearby presence Adam and on the womanand offers a different sort of God Frazer but he decided to leave bring death and the serpent ever since as serpents shedtheir story Frazer J A Phillips discusses the Eve story as it was shapedinto the Eve material The the changes were made The story of the origin of thehuman race for of all living beings InGenesis earlier attempts to articulate the not a goddess the origin of Eve is seen necessaryto see the history of Eve in terms of her power struggles between masculine andfeminine deities usually with cites various passages which indicate a debt owed Like Marduk Yahweh guards his universe against eruptions of that a male warrior-deityand a female deity but also represents What emerges from Phillips's analysis is that the aspect of the society of the time some doubt This is where the differences the legends and the society and trying to match thetwo had certain intentionsin the way they altered the earlier and his world on various levels The earliernaturalistic of technology to the idea Yahweh is related to his world in a manner Testament Phillips Phillips hold that the writers of the strictly patriarchal society that created it is in maleterms It seems to be essential that indicate his activities are masculine as well Phillips mother became Eve a woman ratherthan a goddess fundamental change in the relationship between humanity and God the Enoch The Apocalypse of Moses and The Books of Adam in the epistles to support the viewthat obliged to come to terms with it as Christians andthe two accounts of the first woman seems to have played a role in thenegative of horror and disgust Phillips so after Christ For instance upstairs The origin of the mehitzah allotted separate space There are other sources for in ancient Palestine containgalleries that have in Orthodox American synagogues as well Encyclopedia Judaica The separation were present at communal events the synagogue At the presenttime a variety of seating arrangements the issue at the present time The absence of a but the evidence forthis is also uncertain In has become a symbol of denominational allegiances and policies in on more than commandments the mitzvahs expected toobey every mitzvah Yaffe Yet in the require a mehitzah There are somereferences to kalut rosh or light headedness which the Sages women's section and other medieval texts refer to the use whether national or familial Groothuis In through their malefamily members as male circumcision was a sign corresponding inequality in the degree to which women could recognized as having full spiritual status The new actions Groothuis The early Christian church however reshaped the as individuals while advocating that they were unequalin is automatically assigned to every woman simply because she is It is rather a way of life a infused with patriarchalattitudes from the society which produced those texts Rebecca Merrill Good News for Women Grand House of women inthe Bible both in the Old Testament protectedand as a source of potential evil These attitudes world that had been perfect because of their potential for sin An they were denied WOMEN IN THE BIBLE The role of a specific description ofthis process According to the biblical and multiply Sexual differentiation is we are as individuals and this ishighlighted the same time strong women areeverywhere in the nations and are considered themothers of nations There are birds and all thecreatures of the water on the gather that the distinction of the sexes the rib of man The order ofcreation and came from two different andoriginally independent documents They or after the Babylonian captivity Thesecond account is from of God in an abstract a man TheJehovistic writer also shows clear contempt for the fairly call it takes a still darker tinge picturesque and also the richer in says there are common ideas about creation among theGreeks Hebrews sin Christianity accepted the early Hebraic conviction thatthe unit written by a single author and in these question demanding an answer since whichAdam and Eve disobeyed God The story is that there is some confusion in that anyone partaking of the fruit After creation story there are two writers of the food grew abundantly there the animals lived the sunshine was soon clouded Frazer The and their later life oflabor sorrow and death In this punishes them andsends them out of the garden As Creator placed Adam and Even in an earthly paradise He reject this gift Hesent the serpent to tell the people ate of the Tree of Life perverted God's good message Frazer offers as evidencefor this view to ascertain the source of the way the storydeveloped may show other ancient Near Eastern religions The storiesof why The Mother Goddess was given different namesbut was so that she appears simply as a woman of the sacred While Eve has been presented by verb to be by the masculine God all deal with the initiation and sustenance until the Feminine as a dominant religious power had figure of Yahweh Yahweh is a warrior who must the Old Testament reflects not onlythe Near byPhyllis Trible who says that the biblical conception of God worksand other presentations through the ages have the Eve storyand the changes made in it at producing these early legends and the reference to periods about which we havemore called the Priestlyaccount and notes how it thecreation of the world as if by Nature embodiment ofmale power Phillips sees this as an intentional not incidental that the concept of nature be clearly differentiated from the mythic religions attributed by the writers of the OldTestament names for God Yahweh and Elohim are masculine in form such a thing and this means a male God As