This is the final post in the series. For context regarding this series see this post. You can also see the whole series.
[—————————Begin my email to Nathan—————————]
@Nathan
9. Related to question 8, does work like yours attract misogynists? Why or why not? If so, is there anything that can be done to avoid it? If not, is there something an outsider like me isn’t understanding about the people that it does attract? Is it fair for me to ask the spanking question and the misogyny questions right next to each other? Are my biases making me see misogyny (for example, in the wife spanking crowd) where I should see something else? If so, what am I (and others like me) missing?
I think this primarily breaks down to two things:
1) “Normal” for conservative Christian culture is to pedastalize, really to idolize, women. This ties back to chivalry, which is why this is worse in conservative Christian culture than even feminist Christian culture. When “normal” is idolizing women, anything short of that will seem like misogyny. I’ll use two books as examples, but keep in mind the books themselves aren’t what is telling, it is the reaction by conservative Christian culture that is telling.
The authors of Every Man’s Battle wrote a follow on book on marriage titled Every Man’s Marriage. The thesis of the book is that a man’s wife is his “master”:
What I’m trying to say is that the “master” defines your rights (and remember again that though we refer to your wife as your “master,” it’s our shorthand for the fact that becoming one with her essence is actually your God-given master). Why? Because you’re called to oneness and her essence sets the terms.
The whole book is shot through with ridiculous quotes like that. See my series on the book for more examples. Outside of conservative Christian culture people would laugh at such tripe. But check out the Amazon.com reviews. Conservative Christians love this stuff.
Another book (and set of Amazon reviews) to consider is Wendy Griffith’s You Are a Prize to be Won!: Don’t Settle for Less Than God’s Best. Griffith is in her mid 50s and is so entitled/picky she has yet to meet a man who is worthy of marrying her! This should make her a cautionary tale to young Christian women not to be overly proud. But in conservative Christian culture Griffith’s massive entitlement makes her a role model. Griffith explains to young women that as entitled as she was, God wanted her to be more entitled:
…I heard the unmistakable voice of the Lord in my spirit. He whispered so clearly to me, Wendy, you are a prize to be won!
I knew the Lord’s voice, and I knew that He was speaking to me about my value. I didn’t need to be the one pursuing in a relationship or running around like a chicken with my head cut off, looking for love in all the wrong places. God has my man, and that man is going to recognize me as his prize! And the same goes for you.
Unfortunately, I have had to learn this lesson the hard way.
Pearl of Great Price
Ladies, the Lord wants you to know that you are a pearl of great price, a treasure worth pursuing and protecting. You are worth fighting for…
I don’t know if you saw the hilarious bit of trolling of feminist academia by a group that submitted the most absurd feminist papers they could dream up to academic journals. My personal favorite is their assertion that feminist interpretive dance would improve the study of Astronomy, but others prefer their paper about rape culture among dogs. The thing is, nothing is too absurd for academic feminists, and the journals couldn’t tell the hoax papers were satire because that is what real feminist submissions look like. If I were going to troll conservative Christianity, I’d write books like the two I just mentioned. I’d say headship means you are your wife’s slave and that the pearl of great price was not salvation, but women, and I’d present the advice on finding a husband as coming from a woman in her 50s who never managed to find a husband. But these folks beat me to it. How could I possibly make a parody more absurd than the real thing?
So just like anything short of the craziest things you can imagine feels like misogyny to feminists, the same is true (with a different flavor) for conservative Christians. The thing is, while lying to women makes both the liar and the women feel good, it is still cruel to women. Christian women have heard this message their whole lives, and many don’t know it isn’t true. Who really hates women, the men who offend them by telling the truth, or the men who remain silent while women are being lied to?
2) With that said, there is another aspect to this. Since pedestalization is so deeply rooted in our culture, learning that women sin too is very painful for many men. Upon learning that chivalry is a lie, many men initially react with what I call red pill bitterness. Most men either reject the truth outright or make it to the other side with an appreciation for women as they really are. But some men get stuck in the bitterness phase. It is like the “red pill” gets lodged in their throat; they neither fully swallow or spit it out. They see the truth (or at least part of it), but they hate it and therefore hate women for the fact that it is true. Christian former blogger Samson’s Jawbone described his own feelings in this regard:
Roissy is fond of saying that he’s not a “misogynist”; no, learning the unvarnished truth about female psychology has given him a *higher* appreciation for women. Not so for me. Sociosexual philosophy has disillusioned me beyond all reckoning. Peering deep into the psyche of woman has rendered me grievously scornful in feeling and mercilessly unscrupulous in behaviour towards these unholy, ungodly beings. I venture to say that… I hate them. Yes, I hate them! And how could I not?
Not surprisingly Samson eventually left the men’s sphere. In general there is a good deal of patience for men who are working their way through this stage, but if a man gets stuck here and wallows in it eventually that patience runs out. As commenter Leap of Beta put it:
Samson doesn’t seem like he ever stopped grieving for the old him. He’s still stuck on himself and seems to think that he deserves better treatment from women, and seems to forget that God made women the way they are. He simply doesn’t seem to accept that on an emotional level even if he acts upon it on a rational level. So he goes through life acting on the facts, but never seeing the beauty of how women function when they follow the path God gave them.
Then he blames the manosphere for his unhappiness instead of just owning it. We’re degenerates. We’re cynical. We’re angry. Blah. Blah. Blah. We’re individual men in various states of grieving, acceptance, learning, growing, and teaching. You’ll get from the manosphere what you go looking for as well as what you put in. Samson has found what he’s wanted.
