Rojo
Queen's Rider
There once was a girl who was told she could, and so she did.
Posts: 660
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Faith
Mar 29, 2009 12:09:22 GMT 10
Post by Rojo on Mar 29, 2009 12:09:22 GMT 10
Branched off from the Homosexual Marriage thread. What do you think of women prastors/priests/bishops? Where did you find this information from? It is not mentioned in my Bible that I can find, however it is only meant for girls aged 8-12 which could be why. This version is not one that I am familiar with. Do you know how it compares to the NIV (New International Version) Bible?
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Faith
Mar 29, 2009 13:32:58 GMT 10
Post by boosette on Mar 29, 2009 13:32:58 GMT 10
(This is going to be wordy, just to be up-front at the front end.)
On the first - A documentary that aired on the History International Channel about four years ago - it's an example of looking at the cultural and historical context in which the Bible was written. The thing is, it's not written specifically in the text, but would have been clear to the church at Rome at the time in which Paul wrote the letter.(Letters were dangerous things - once you committed something to paper, you'd essentially "published" it, and people could get a hold of it and copy and distribute it far beyond what you'd originally intended. Saying, "What these pagan Romans are doing is wrong," in so many words could have resulted in nasty consequences - Christianity was still illegal at the time.
Likewise, Paul thought Jesus was coming back two weeks from next Tuesday* - during his lifetime - which is why he appears so virulently anti-marriage and anti-sex generally. Obviously Jesus didn't, so we're left with the conundrum: Do we accept Paul's advice as for the specific Christians in the specific places he wrote to (and he had quite different advice for the church at Corinth than he did for Philemon, for example) or is his advice meant for all Christians everywhere at all times? I'm inclined toward the former, as a matter of full disclosure. (That's directly from one of my profs. - you can PM me for her name if you'd like to check up on her credentials, but my university does have a pretty good religious studies program.))
Since your Bible is meant for girls in the 8-12 age bracket, it might not be a translation but a paraphrase (might - if it's NIV it's probably a translation with commentary?) - which is absolutely fine for devotional purposes but notsomuch for academic study. (A paraphrase is when a person or group of people sit down with lots of translations and, going verse-by-verse, pick out pieces they like from each translation and cobble them together to re-form a Bible from those pieces of those translations. A translation, so you'll know what definition I'm working with, is when a person sits down with the oldest manuscripts they can find (we don't have any original manuscripts from either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament) and goes verse-by-verse ... translating, to the best of their ability. Translators have viewpoints, and those viewpoints will come through in the translation, since they're only human. This begs another question - even assuming God dictated to the original author what to write - was every scribe (who are notorious for making mistakes or outright altering the text - Geoffrey Chaucer griped about how his associate/scribe Thomas was forever taking creative license with the copying, for a secular example) and every translator ever to pick up the task also touched by God? I'm rather cynical in my opinion on that regard - I assume that the translators and the copyists probably weren't guided by divine providence.)
Revised Standard Version is an updated (revised) version of the King James - available for free online at biblegateway.com. It translates the Old Testament with greater respect and consideration for the Jewish faith (since the Hebrew Bible/OT was/is their holy book before it was Christianity's) and is more accurate in the translators had a better knowledge and grasp of the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic than their King Jamsian-era predecessors had. There was more cultural context at the time the translation was done - due to archaeological finds such as the Dead Sea Scrolls previously mentioned - and as such the translators were able to better convey the meaning the text would have carried at the time it was written.
*Paul's next Tuesday, not ours.
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Faith
Mar 30, 2009 0:59:24 GMT 10
Post by iridescentdaisies on Mar 30, 2009 0:59:24 GMT 10
I don't have any problem with them. At my temple back in the States there's a female rabbi and it's never been remotely an issue with me (except, occasionally, in certain hypocrisy's of hers, but that's something else.)
Interesting information, Boosette! I didn't know that about the passage but it makes sense.
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Faith
Mar 30, 2009 1:15:08 GMT 10
Post by boosette on Mar 30, 2009 1:15:08 GMT 10
I don't have a problem with them either, assuming they feel called to ministry and study at an accredited seminary school that requires they learn the ancient languages to study their source text in its oldest possible form. (Which holds true for male religious leaders as well; I won't attend a church where the pastor did not study at an accredited seminary - I prioritize education far, far above denomination, and I can study on my own if I want to work with an English translation of the text.*)
So, ultimately, I don't think sex is an issue - that women can be (and should, assuming it's their calling and their passion) just as good of religious leaders as men, and that their ministries will grow and prosper based on their own merit rather than their reproductive organs.
* I will occasionally watch Church On TV without knowing the educational background of the preacher, but that's most often a case of "nothing else is on".
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Faith
Mar 30, 2009 1:18:34 GMT 10
Post by Lisa on Mar 30, 2009 1:18:34 GMT 10
Ideally, I know that women can have the calling and are equal to men in the ways of the mind and the heart.
However, having grown up Catholic, I admit that I would feel quite strange going to mass and seeing a female priest/biship/cardinal/pope. I wouldn't be AGAINST it, but it would feel very awkward at first.
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