The role of women in human affairs, religious beliefs, and social practices are highly concerned by scholars when women involved religious life. “God the Father/God the Mother”, third chapter in the book The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, examines major distinctions between Orthodox Christianity and Gnostic community in the concerns of the roles and characterizations of women by relating scriptural views and texts. While sharing a common topic of women’s role in religious life, “Images of Women in Early Buddhism and Christian Gnosticism” is an article in the book Buddhist-Christian Studies by Karen Christina Lang that discusses the major images and examines four categories of women whose participated in the religious activities of both Buddhist and Gnostics communities. In “God the Father/God the Mother”, Pagels compares the views of women between Orthodox communities and Gnostic sources. The Orthodox Christianity continuous the convention of Trinitarian terms from Jewish description of God that God is considered as masculine and never identified as feminine element while most Near East religions included female and male God. In fact, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologians usually refrain from framing their God in sexual terms. In Catholics, the “God the Mother” is not defined when people viewing …show more content…
In this regard, the gnostic writings follow Judaism, which including the female aspect of God. Gnostics stated in Genesis that God created humanity in both "the male and female elements” according to the “image and likeness of God” (Pagels 56). This explains that the humanity must have the feminine elements from God. Similarly, there is an example of the male and female elements in humanity which Adam included both sexuality and Eve was born from his side. Orthodox Christians exclude any hints that God hasn’t completely masculine or
The Case for Christ was written by Lee Strobel and Jane Vogel. The book is almost like a really big essay with a bunch of different sections, each one proving or disproving a certain point. The book focuses on disproving the existence of Jesus Christ but in the process of disproving the existence of Jesus he proves just how real Jesus is. I personally chose this book because I am a Christian and it looked interesting to see why other people who don 't already believe start to believe. Also I feel like the more I know about Jesus the more I know about God, since they are one in the same. I found this book to be extremely interesting because of all the textual and factual based evidence proving that Jesus existed.
1. When the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in December of 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, many people questioned if this book belonged with the other four gospels. Thomas (Hebrew) or Didymus (Greek) also nicknamed as “Doubting Thomas,” described as a man who would not believe until he saw it with his own two eyes. He ceaselessly questioned and was misanthropic about Jesus while the other eleven disciples believed from the beginning. Thomas’s book was full of Jesus’s sayings whereas the other four books contains Jesus’s sayings as well, but in a story format that starts from the beginning of when Jesus was born to the day he resurrects from the dead. Thomas wrote down Jesus’s 114 sayings when he was his disciple. Elaine Pagels’s Beyond
The Gnostic Gospels written by Elaine Pagel discusses the origins of the Christian faith and the true reasons behind some of the Christian’s beliefs. Pagel claims that the theological disputes between the Orthodox Church and Gnostics in the early stages of Christianity were largely motivated by the political struggle for leadership of the religion. Orthodox Christians supported texts and interpretations to strengthen their goal which was to create an organization of believers. Gnostics, who was not necessarily seeking authority over Christianity, were eventually overshadowed by the supremacy of the Orthodox. Prior to the discovery of the artifact at Nag Hammadi in Egypt 1945 there were only had texts that support the Orthodox Christians belief, now historians were able to fully evaluate the two groups in a new prospective. Some of the writings found in this newly discovered artifact are believed to be the Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. Although Mary Magdalene does not have a book in the current bible, it is believed by many gnostic Christians that Jesus came to her in spirit after his death and passed on to her the secret knowledge of enlightenment. The new gospels that were discovered in Nag Hammadi doesn’t emphases on the birth or death of Jesus as the current biblical gospels do, but focuses more on Jesus’ life. Each chapter is devoted to a major theological problem that divides the Orthodox from the Gnostic. Pagel makes a compelling case that theological beliefs
The Christian Revelation to John, The Book of Revelation, reveals the world coming to an end through a variety of spiritual visions. Revelations, written by Elaine Pagels summarizes the events taken place during John’s revelation and relates it to ancient history. Elaine Pagels highlights main content from the messages, the seals, to the trumpets, while providing historical background. The main argument of Pagels analysis is that The Book of Revelation clearly portrays the war between the Jews against the Roman Empire. This is evident because Pagels explains that the visions John had embodies events that represent the corrupted Roman Empire.