[———————————Nathan Replied———————————]
Interesting. I’ll have some follow-up questions, but I’ll let you answer question 8 first, and then we can hit a few things in more depth as needed.
[———————————End of Exchange——————————]
Note: Nathan reiterated at the end of our process that he may be adding further replies in the podcast. Also, I answered this question (question 9) before question 8, which is why Nathan notes that he will wait for that answer before asking any follow up questions on this one.
I would have asked Nathan for his definition of misogyny to make sure I was answering the right question. But you did very well. Any putting down of womens’ pedestalization will look misogynistic to modern evangelicals anyway.
Hey Dalrock.
Thanks for publishing all this back and forth with young Nathan. I’m sure it’s very difficult for him to break through the cogdis most of us had early on, if he is actually trying to understand and not just looking for loopholes; but you really did a nice job in this series making things plain.
I use this material in real life as opportunities present.
Hmm
Agreed. The author of this article once done will use this definition of misogyny:
“Any time a man holds a woman accountable for her behavior.”
And there’s nothing Dalrock can do about it.
Nathan: “I’ll have some follow-up questions, but I’ll let you answer question 8 first, and then we can hit a few things in more depth as needed.”
You might add a link to the previous post (the answer to his question 8), for people not reading these posts sequentially. They might wonder why you didn’t answer Nathan’s question 8.
[D: Good idea. Done.]
This is not a “debate”. He is just asking you questions and giving no answers himself. Then on the podcast he will tear you to shreds where you have no opportunity to rebut him.
“Misogyny” along with “sexism”, “racism”, and “male chauvenism” are nonsensical terms made up by the feminist far left in the 1960s.
They did this to cast normal men with the patriarchal worldview as being against women, despite the fact that patriarchy expects men to sacrifice themselves for and support the women in their families.
When a Christian podcaster is using feminist terms like “misogynist” it shows that he is trapped in the feminist worldview himself.
Chauvin was a French nationalist supporter of Napoleon. Up until 1960, “chauvinism” meant nationalism, like Donald Trump, American first. That was chauvinism.
Then, feminists decided to present traditional family men as “male chauvinists” by saying their loyalties were to men as a sex, thus they were male nationalists. Today the term chauvinist has come to mean a man with offensive views of women.
The reason this is so ridiculous is that it is the FEMINISTS who are the chauvinists. Feminism urges women to rebel against their father, their husband, in the name of the rights of the female nation. Feminism is truly “female chauvinism” but it is the men they accuse of it, to keep us off balance and on the defensive.
Misogyny is used in exactly the same way.
So what is a misogynist? Can you show me a misogynist from history? To feminists a misogynist is simply a man who believes in the God-created roles of husband and wife, and male headship.
It’s common practice today to label anyone critical of anything a hater. So, if you’re critical of women you must hate women.
This is the pathetic level of discourse today.
It is extraordinarily difficult for church men to break out of the chivalric conditioning and accept the truth that women are also lost. Their conditioning and sheltered upbringing work together to keep them from seeing the truth that exists in the Bible and is corroborated by the evidence that women also are lost and sinful. To make matters worse, their leadership such as Bnonn and D Wilson attacks those that tell the truth in this area.
For any Christian man reading these posts, all I can encourage you with is what helped me: someone in the manosphere quoted Thomas Aquinas, saying that all Truth is God’s Truth. This statement helped me tremendously in facing the disillusionment that resulted from reading aroumd here and similar places. Even Truth that isn’t Nice is God’s Truth, and God still loves His children even in the tough times.
Work like this attracts men who look around at the given paradigms and stuff “everybody just knows” about men and women and noticed s collossal double standard exists.
It occurs to them through simple observation (and sometimes something really painful that happened to them) that something doesn’t add up.
What i find most interesting is watching Nathan grapple with concepts he’s clearly being exposed to for the very first time. It’s becoming obvious he’s never heard of any of what Dalrock has set out here. Which is where most Christian men are, IMO. Most Christian men don’t think critically about any of this and simply accept what Focus onthe Family, Dennis Rainey, Steve Arterburn, John Piper, Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll, and other women pedestalizer/worshipers tell us about Christian views on intersexual relationships.
Most Christian men really do believe the false theology/Chivalry as Christianity perpetrated on them.
I concur with Larry: your nonsequential presentation leaves this last post disjoined from the apparent natural flow of the correspondence. Links would help.
Altogether, I think you presented the extant errors among Christians well, and with more temperance than I would muster.
Could you please follow this with a discussion of the kinds of questions Mr. Alberson asked? These last two (as presented), in particular, played a part in my departure from Christianity. Among the atheist crowd, Christians (et al) are described as ignorant brutes, but once I left “the faith” I discovered the same treatment from Christians, leading me to associate with neither. It seems to me that there is an unmentioned bias among Americans toward believing a set of “truths” without any examination of alternative evidence, and, in the particular case of Christianity, scripture. Among these biases are the implied (and conspicuous) accusations of wife-beating and misogyny. Yet there’s a dearth of evidence supplied supporting such a charge against this website or its author. It’s a kind of libel: “Dalrock is a misogynist,” so, “Ignore him.”
It’s like the “mean girls” are running Christianity.
For lurkers, this is quite possibly the best Exhibit A-type evidence in a long while to cement the truth presented this post.
https://www.drjamesdobson.org/Broadcasts/Broadcast?i=7267acb9-ec23-48f6-974a-f88c69f89e10&sc=upcomingbroadcasts
When Loving Him is Hurting You
This is modern evangelicalism=churchianity.
@Nathan
Says in the Gospel of John that the truth shall make you free. It says nothing at all about the truth being warm, fuzzy, feel good, none of that. The truth can be a very hard thing to face, especially when it goes against what one believes, but that is not an excuse before the Lord.