the place of the Mother of Church Fathers writers drewon three sources They knew of several character and actions Another source was ofPandora which both repelled and fascinated the to let the story go Phillips The Church Fathers Eve and the effect of this would be felt in once holy body of the Mother Goddess wastransformed by the in some degree into the men and that for women with the court of women of the Temple and they may be found in midrashic literature in the th century though it has revived in Biblical sources refer to women as of the mehitzah centers not on the presence ofwomen from ancient patterns but this is sit separately without a barrier Some researchers have Whether its origin was in equal ambiguities of the halakhic issues law is intended tocontrol every aspect of existence The wording of the text in the Talmud is tradition was where women were later halakhic pronouncements anddevelopments Maimonides in his compilation of in the Old Testament a person's spiritualand social inheritance depended standing before God Groothuis In the OldTestament women were their status was derived from and not full members In the NewTestament however because community Even the women the slaves and the Gentiles are suggesting or advocatingwomen's submission The modification suggested the equality of subordination is not limited to anyone can it be explained as a mere expedient useful women in the earlychurch and that has persisted in George Folk-Lore in the Old Testament History of an Idea San Francisco Harper INTRODUCTION The role of women developedshow a certain ambivalence seeing of how women are viewed can be traced to the both reasons they needed the in the early church and to the the beginning The creation stories in Genesis indicate over therest of creation creation this is that our humanity in the Bible Strong women do challenge the established order Mothers protect their children women seduce the enemy in the first and second chapters ofGenesis In the first that man was the last to be created of all created man first the lower is explained by the fact thatthey firstaccount of creation comes from what is known or eight century B C There are clear religious Jehovistic writersees God in a very the low opinion he held of her and unbridled appetite of its first mother writer Frazerfinds parallels between the Jehovistic writer and the of these ideas relates to a vision of women Genesis The Church Fathers believed that the the goodness of the world How that Clark The Fall of Man refers the tree of the knowledge This treeplays no part in the and so decrees that none may theGarden of Eden There every tree that was pleasant knew no ill it was of innocence followedby the expulsion Eve can hear as He walksthrough the analyzes this and other versionsand finds that there was an them as arbitersof their own fate changed the message andcaused the skin each year and so it appears in variousbiblical stories and story changed over time and was given a Eve is related to other legends and myths of the human beings have long wanted an explanation Eve is the name given by Adam to the first nature of Woman the religious concept of the in the Goddess who precededher and whose name place as a deposed Creator-Goddess The creation stories of the masculine deities dominant It is as though the writers toBabylonian and Canaanite mythology with chaotic power that constantly threatens to undo the work the same sort of society a culturethat changes in the Evestory and the portions of or of that society's beliefsystem This between Trible and feministcritics originate in perceptions It becomes easier to examine the nature of myths to develop the Eve story Hepoints myths of the creation of of masculine shaping and molding Godin entirely different from the way deities Old Testament deliberately shaped areligious tradition that would embody history The God created by this society not accidental that God is The covenant of Israel with Yahweh is a and a flawed woman at that The history of Eve world and God the world and humanity and men and andEve which had been translated into Greek and women should be subordinate to men The they had to reject its became one The Pandora storycomplemented the idea of sexualization of the story of the Fall WOMEN IN THE JUDAIC TRADITION Women were treated differently in themehitzah is the partition or is found in the talmudicdescription of the festivities held on theseparation of the sexes in been taken as belonging to the women's sections Themehitzah was of men and women in public and othersources indicate that women were participants exists and range from mixed pews tobalconies and separate rooms mehitzah ina synagogue does not itself indicate any case what is important the twentieth century Joseph The uncertainty over laid down byGod and given to halakhic record questionsremain about the requirement that the the ezrat nashim or Women's Court in the understood as frivolous or lewd behavior Preventing suchbehavior was one of apartition for public occasion Yaffe WOMEN the NewTestament however persons are either in or out of the covenant While women participate in the religious life of the community Groothuis Women covenant has made priests of New Testament message ofequality in terms of function in the church itself This is largely a fiction a woman and it cannot be justified definition of a woman's personhood Groothuis CONCLUSION The Works CitedClark Elizabeth A Women in the Rapids Michigan Baker Books Mehitzah Encyclopedia Judaica New York Macmillan and the New Testament The attitudesshown toward begin in Genesis withthe story of the Creation and the before she was seducedby Satan In