This article begins with a controversial belief that the Bible is hostile to women. Bringing to light the creation and fall of Genesis, and how it shows weakness in women. The main point of this article is to reread and understand the stories. Thus disproving both feminist and yahwist beliefs. Adham, Phyllis uses defines this term as a word with androgynous meaning, showing that it was not one person rather one identity which incorporates 2 sexes. Phyllis then pulls up another point showing that while most think Eve coming second was a bad thing, she views it as a “climax” of the story . The point of Phyllis Trible’s article is not to show dominance of women rather equality. She does this by delving into the original scripture and breaking it down. In class Mr. McCormack had discussed how translations of the bible are very difficult, this is important because the creation stories are full of translation misconceptions . I will also delve into historical and geographical contexts . The creation stories are not a literal translation, people often do not delve
The author of each article is a feminist scholar and female practitioner of the represented faith. The result is a refreshing and insightful collection of actual women’s experiences as both members of their chosen faith and as devout feminist scholars. Thus, Her Voice, Her Faith is an eloquent contribution of the “proper” religious scholarship Gross advocates.
In the novel title “The Lost History of Christianity”, author Philip Jenkins attempts to convey the message that there are many aspects of Christianity that are unknown to Christian followers today. Jenkins start by implying that Christianity essentially starts in Northern Mesopotamia. Jenkins then traces the history of Christianity from Africa to the Arab world to the heart of Asia, in what he consider to be the “golden age” of Christianity. He informs the readers of the stories of churches and movements that thrived over a millennium and then largely died out, though there are remnants of these churches here and there, spread across different parts of the world. Jenkins is a firm believer that Westerners are blinded by the impression the Christianity began in Europe and Northern America, and believe that in some ways they are superior among other religions. Jenkins suggest, “When they think about Christian history, most modern Westerners follow the book of Acts in concentrating on the church 's expansion west, through Greece and the Mediterranean world, and on to Rome. But while some early Christians were indeed moving west, many other believers-probably in greater numbers-journeyed east along the land routes, through what we today call Iraq and Iran, where they built great and enduring churches. Because of its location-close to Roman frontier, but just far enough beyond it to avoid heavy-handed interference-Mesopotamia or Iraq retained a powerful terms of the number and
Christian views, attitudes and beliefs about gender have always varied with some ideas evolving with society and others set in tradition, never to change. While some see gender difference as a feminist issue, others see it as a role requirement set by God. Of course, there are extremists on both sides of this argument, as well as inter-lapping beliefs, but gender issues are still debated by Biblical scholars often and passionately. Not exclusive to denomination, gender equality is a subject that can be examined in many ways, but the focus of this paper will be on two types of theologies, Complementarian and Egalitarian. While both theologies rely on Bible scripture to gain and prove their
I similarly share this belief which stemmed from Catholic theology which God is one person who is also a trinity, The Father, The Son, and The holy Spirit. Another similarity that I have with the Sikh belief system is that God is neither man nor women. This belief is also shared with the Catholic Church. The Catechism
Over the years, Buddhism has become one of the most popular religions in America. In 2010, the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) estimated that there were approximately 2 millions Buddhist in the US, which is around 0.7% of the population. As Buddhism’s popularity continues to grow, it is not surprise to see a lot of Buddhist’s tradition integrated itself into the American culture. There is already a tremendous amount of Americans who converted themselves into the religion alone. Therefore, certain issues began to arise as this integration continues, one of them being the role of women in Buddhism. Widely known as the religion of peace and kindness, not many people realized that Buddhism is also a religion of gender equality. There
Gender Issues in Religion Amongst the world religions are many different attitudes towards gender issues and sexuality. A hundred years ago, or even a lot less, these different perspectives did not exist, as they were often considered unimportant, as King noted 'until recently little attention has been paid to gender differences and their impact on religious teaching and practice. '[1] With some religions, their scriptures are considered to be infallible and therefore not to be questioned.
God as male, but as both male and female energy, so I also like to use the terms
of god when they are mothers but this is used to control them and they
My paper studies the three most significant and most commonly known western religion Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in terms of the role that the woman played and a brief synopsis of the religions itself. Religion is a system of human though which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner’s experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity, or ultimate truth. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are the only religions that are based on a single creator and that are why they are called western religions. These three religions are monotheistic faiths practiced by about half of the world’s population. Believers of the three religions are found on every continent
First I will discuss how higher spiritual beings (or something that is held sacred in a religion) relate to gender inequalities. In Judaism, G-d is neither male nor female. Though the decision is very personal and there is no right answer. People who practice Islam worship Allah, god that many think of as a male. Hindu’s worship a singular god but in many forms. This is a polytheistic religion. Some forms of this ultimate divine god are female. In Christianity, the trinity is a set of three figures all considered male. In Christianity, Mary is a figure of power.