The blunt and hard truth is that within the conservative Christian circles where you make your home, literally any attempt to hold a woman accountable is termed misogyny. Dalrock was 10 for 10 in not finding women held accountable in that other post listing conservative Christians writing about men and women. If you cannot address that, then you will have no credibility here and you may as well go back to kissing Wendy Griffith’s behind. Yes holding women accountable feels bad, it sure does. So bad that men run away from it. And we pay the price for that failure. But making women feel bad is not an excuse before the Lord for not telling them the truth.
I’ve posted this before, but I’m a big proponent of putting forth one’s best arguments in a discussion such as this. That’s what 8yrs in the feminist meat grinding family court junta has taught me.
Relevant to this discussion, your arguments centered around truth helping women/ lies hurting women are your very best IMO.
Here is the thing, and this is very tough to swallow, but nevertheless I believe it to be true:
People that are caught in this stronghold are severely biased and therefore discriminatory. What that means in practice is that although they won’t be able (or willing) to verbalize it, their worldview is such that at the root of it they are ok with men being oppressed, marginalized, even destroyed. Of course they wouldn’t be ok if it were them, or perhaps a close family member or friend, but in the abstract, they’ve made peace with it.
Therefore any argument that advocates for making things better for men, or protecting men, encounters severe resistance. HOWEVER, when you start to use arguments that rightfully expose how the system harms women, or harms children, you can often find a soft spot to make some headway.
Keep fighting, brother.
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
JRob
That stuff on Dobson’s site is painful to read. The titles of all those various workshops and stuff make me cringe.
I’m a clinical psychologist just like the speaker. Guess I missed those days in school.
@thedeti
“It’s becoming obvious he’s never heard of any of what Dalrock has set out here.”
If only Dalrock would get it together and start that blog so others could read his thoughts for as long as it took for them to grasp the material, even if they didn’t agree with it. Surely then the misunderstandings would cease.
Since pedestalization is so deeply rooted in our culture, learning that women sin too is very painful for many men.
From personal experience I can tell that first to recognize this behavior in yourself (and others) then second to change it, is the biggest mental step I took in years. In that sense the analogy ‘red pill’ is aptly chosen.
For Christian men it is of utmost importance to recognize the role of moral responsibility and of sin in the lives of women, especially the women you love.
If you think women aren’t capable of lust and sin, consider the scripture highlighted here
https://lexetiustitia.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/yes-women-lust-too/
The entire interview is a set up to criticize Dalrock in the future
@Dalrock
I were going to troll conservative Christianity, I’d write books like the two I just mentioned…How could I possibly make a parody more absurd than the real thing?
The comparison with the faux-feminist research made me think of a recent example: Joshua Harris and his “courtship” ritual you’ve lampooned in the past. Recently Harris admitted that his “courtship” advice was ridiculous, even going so far as to openly apologize and pull I Kissed Dating Goodbye from shelves. Sounds like a big win…what made him see the light?.
“…Modern Dating and Modern Courtship…both have a tendency to disempower women. Modern Dating does this by having a woman ‘belong’ to a boyfriend as well as pushing an expectation of sexual intimacy with him–both of which Umstattd argues disincentiveze a man from working to earn her affection. Likewise, Modern Courtship disempowers a woman by putting too much authority in the hands of her father as well as making courtship too serious and too quickly and increasing the pressure to commit to the man she’s taken the step to court.”
It just wasn’t empowering enough.
>Related to question 8, does work like yours attract misogynists?
How the hell should he know?
>Why or why not?
Why the hell should he care?
>If so, is there anything that can be done to avoid it?
Are you the hell going to pay him to do so?
>If not, is there something an outsider like me isn’t understanding about the people that it does attract?
Aren’t you presuming misogyny when you haven’t even established it’s there?
>Is it fair for me to ask the spanking question and the misogyny questions right next to each other?
Why are you assuming anyone cares?
>Are my biases making me see misogyny (for example, in the wife spanking crowd) where I should see something else?
How the hell should we know?
>If so, what am I (and others like me) missing?
That you can fix in yourselves? My suggestion would be a better and more objectively adult understanding of your priorities in life. Why is misogyny, in light of the comparative quality and expectancy of life statistics by sex, even in your top 10 of concerns? More men and boys die more early and are homeless. Why is misogyny a thing for you in the face of that?
@Nathan Are my biases making me see misogyny (for example, in the wife spanking crowd) where I should see something else?
Let me answer this for Dalrock: YES.
If so, what am I (and others like me) missing?
By your own admission I classify you as “blue pill” (or as Dalrock says: “conservative Christian”). I think Dalrock has done a very good job describing what you are missing.
Does it ever dawn on these people that most parents don’t want to spank their children, that most husbands would prefer not to have to discipline a wife? That doing such things is a cause of angst for men? Do they understand that’s it’s not based in hatred, their is no pleasure to be gained from disciplining your child, you do it because you want to protect them from a worse fate. Nathan is missing the point because he chooses to.
So [Samson] goes through life acting on the facts, but never seeing the beauty of how women function when they follow the path God gave them.
How many men ever get to see such a thing? How many women actually choose to follow the path God gave them (i.e., one that accords with Scripture’s proper roles for women)?
I believe the word misogyny was originally invoked to describe homosexuals in previous centuries. – Males who did not experience any natural attraction to females. About a century ago the term ‘woman haters’ was used positively by groups of men who wanted to keep their freedom and avoid the ‘yoke’ of marriage. Or married men who formed clubs to get away from their nagging wives. The 3 Stooges did a skit called ‘the woman haters’ about taking a vow not to get married, and how various women tried to get them to break their vow. Back when people were sane but female domination was rising!