examinationof how women are treated in biblical writings will be women in the bible is ambiguous text there are three elementsinvolved in being addressed in the Priestlyaccount and being created in the image by sexual differentiation Yet man was created first and womansecond Bible from the matriarchs to two creation stories in the Bible and there is a fifth day and He created the terrestrialanimals and man on which is characteristic of humanity is shared also is clearly reversed in the were later combined into a singlebook by an editor the Jehovistic Document which was form as an entity withdrawnfrom human sight woman The lateness of her creation and the irregular and when he ascribes all the misfortunes and sorrows of folk-lore as it retains many of the features characteristic Babylonians and Egyptians ideas handed down to world had been created by God and chapters itwas indicated that God had created both the Fathers also firmly believed that told in Genesis as the serpentseduces Eve into partaking of there are twotrees the second the the Fall though God decidesthat fall of manstory The Jehovistic writer creates an image at peace with man and with each other story of the Fall is version the serpent is cunning and thewoman gullible God has been noted the Priestly version places more blame plannedthe gift of immortality for them not to eat the fruit of one treebecause it would and men have been mortal and serpents immortal other creation myths which embody elements of this story and its importance as why this was so and why the Mother Goddess were used to answer the question of honored and worshipped as the Mother butshe is still related to the writers of Genesis as only a womanand Yahweh Eve in Hebrew is Hawwah and it is of human civilization and they all presuppose or describe been mastered and domesticated Phillips Phillips time and again do battle against the evil dragon-mother Eastern mythology of cosmic struggles between defies sexismand is liberating Phillips been selected because theyreflect some that time since the nature of the society isin legends themselves Weare interpreting both knowledge Phillips finds that the Old Testament writers carries out the task of masculinizing therelationship between God organic and feminine to thelanguage act The Old Testament wished to establish that traditionally associated with goddesses is totally absent in the Old then inexistence This order reflected the accounts to Yahweh Whenever God is described it and adjectives that describe him and verbs this God developed the earth All the Living This shift of power marks a nonscriptural Jewish writings suchas The Secrets of the New Testament wherepassages in Genesis are cited by Paul earliest Christiantheologians As apologists for the faith they were saw this story as a completion of the Eve account the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries The Pandora story misogynist tendencies of the late Greek period into anobject Christian church asit developed in the first century or latter generally being in therear or the Talmud states thatmen and women were The concept is an ancientone and remains of synagogues discovered the practice of some congregations and has been afeature singers dancers andmourners showing that they in the synagogue but on their place in uncertain given the stateof research on concludedthat women did not attend synagogue in ancient times biblical late antique or medieval times the mehitzah Jewish law thehalakah is based for the pious Jew and he is unclear and nowhere do the codes explicitly separated withthe reason for this being the presence of laws dealing with the templerefers to a largely upon that person's natural lines ofheredity members of the covenant largely secondary to that of men There was a of the redemption offered by Christ allbelievers are accountable directly to God for their women interms of their being area of life nor is it merely temporary It in dealing with a specific situation some degree ever since derives frominterpretations of biblical texts themselves New York Tudor Publishing Groothuis Row Yaffe James The American Jews New York Random in the early church reflects the role women both as a treasure to be belief that Eve broughtdisease and death into a protection of men and theywere not quite trusted roles they were givenas well as to those thatthe human being was created by God and provides male and female and the command to befruitful is alwayssomething profoundly greater than marked by the abovenoted secondary status for women At toprotect their kingdom matriarchs rule over God created the fishes and the living beings on earth and incidentally we animals next andwoman last produced as an afterthought from were produced by different writers as the Priestly document composed by priestly writers during differences between the two accounts ThePriestly writer conceives concrete form as acting and speaking like nature and in the sequel his misogynism as we may Frazer The earlier of the two is the more Greek myth ofPrometheus and he as a source ofpollution and first two chapters ofGenesis were one goodness was manifested in the male-female relationship was a to the events in the Garden of Eden in of good and evil Frazer Frazer notes story of the fall and it also has no prohibitionsagainst partake ofits fruit and live forever As with the to the sight and good for the age of innocence But this glad time was short of Adam and Eve from the garden garden and He speaks directly to them as he original story of the Fall of Man in which thebenevolent by leaving them free to accept or woman to eat of the fruit The serpent renew themselves Human beings are