January 13, 2016
Post #19
Dear Readers,
We are dedicated to the absolute co-equality and balance between men and women! Our premise is that God created us this way to be whole, complete, unified – as One, through one another, masculine and feminine. That is what Jesus taught men. We are discussing how the Word of God as taught by Jesus of Nazareth was willfully or inadvertently misrepresented or misunderstood such that men came to believe they were somehow more equal. God is One! We are one! Jesus said,
“Hear O Israel – The Lord our God is One Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
This is the first and great commandment.
The second is like it, namely this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Pages 305 – 306)
Whether or not you agree please be our “Friend” and “Share” us with your friends!
You are reading one in a series on the “Feminine-ist” teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
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References are to pages in the book. And our many thanks to Wikipedia!
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God is certainly not a Hellenist – they outlawed worship of God and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem. The male-worship and man-as-god beliefs of the Greek Hellenists run counter to belief in God. And Jesus was not a Hellenist. His ministry was dedicated to putting God and God alone first, as his teaching the Shema demonstrates. We also know this from the total content of his teachings and his many works. He stood fast against the Pharisees who aligned themselves with Hellenism following the Revolt of the Maccabees and the Hasmonean Civil War. And more directly, his mother Mary was not a Hellenist.
A devout Jew, Mary was exceptional in many ways. She was accomplished and learned from a young age as we have discussed, well versed in the Law, the Prophets and Scripture. In whatever way you choose to view the circumstances of her impregnation and subsequent pregnancy, in a way only women can understand, she carried life. She felt life growing inside her. Pause and consider, having created both man and woman in God’s own image and likeness on the sixth day, God said:
“Adam called his wife Life (Hebrew: Havah) because she was the Mother of all living things.” (Page 27.)
Mary, like every woman before her back to the beginning with Havah, and every woman since, experience the God-given miracle of creation giving birth to a son! Stop and think, we are not talking about any sort of modern convenience – nutritional advice, pre-natal care, medicines, professional, pain medications! Imaging the struggles of pregnancy and childbirth even 200 years ago is unimaginable for most, let alone 2,000. And yet God still considers men the equal of women.
And as if situations and circumstances were not difficult enough, Joseph and Mary were uprooted from Nazareth:
“A DECREE WENT OUT from Caesar Augustus in those days that that all of the world would be taxed. And so everyone went into their own city to be taxed. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea – into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem… with Mary his espoused wife who was great with child.” (Page 46.)
For Joseph, as for any man who honors his commitment to a woman, yes it is something of a burden to accept and obey such a command – indeed from an occupying authority. To feel powerless, to be unable to resist such tyranny of a superior force. But Mary knew the hardship of life in Israel in those days. But there is no comparing her obligation to an unborn child – and the total vulnerability of her condition to which only another woman can relate. Indeed she is pregnant! A woman, a wife and soon to be mother on the road toward uncertainty in a land fraught with danger. This is a kind of faith in God only women truly know.
And what lays ahead in Bethlehem – the City of David? Surely she knows the place so prominent in Scripture! What she finds is no place to properly birth her son. Now we do know from other records and stories that women were the keepers of all such health and healing techniques, practices and medicines as were known in those days – praise God! So she would never have been alone throughout her ordeal. I can only related to Joseph as having been inept and useless for the births of all my three children! But imagine giving birth in a stable:
“So it was that while they were there the days were accomplished that she should give birth. She brought forth her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Page 46.)
Again, all life flows through the woman, as God had said of Havah. All life. But creating life and giving birth is in and of itself yet another beginning, is it not? I was present at the conception of all three of my children, and was supportive throughout their mother’s pregnancy. I was present at their births, but still I have no idea how a woman does it and endures such suffering, such travail – out of love. My role in co-creating life, as one with my wife, is so obviously limited. Who am I after all to think, say or act as though I am somehow better? I am no Hellenist either! Those experiences helped me understand the equality, the balance, indeed the oneness God and Jesus speak of.
Herstory continues with yet another journey in fidelity to God’s Law:
“When eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child [according to the Law], (and) when the days of her purification were accomplished according to the Law of Moses, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” (Page 47.)
We realize now more than ever Mary was high-born as not every child born in Judea-Israel in those days was presented to the Lord God in Jerusalem – the Temple itself! Mary was very special indeed. Learned, no doubt she could both read and write; a gifted intellect, she was capable of drawing from all the Hebrew writings to compose great oratory; and as a woman, more than equal to any man, she remained God’s humble servant. What man among the many we will meet in Jesus’ story can we say as much? And so finally,
“And when they had performed all the things according to the Law of the Lord they returned to Galilee to their own city of Nazareth.” (Page 47.)
Shalom!
Miguel
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This weblog, our pamphlets, study guides and other materials are inspired by Miguel’s book, The Word 2.0, a new biography of Jesus of Nazareth in his own words, based upon a single, unified timeline.
Find us at Amazon.com or our website: www.whatifjesuswasawoman.com
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God is undifferentiated masculine and feminine energy in perfect balance, whole, complete, unified, and co-equal. God is neither male nor female, and yet both – inseparable! And as a reflection of God’s Divine Balance, God made each of us manifest as male and female, man and woman, in God’s perfect likeness! Truly a state of grace.
How Adam’s actions brought about the fall from this state of grace is something we will discuss elsewhere. Suffice it to say that long before Jesus was born, men and women were already out of balance. In the more immediate sense of events which took place in Israel before Jesus was born, I found the Seleucid Greek invasion critically important because of the belief system we call “Hellenism” the Greeks forced on the children of Israel at that time.
It may not be especially well known today but the Seleucid Greeks from Syria outlawed our One True God! They forbade the worship of God under the penalty of death. Their King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Antíochos D’ ho Epiphanḗs, “God Manifest”), believing he was god, decreed the people would have no other god before him.
Coin depicting King Antiochus IV: “Image of (G)od; bearer of victory”
Hellenism did cause divisions among the people though. On one hand identifying with the Greek empire and culture could enrich certain elite Israelites, but on the other hand their man-worship violated God’s Law. This divided not only those who were “Hellenists”, their supporters and adherents, from those who were “Traditionalists“, but also, apparently, men from women. Why? Because it is also in the nature of Hellenism that women be subordinate to men.
But our One True God was definitely not a Hellenist, right? Given that, Jesus was not a Hellenist – quite the opposite. We might characterize Jesus’ ministry as anti-Hellenist – teaching men in particular about the Divine Balance of God’s Feminine and Masculine aspects, specifically “Feminine-ism“. I briefly outline some basic principles of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and ministry, as they are revealed in “The Word 2.0”:
1. Jesus was a “Traditional” Hebrew-Jewish teacher and Rabbi – to say the very least!
2. Jesus was not a “Hellenist” in any sense of our understanding the word.
3. Jesus espoused and promoted that our One True God – the God of Israel, is a perfect co-equal balance of both masculine and feminine, as is reflected in all Creation.
4. Jesus said that we must love the Lord our God first and foremost, and then love one another as we love ourselves.
5. Jesus taught that love, beginning with God’s “Ruach HaKodesh” – the Breath of Life and Holy Spirit, as aspects of God’s Divine Feminine, is the only way that men can experience the Kingdom of God.
6. Jesus rejected the kind of egocentric, selfish, self-centered thinking and behavior of men that characterizes “Hellenism”.
We will discuss each of these points in much greater detail as we continue, and, look for my study guides they will soon also be available!