OP, quoted text — ‘Samson doesn’t seem like he ever stopped grieving for the old him. He’s still stuck on himself and seems to think that he deserves better treatment from women, and seems to forget that God made women the way they are.’
He does deserve better treatment from women, and he is correct to demand it. That weak men failed to back him is their sin before God, not his. That even weaker men work and conspire against him . . . crackle crackle sing the hungry flames.
Assuredly, God did NOT ‘make women the way they are’. Lucifer Inc. made women the way they are. The evil in women that men hate, is evil that SHOULD be hated, get thee behind me, with extreme prejudice. As men should hate the evil in themselves, and seek its riddance.
The female that God created from Adam was good, and remained good, until the moment she rebelled, seeking Equality with God and Man. (Yes the very same Equality that ‘conservatives’ and ‘Christians’ everywhere demand for their daughters, thus serving the goddess-idol.)
Only AFTER rebellion was Eve cursed, partly with pain and partly with an INCREASED desire to rebel even more. Only AFTER she rebelled did she ‘become all she could be’ in satan’s world.
Regarding Dobson’s organization’s presentation:
When I got to this, I immediately thought this is a great description of women today. Unfortunately, the speaker is claiming this of men. Presumably, he belongs to the “women cannot sin” camp.
What a load of manure! With all of the problems in marriages today, I’m sure we need more Christian experts telling us how about how Christian husbands are emotionally abusive and even narcisstic. During my marriage, I think my ex-wife considered it emotional abuse if I didn’t preface every request with “Please”.
The point he chooses to miss is quite simple. If the Church supported husband headship, by providing the husband with meaningful support during rebellious times by being stern with the wife and reminding her of your obligations, the husband wouldn’t need to feel like he is helpless and thus think of other out-the-box solutions.
Beyond those couples who enjoy spanking. Most husband would prefer to forego this and be able to love their wives in grace and harmony. Rebellion by the wife stops this from happening and since the husband has zero support and instead gets shat on, he is between a rock and a hard place.
Instead of thinking of the ‘wife spanking crowd’ as men who hate women, try thinking of them as men who would like to restore order to their family. Might make things a tad easier for all of us.
Should be ‘of her obligations’… sorry for the mistype.
You utter barbarian! How dare you not say please?! Did you kiss the ring? If not, why not?
@Nathan: does work like yours attract misogynists?
If there ever was a suggestive question…
This question is so wrong on many levels, and shows the utmost insincerity.
Why or why not?
Bloody heck, this is the utter SJW pose: making an author somehow responsible for the nature of his readers. The absurdity.
If so, is there anything that can be done to avoid it?
Why, WHY, would that EVER be relevant?
If not, is there something an outsider like me isn’t understanding about the people that it does attract?
You mean, you see ALL commenters on this website as misogynists. And that somehow invalidates what Dalrock is saying. You’re THE example pur-sang of a fake journalist. You and your ilk have destroyed proper journalism, and resorted to propaganda instead. Goebbels would have been proud of you.
Is it fair for me to ask the spanking question and the misogyny questions right next to each other?
Is that a rhetorical question?
“Normal” for conservative Christian culture is to pedastalize, really to idolize, women. This ties back to chivalry, which is why this is worse in conservative Christian culture than even feminist Christian culture.
Since idolizing women repels women, being attractive to women is misogyny, according to Nathan and his ilk.
This is also why they think serial killers are extremely virtuous – they get love letters from women.
Wendy will be dead of old age before she ever marries, but even if not she’s still a barren biological dead end to the continuance of human life. Good job Wendy you “princess” [sarcasm intended].
Rule #1 for Nathan :
A man who gets called a ‘misogynist’ from time to time gets far more attraction from women than a man who goes to great lengths to never be called that word.
https://www.google.com/search?q=misogynist
misogynist
/mɪˈsɒdʒ(ə)nɪst/
noun
“a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.
“a bachelor and renowned misogynist”
synonyms: woman-hater, anti-feminist, male chauvinist, male supremacist, chauvinist, sexist; informalmale chauvinist pig, MCP”
According to google’s dictionary, a misogynist is an anti-feminist, and and anti-feminist is a woman-hater, a sexist, a male chauvinist pig (MCP).
What else to expect from Google, the SJW stronghold? It almost sounds like it is a GOOD idea to start calling yourself a misogynist….
though we refer to your wife as your “master,” it’s our shorthand for the fact that becoming one with her essence is actually your God-given master). Why? Because you’re called to oneness and her essence sets the terms.
Her essence? Who talks like that?
Good job on the weaponizing of ‘chauvinism’ — first by anti-Christ Jacobins (as ‘egalite’ or Equality), then by anti-Christ feminist Americans, then by anti-Christ churchians.
@Anon: I get called every name in the book by leftards and I don’t care. They can’t get me fired because I’m self-employed, they can’t ruin my business because my customers are friends and family who agree with me, they can dox me on-line but my footprint is too small to have the desired affect (I’m not on Facebook, not on Twitter, not on Amazon, etc…) and I don’t care if they (unless they break the law doing it), they can’t get me in trouble with the government because I’m not breaking the law, etc…
What they can do is take it on the chin when I tell them the truth… like a man: or else F off. Leftards are most of the problem and I’m a part of the solution.
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The sexist adult men who win women’s hearts are best classified as “benevolent sexists”; that is, they aren’t hostile to women; they are patronizing to women. Chicks dig a man with amused mastery. – Heartiste
Tradcons would probably call this misogyny, but it is sure a lot more fun and effective way to go through life.
feeriker says:
So [Samson] goes through life acting on the facts, but never seeing the beauty of how women function when they follow the path God gave them.