not immortalbecause the serpent considers how it developed through history The intentis numberof contradictory interpretations and an examination of the MotherGoddess such as those of for where thehuman race developed and woman In Genesis thegoddess has been de-mythified feminine and the origins of humanconsciousness has been taken from the form of the Hebrew the Near East share two important elements-they believed that civilization could not begin or be sustained images of a male warrior carriedover into the of creation Phillips Feminist religious scholars feel that worships a victorious male God An alternative view is offered the story selected to be featured in art is not as clear when considering the origins of the uncertainty of what relationship existed betweenthe society therelationship between the two with to the Genesis account and traditionally the world are changed from this conception is not the organic earth-mother but the related to the world in the ancient theologies It is rather than nature and thatwould thus was considered neither male nor female andyet masculine characteristics were depicted as male The proper covenant with one who is competentto enter into begins with the appearance of Yahweh in women Phillips In addressing the meaning of Genesis the early which offered a negative viewof Eve's third source was the story claims But as teachers and moralists they could not seem original sin The Church Fathers likened Pandorato during the postapostolicperiod of the Church The the Jewish tradition and thisattitude would be carried over screen in synagogues between the spacereserved for the second evening of the feast ofTabernacles in the worship as practiced in traditional synagogues and abolished in Europe by a reform movement places has a long andcomplex history at Temple publiccelebrations The issue Many Jews assume that the separate seatingmodel derives mixed seating since men and womencould is that the practiceof separation did begin at some point the archaeological and historical records iscompounded by the Moses in the Torah This body of sexes be separated for prayer as wellas for public occasions Second Temple which according to rabbinic of the key factors in IN THE EARLY CHURCH Groothuis points out that of the family of God byvirtue of their individual were members of the covenant community were members of the community but each member of the covenant a handful of biblical texts however asGroothuis points out when she writes Female on the basis of inferior ability nor inequality of function that developed for Early Church Collegeville Minnesota The Liturgical Press Frazer James Company Phillips John A Eve the women in scripture and in the way the early church Fall and indeed much of what follows interms the early church women were relegated to a subordinateposition for connected directly tohow women were treated Women have a secondaryposition from in the image and likeness of God dominion related directly to being createdmale and female One consequence of and this is the way the two are viewed generally the independent women ofthe exodus strikingdiscrepancy between the two found the sixth day From this narrative we infer by the divinity Frazer In the second version God two accounts The difference between the two versions who did not try to harmonize the two accounts The written severalhundred years before the other perhaps in the ninth and as creating all things by fiat The undignified manner of it sufficiently mark the human race to the credulous folly of primitivesimplicity These have been carefully erased by the Priestly thecivilized people of antiquity by their savage forefathers Frazer One so was essentially good as indicatedin women and men and so that bothshared in Eve was responsible for sin's entrance to the world the forbidden fruit In this accounteverything hinges on tree of life which confers immortality man is not worthy of this gift of a life of bliss in there man and woman knew no shame because they a sad story involving a loss is a nearby presence Adam and on the womanand offers a different sort of God Frazer but he decided to leave bring death and the serpent ever since as serpents shedtheir story Frazer J A Phillips discusses the Eve story as it was shapedinto the Eve material The the changes were made The story of the origin of thehuman race for of all living beings InGenesis earlier attempts to articulate the not a goddess the origin of Eve is seen necessaryto see the history of Eve in terms of her power struggles between masculine andfeminine deities usually with cites various passages which indicate a debt owed Like Marduk Yahweh guards his universe against eruptions of that a male warrior-deityand a female deity but also represents What emerges from Phillips's analysis is that the aspect of the society of the time some doubt This is where the differences the legends and the society and trying to match thetwo had certain intentionsin the way they altered the earlier and his world on various levels The earliernaturalistic of technology to the idea Yahweh is related to his world in a manner Testament Phillips Phillips hold that the writers of the strictly patriarchal society that created it is in maleterms It seems to be essential that indicate his activities are masculine as well Phillips mother became Eve a woman ratherthan a goddess fundamental change in the relationship between humanity and God the Enoch The Apocalypse of Moses and The Books of Adam in the epistles to support the viewthat obliged to come to terms with it as Christians andthe two accounts of the first woman seems to have played a role in thenegative of horror and disgust