Why do people insist on adding a sexual life to the historical records of Jesus?
Some, like Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, want Jesus to be married to Mary Magdalene and want him to be a champion of some underground fertility cult centered on intercourse.
Others just want him to be married to anyone, like the forger who created the fragment with its accompanying fragment of the Gospel of John discussed in Christian Askeland's blog.
Thank you to Eva Mroczek writing on Religion Dispatches and critiquing Askeland for calling the Gospel fragment a not only a "sister" to the "Jesus' wife" fragment but an "ugly sister" at that.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/7854/_gospel_of_jesus__wife__less_durable_than_sexism_surrounding_it/
Of course the "ugly sister" trope in literature and media is sexist. Of course metaphors matter.
It's sad that Askeland has curated the replies to his blog post so that sensible challenges and questions are deleted, like those asking what he means by "historical feminism."
Thanks also to Mark M. Mattison for letting us know about Eva's helpful critique through his post on the conversation pages of the EEWC-Christian Feminism Today community group. www.eeewc.com
Perhaps it's easier to have a Jesus who is sexual and more like us than to have a Jesus who says things like "none of you can be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions" (Luke 14:33).
Married men don't usually say that, and I think Jesus means your preconceptions (racist, sexist, classist and otherwise) as well as your physical possessions.
Some, like Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, want Jesus to be married to Mary Magdalene and want him to be a champion of some underground fertility cult centered on intercourse.
Others just want him to be married to anyone, like the forger who created the fragment with its accompanying fragment of the Gospel of John discussed in Christian Askeland's blog.
Thank you to Eva Mroczek writing on Religion Dispatches and critiquing Askeland for calling the Gospel fragment a not only a "sister" to the "Jesus' wife" fragment but an "ugly sister" at that.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/7854/_gospel_of_jesus__wife__less_durable_than_sexism_surrounding_it/
Of course the "ugly sister" trope in literature and media is sexist. Of course metaphors matter.
It's sad that Askeland has curated the replies to his blog post so that sensible challenges and questions are deleted, like those asking what he means by "historical feminism."
Thanks also to Mark M. Mattison for letting us know about Eva's helpful critique through his post on the conversation pages of the EEWC-Christian Feminism Today community group. www.eeewc.com
Perhaps it's easier to have a Jesus who is sexual and more like us than to have a Jesus who says things like "none of you can be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions" (Luke 14:33).
Married men don't usually say that, and I think Jesus means your preconceptions (racist, sexist, classist and otherwise) as well as your physical possessions.
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