“How many men ever get to see such a thing? How many women actually choose to follow the path God gave them (i.e., one that accords with Scripture’s proper roles for women)?”
Rollo would call this the myth of the quality woman.
In my own experience, I have known women that go to church, do the bible study meetings, dress fairly conservatively, appear to take care of themselves and act like responsible young women in public . . .
That do the hardest forms of drugs when available to them without hesitation, have notch counts above single digits and have engaged in acts that porn stars get paid extra for.
Women are truly like water in that the conform their behavior to whatever environment they are currently in, and the current environment says “Do what you will.”
As Ray points out they are fallen, just as men are, they are not as God intended them.
The Greeks described women as the “Curse that is Desired” made in order to prevent men from rivaling the Gods.
Considering how the Christian church has completely inverted its faith so men are the servants and women are the head, how purity rings are melted down into vaginas, how single motherhood is celebrated the Greeks weren’t wrong.
Jesus unequivocally states that if you marry a divorced woman you are an adulterer. Matthew 5:31-32. How many churches perform wedding ceremonies with divorced woman as the recipient?
All those people are in a constant, unrepentant form of adultery which means they are hellbound.
That should make everyone deeply troubled.
Is acceptance instead of anger really the best path? The path of virtue? Or is it merely resignation?
The church leaders have betrayed you and lie, society lies, the schools lie, the culture is filed with lies and depending on when you get the red pill the level of damage that has been done to your life can be irreversible.
I make no comment on anyone’s marriage here, Dalrock appears to have a happy one, I am sure several others do too, but in my life I have met only one couple that appear through the years to be happy.
Only one couple that I thought, I wished I had what they had. Out of thousands.
Anon:
“Since idolizing women repels women, being attractive to women is misogyny, according to Nathan and his ilk”
Only romantically does it repel them. They love the slavish attention of the worker drones. Adoration and attention are the coin of the realm.
The more attention and adoration you have, the more free stuff you get simply for being you.
As long as those sexless creatures remember their station as palace eunuchs all is Good.
It is as “God intended,” they extract resources from loyal, generous, intelligent, hardworking kind men and reproduce with irrationally self confident, cruel, aloof, self absorbed, violent men.
What’ s there to be angry about?
“…God made [women] the way they are.”
Not entirely. Women didn’t have sin natures or a natural desire to usurp their husbands’ authority until AFTER the fall.
I can empathize with Samson’s Jawbone. Probably because I’m not even very good at making friends, so how on earth could I have a successful marriage – even without the ridiculous burdens the Church places upon men?
The last two items in this email “interview” are presuppositional and provide the interviewer moral cover for even condescending to correspond with you, depending on how you answer the questions.
Two things, Dalrock:
-”Anything less than complete pedestalization (idolatry) will be seen as misogyny”- is going to be a very hard lesson to hammer into church culture. it is though a critical one for Western civilization.
-we refer to your wife as your “master,” it’s our shorthand for the fact that becoming one with her essence is actually your God-given master). Why? Because you’re called to oneness and her essence sets the terms”. – (Stoekel / Arterbern / Yorkie)
Such quotes are proof that the ancient heresy, Gnosticism, is alive and well in the modern church, in the form of chivalry / romance culture. The idea that a ”an essence” exists metaphysically outside the body and therefore isn’t effected by things carnal, in turn opens up the body to the carnal. That ”essence” isn’t physical and therefore not open to criticism, discipline or command.
Gnosticism. Idolatry (on the heels of which is always, sexual immorality). Jezebel Spirit. Did someone mention we have a war to fight with forces satanic?
I read this comment on Yootoob I think: “A ;misogynist is a man who hates women as much as they hate each other.” I am not aware of anyone on this forum who fits that description.
Ras,
Jesus said that the woman committed adultery, not that anyone was an adulterer. That is a difference. He also did not say all we have read into that, certainly nothing indicating it was completely not allowed. He could have, but He did not.
He was making the point that marriage was intended to be one man and one woman for life. Anything less than that is falling short, even if The Law allowed it.
The last two items in this email “interview” are presuppositional and provide the interviewer moral cover for even condescending to correspond with you, depending on how you answer the questions.
We all know how the final podcast is going to be presented. It’s going to tell the world much more about Nathan Alberson than about Dalrock or anyone who frequents this blog.
Paul —
Good catch on Google asserting the borg’s CrimeThink:
“According to google’s dictionary, a misogynist is an anti-feminist, and and anti-feminist is a woman-hater, a sexist, a male chauvinist pig (MCP).”
A misogynist now is not merely one who hates women. It’s now POLITICIZED — misogyny is now one who RESISTS FEMINISM, i.e., is an anti-feminist. That would, for beginners, necessarily define all authentic Christians, male and female, present and future.
The pre-criminalization is subtile, but crystal clear. Google’s googling with the imaginative/spiritual space accessed by language (the word) is a glimpse into the near-future of the New Woman Order. Christians, especially male Christians, will not be welcome. Except as targets.
Ras al Ghul — ‘The Greeks described women as the “Curse that is Desired” made in order to prevent men from rivaling the Gods.’
Like the Egyptian sorcerers, the Greek philosophers had significant practical wisdom, but not spiritual wisdom, the kind only God can impart. The Greeks didn’t know that females weren’t made that way, as weapons or curses, but were re-shaped that way by a rebellious spirit.