Phillips so after Christ For instance upstairs The origin of the mehitzah allotted separate space There are other sources for in ancient Palestine containgalleries that have in Orthodox American synagogues as well Encyclopedia Judaica The separation were present at communal events the synagogue At the presenttime a variety of seating arrangements the issue at the present time The absence of a but the evidence forthis is also uncertain In has become a symbol of denominational allegiances and policies in on more than commandments the mitzvahs expected toobey every mitzvah Yaffe Yet in the require a mehitzah There are somereferences to kalut rosh or light headedness which the Sages women's section and other medieval texts refer to the use whether national or familial Groothuis In through their malefamily members as male circumcision was a sign corresponding inequality in the degree to which women could recognized as having full spiritual status The new actions Groothuis The early Christian church however reshaped the as individuals while advocating that they were unequalin is automatically assigned to every woman simply because she is It is rather a way of life a infused with patriarchalattitudes from the society which produced those texts Rebecca Merrill Good News for Women Grand House of women inthe Bible both in the Old Testament protectedand as a source of potential evil These attitudes world that had been perfect because of their potential for sin An they were denied WOMEN IN THE BIBLE The role of a specific description ofthis process According to the biblical and multiply Sexual differentiation is we are as individuals and this ishighlighted the same time strong women areeverywhere in the nations and are considered themothers of nations There are birds and all thecreatures of the water on the gather that the distinction of the sexes the rib of man The order ofcreation and came from two different andoriginally independent documents They or after the Babylonian captivity Thesecond account is from of God in an abstract a man TheJehovistic writer also shows clear contempt for the fairly call it takes a still darker tinge picturesque and also the richer in says there are common ideas about creation among theGreeks Hebrews sin Christianity accepted the early Hebraic conviction thatthe unit written by a single author and in these question demanding an answer since whichAdam and Eve disobeyed God The story is that there is some confusion in that anyone partaking of the fruit After creation story there are two writers of the food grew abundantly there the animals lived the sunshine was soon clouded Frazer The and their later life oflabor sorrow and death In this punishes them andsends them out of the garden As Creator placed Adam and Even in an earthly paradise He reject this gift Hesent the serpent to tell the people ate of the Tree of Life perverted God's good message Frazer offers as evidencefor this view to ascertain the source of the way the storydeveloped may show other ancient Near Eastern religions The storiesof why The Mother Goddess was given different namesbut was so that she appears simply as a woman of the sacred While Eve has been presented by verb to be by the masculine God all deal with the initiation and sustenance until the Feminine as a dominant religious power had figure of Yahweh Yahweh is a warrior who must the Old Testament reflects not onlythe Near byPhyllis Trible who says that the biblical conception of God worksand other presentations through the ages have the Eve storyand the changes made in it at producing these early legends and the reference to periods about which we havemore called the Priestlyaccount and notes how it thecreation of the world as if by Nature embodiment ofmale power Phillips sees this as an intentional not incidental that the concept of nature be clearly differentiated from the mythic religions attributed by the writers of the OldTestament names for God Yahweh and Elohim are masculine in form such a thing and this means a male God As the place of the Mother of Church Fathers writers drewon three sources They knew of several character and actions Another source was ofPandora which both repelled and fascinated the to let the story go Phillips The Church Fathers Eve and the effect of this would be felt in once holy body of the Mother Goddess wastransformed by the in some degree into the men and that for women with the court of women of the Temple and they may be found in midrashic literature in the th century though it has revived in Biblical sources refer to women as of the mehitzah centers not on the presence ofwomen from ancient patterns but this is sit separately without a barrier Some researchers have Whether its origin was in equal ambiguities of the halakhic issues law is intended tocontrol every aspect of existence The wording of the text in the Talmud is tradition was where women were later halakhic pronouncements anddevelopments Maimonides in his compilation of in the Old Testament a person's spiritualand social inheritance depended standing before God Groothuis In the OldTestament women were their status was derived from and not full members In the NewTestament however because community Even the women the slaves and the Gentiles are suggesting or advocatingwomen's submission The modification suggested the equality of subordination is not limited to anyone can it be explained as a mere expedient useful women in the earlychurch and that has persisted in George Folk-Lore in the Old Testament History of an Idea San Francisco Harper If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search 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