The Greek pantheon, of course, were fallen angels long before deified and established on Earth. Females don’t prevent men from rivalling the Gods, because there are no ‘Gods’. Just the one, and there’s no rivalling or threatening Him. But indeed, females are used (not made) to prevent men from apprising and approaching God. And preventing some angels from the same thing, as well, as Scripture relates.
There’s something about the way Nathan is phrasing these questions that feels like a setup. It reminds me of the “does your mom know you’re gay?” joke kids used to tell in school to rip on each other.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, a common prank when it was less acceptable to be gay was to go up to your buddy and ask, “does your mom know you’re gay?” The smart kids just go, “I’m not gay” and that’s the end of it. The more “amusing” kids will struggle to parse the question and come to the realization that whether the answer is yes or no, the kid making the answer unintentionally outs himself as gay and is subject to much juvenile ridicule.
I kind of see the same thing happening here…questions with built in suppositions that are assumed to be fact in the hope that when Dalrock answers, he will fall into those suppositions and discredit himself. So far I see Dalrock’s response as that of the smart kid who just goes, “I’m not gay.”
Only problem is that when it’s kids just ripping each other in the schoolyard, dismantling the built in supposition produces respect. The kid asking realizes the victim has more moxie than expected. In the case of a grown ass man interviewing for what could possibly be a hit piece, it’s not as likely that the questioner will take the dismantling of his hidden suppositions very well. Watch your six, brother.
“On Feb. 4, 2019, Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, perhaps the most important Imam in Sunni Islam, met in Abu Dhabi to sign “A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” in the presence of leaders from all of the religions of the world.”
source — https://www.raptureready.com/2019/02/17/signs-church-will-soon-go-daymond-duck/
All coalescing nicely. The Hamites and the Homos. Get all the evil in one place.
In P.K. Dick’s 1981 “The Divine Invasion,” power on the planet is divided between the Scientific Legate, and the C.I.C. — the Christian-Islamic Church. Days of future passed!
In this one, PK trades Heinlein’s Valentine Smith for Elijah. :O)
I never understood The Divine Invasion. It ends with a giant dead moth on his roof? And that Fox singer was an angel? I also thought that other woman (forget her name; begins win an R) got a raw deal, dying of cancer. But I guess that’s life.
Likewise The Man in the High Castle‘s ending, when we suddenly learn that the Nazis lost the war. Out of the blue, despite the previous chapters.
Dick’s endings are often odd. Just tossing aside everything that came before.
At least Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was consistent and made sense.
We need alternatives to Google. And I don’t mean Duck Duck Go or Starpage, which use Google to obtain search results.
I’ve heard it’s hard to compete with Google, because Google keeps buying up patents for anything pertaining to it various business. Not to implement all those ideas and techniques, but simply to prevent potential competitors from using them. Google owns so many patents, it’s hard to compete with Google without infringing on one or another of its patents.
@Micah Women didn’t have sin natures or a natural desire to usurp their husbands’ authority until AFTER the fall.
There is a deep lesson to be learned that it was the woman who was deceived, and it was the woman who sinned first.
““You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”
Deceived, but approved by her senses (good for food, pleasing to the eye), “You will be like God” sounded so attractive, she decided to disobey the command most likely given by Adam to her. And in her sin she seduced Adam to join her.
It’s not a pretty story, but unlike in the past, it nowadays gets hardly told in churches; usually Eve is skipped and Adam is pictured as the chief sinner, because misogyny. And we all know Eve and Adam stand for every-woman and every-man.
Well, when Google company slogan was “Don’t be evil”, search results WERE better, much better than the competition, and therefore Google won, to the point that its name became a verb.
Since they’ve dropped their slogan they’ve rapidly become evil.
We all know what Adam should have done in response to his wife’s sin and her trying to seduce him to sin too: he should have confronted her, refused to sin with her, obey God’s commands instead, and rebuke her.
So should every man act towards his wife.
It’s not the wife that sanctifies the man, it’s the man that sanctifies the wife.
“[Christ] gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives [..]”
@RAG Jesus unequivocally states that if you marry a divorced woman you are an adulterer. Matthew 5:31-32. How many churches perform wedding ceremonies with divorced woman as the recipient?
And similarly He said: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Luke 16:18
@Paul
There is a deep lesson to be learned that it was the woman who was deceived, and it was the woman who sinned first.
Was discussing this with my wife recently, in the context of 1 Timothy 2:12 which says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man…” and then Paul states his specific reason for this: “For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman who was deceived and fell into transgression.”
However, the rest of the New Testament puts the responsibility for sin entering the world on Adam, such as in Romans 6, where it says that sin entered the world “through one man.”
The reason I’m thinking about this is that I want to be able to say something about this when it comes up in our Bible study at the local church.
“usually Eve is skipped and Adam is pictured as the chief sinner”
Isn’t this what Paul essentially said in Romans 6 and other places, when he said one man’s transgression led to making all of us sinners?
The point here I am hoping to make in our study is not that Adam is not pictured as the chief sinner, but that there are specific reasons why women are not permitted to teach men in church, and that these reasons are not cultural (“it applied to back then only, because it was a patriarchal (read: mysogynist) society, but we know better now, because we’ve advanced” is the typical response. However, Paul doesn’t give a cultural reason for women not being permitted to teach (“that’s not how we do it in our male-dominated society where women are treated as mere property”), but refers to the fall, a significant event that is not “cultural” and has relevance in all times and places.
That’s all, just saying. Does anyone have any ideas on how to present this when it comes up in a discussion, other than not commenting on it, or “that’s what it says, but not what it means?” In other words, yes, the NT blames Adam for the fall, but it is also not a mere cultural reason why women are not to teach men, etc.?
@James Isn’t this what Paul essentially said in Romans 6 and other places, when he said one man’s transgression led to making all of us sinners?
Yes, that is indeed true, and good that you mention it. Eve did transgress/sin, but sin entered the world through Adam, NOT through Eve. A simple question can clarify this: what would have happened if Adam would NOT have listened to his wife and NOT have eaten from the forbidden fruit? Eve would still have sinned.
I think we can deduce that sin would not have entered the world. We do not know what God would have said and done to Eve. To me this is consistent with the special spiritual role men play in God’s design.
As for the cultural comment; I find it weak, because Paul defends his commands with an appeal to creation. This pattern of appealing to creation occurs more often. Jesus refers to pre-fall man and woman to proof that nobody should separate husband and wife because God joined them.
If you want to do a bible study, I encourage you to study all NT quotes of Adam and Eve, and carefully study the first few chapters of Genesis. You can learn a lot about male and females.
Ahh “bible study”
So glad I rid myself of these.
RPL,
That is the major flaw of the modern patent system. Copyright goes hand-in-hand with that to stifle advancement, not to enable it as was supposed to be the point.
Ray,
The ironic thing is that Eve was already “like God” when she was tempted by the serpent. Adam was made in God’s direct image and she was produced from that, so both were already like God. Yet she gave it all up to pursue what she already had.
That is just like today where women give up the decent deal they already have to gain something far worse. They think they gain control, but they end up losing it all, and causing much destruction along the way.
Studying the Scriptures, even with others, has great value. The problem is not the study, it is the reliance on a flawed foundation. The Bereans were praised (for being more noble than those in Thessolonica) because they studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true. They did not rely on church fathers or other external authorities, but God’s Word.
Give that up and the end will not be much better than what we have now. It may be better in the short run, if the authority is not compromised, but looking at the modern RCC clearly shows strong authority doesn’t solve all the problems.
@Random Angeleno:
Yes holding women accountable feels bad, it sure does. So bad that men run away from it. And we pay the price for that failure. But making women feel bad is not an excuse before the Lord for not telling them the truth.
Men, especially churchian men and a lot of Christian men, don’t want to hold women accountable because they’re afraid of the blowback that inevitably results when they do. Women shriek and scream like stuck pigs.
“How DARE you attack this woman!” “How DARE you speak against women like this!? You obviously hate women! You aren’t fit to preach/minister/work here! I’m going to your bishop! I’m going to the conference of bishops! I’m calling the local news media! I’m putting you on blast on social media, it will go viral, and you’ll lose your job! Your bishop will yank your credentials!”
“You aren’t fit to belong to this church. I’m going to tell the pastor, and he will boot you out of here and excommunicate you! We will tell everyone what a horrible, horrible person you are! Why, you’re not even a real Christian! If you were, you wouldn’t say/believe these horrible things about women! You’re bitter! You’re evil! You’re a sad excuse for a human being! ”
“I know where you work. I’m gonna get you fired. I know where you live. I’m gonna burn your house down. I know what car you drive. I’m gonna damage or destroy it. I’ll notify the state and have ethical complaints lodged against you, and the state will pull any licenses you hold!”
@Spike
”Such quotes are proof that the ancient heresy, Gnosticism, is alive and well in the modern church, in the form of chivalry / romance culture. The idea that a ”an essence” exists metaphysically outside the body and therefore isn’t effected by things carnal, in turn opens up the body to the carnal. That ”essence” isn’t physical and therefore not open to criticism, discipline or command. ”
Its not enough to oppose it from the outside as the early church fathers do.
But to purge the infection on the inside that entered the body. e.g. Augustine not truly purging himself of the dysfunction of the sect/s he once belonged to and their philosophies. Whilst declaring marriage to be good he at the same time undermines it.
By his dysfunctional views on sexuality within wedlock which echoes through the ages till today. Declaring what is good as evil.
@deti
”Men, especially churchian men and a lot of Christian men, don’t want to hold women accountable because they’re afraid of the blowback that inevitably results when they do. Women shriek and scream like stuck pigs. ”
Betrays their lack of fear of God. As if his majesty is absent from the consciousness.
“Can we agree that there exists a category of people, ‘mysogynists, racists, etc’, who’s interests aren’t valid and whose arguments need not be addressed? OK, good. Now let’s see how much ground you’ll give to keep me from placing you in that category.”
Lexet Blog:
I agree that this entire interview is a setup. The podcast will probably rip Dalrock and this site and the ideas expressed here from stem to stern. In large part, I think, because Nathan doesn’t comprehend the ideas expressed here. They make no sense to him. I can tell by the questions he’s asking.
He’s also doing this Cathy Newman/Jordan Peterson “So You’re Saying” back-and-forth. Dalrock says X, Nathan responds with “so you’re saying Y?” or Dalrock says A, and Nathan responds with some backhanded thinly veiled attack that at first blush sounds like a good faith question. There’s more than a little bit of veiled contempt from Nathan.
So, why do you blog? (Who do you think you are trying to talk about scripture like this? That’s OUR job.)
So, do you agree with corporal punishment of spouses? (I KNOW you MUST agree with wife-beating.)
So, does your work attract misogynists? (Must virtue signal here, to show that even if I think Dalrock and his commenters are misogynists, everyone must know that I am not a misogynist. Because criticizing women is misogyny, in my book. Why Dalrock can’t see that, I don’t know.
So, is it fair for me to ask the misogyny question and the corporal punishment question together? (I am inviting Dalrock to tell me I’m treating him fairly even though I am not treating him fairly.)
My elves and me will have to read the links for further elucidation, but I don’t think I have further questions on the topic just yet. (I’m going to scour the blog for evidence of misogyny I can use to run you up the flagpole and hold you up for ridicule, ostracism, and financial and social ruin. I’ll be back to scream “gotcha!” at you once I find it. And I’m gonna tell on you to Tim Bayly.)
OT for this thread, but may be worth examining further: https://focalpointministries.org/broadcast/conquering-the-two-headed-family-part-1/
Note that he has had several shows lately on Christian marriage that did have many accurate things. It is not perfect, but he avoids many of the things most modern preachers do in the area. This is a show on many stations, not a rare outlier.
(I do disagree with him on some other theological issues, but this was closer to what I would hold to Scripturally than I have heard from anyone else recently.)
Before the no fault divorce threat-point came domestic violence law threat-point. A man has natural physical dominion in his home based on his God-given strength. His authority is in his word and in his financial provision but all authority ultimately rests on force. This natural dominion could only be usurped by force, force from the State with the blessing of the Church. Now every man can be beaten, arrested, or shot by the State with a simple phone call from his wife or children. It’s ridiculous to recognize negotiation under divorce threat and deny this much more immediate threat and major player in the power dynamic of the home. Of course power (and opportunity for tyranny) was not eliminated. It was only shifted from one man to a faceless bureaucracy and women and children were baited into rebellion. Once you agree that men can’t be trusted with actual physical authority over their families then you are on shaky ground to argue these other issues.
So, I had a look at Warhorn Media’s Twitter and found it difficult to get a grasp on exactly where they are coming from: Last November they appeared to be in full support of corporal punishment of children but now they are podcasting the entirety of Jane Ausrten’s Persuasion – reader she married him – and all his wealth and even though she is now thirty and has hit the wall yet had rejected him when he was a poor and humble midshipman. I loathed that book even as a seventeen year old reading it as I had to for A Level Eng Lit. What Americans can get out of it is lost on me – most of my ancestors were the middling and lesser sort that Miss Austen and her heroines would have rejected out of hand. I thought America was supposed to be classless.
In regards to this interview, a recent piece by Vox Day is timely:
The subject is Answering the Pharisees, and what got me thinking about this is the way in which the trolls and shills and alt retards and philosemites are constantly trying to trap people verbally. They’re constantly trying to get you to commit yourself to a position in public that they can then use to discredit you. So you know, with me, they will bring up questions from articles that I’ve written 15 years ago that they think will be that will be damaging to you. There is this constant attempt to get you to disqualify yourself, to get you to discredit yourself, and what it occurred to me is that this is exactly what the Pharisees did to Jesus Christ.
The rest of the article is also helpful, possibly more so:
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/11/darkstream-answering-pharisees.html?m=1
Is commenter “Warthog”, who’s telling you to go to hell in the comments to the previous post, the same person as Nathan Warhorn?
[D: No. Warthog is a long time commenter. Nathan Alberson is the Creative Director of Warhorn Media.]
I don’t think many people who comment here hate women, although there’s always the temptation to schadenfreude when a woman who follows The Narrative (career, carousel, you go girl!)
finds that the promises were empty after all. But someone like Wendy Griffith just makes me sad, although it is right to point out the idiocy of a world where she could be considered an authority on relationships.
Bingo. The argument was lost years ago. And Nathan and his type continue to pander to the idea that men can’t be trusted with real, physical and financial authority over their wives and families. Well, duh guys, if you believe that they can’t, then you believe they can’t lead either. Wow! So simple. It’s like you’re actually undermining the very foundation of your case. Haha!
@ Scott
You don’t study the Bible anymore?
Oscar-
I no longer sit down, by myself (or with a group of laypeople) and read passages of translated-into-English scripture and conduct private interpretations of its meaning anymore, no.
Agree with @thedeti and 7817.
Whatever comes out of this interaction will be instructive. If Dalrock replies to a tar and feathers response, I hope he makes the rubble bounce.
I’d be willing to be pleasantly surprised too.
Oscar, to put a finer point on it.
I am absolutely relieved to not feel like I have to do that anymore.
Christians of today are so conditioned to believe that this private discernment is an important part of their spiritual life, even elevating it to commandment status.
They (especially fathers in the home) would do better to see themselves as dispensers of already settled truth by thousands of years of church history and authority and tradition than putting undo pressure on themselves to “figure it out for themselves.”
There is nothing new to learn about the text. Only to rediscover what people wiser, holier and more disciplined than us already did.
@Barnie ““Can we agree that there exists a category of people, ‘mysogynists, racists, etc’, who’s interests aren’t valid and whose arguments need not be addressed? OK, good. Now let’s see how much ground you’ll give to keep me from placing you in that category.””
You nailed it!
All we had to do was guard and dispense the truth until His return.
That’s it
But because of pride and arrogance and itching ears and trying to impress chicks and whatever else we failed.
Individually (instead of under authority and with reverence for the hierarchy of saints and martyrs) interpreting is how we got to “social justice” and Warhorn media and pastor do and so and stupid questions about “misogyny.”
I thought America was supposed to be classless.
It just looks that way if you’ve been observing our journalistic standards, elected officials, late night TV hosts, and professional actors.
biilys,
Tell me how you can say that someone commits adultery and yet are not an adulterer?
By definition if you commit adultery you are in fact an adulterer.
Does Jesus say what he means, or not? your position is that he does not.
Paul,
Same message, different wording.
Ray,
Fallen Angels, whatever they are, gods (little g) are superhuman beings or spirits having power over nature or human fortunes. Even the bible acknowledges these things exist.
My point though was the Greeks view point of the nature of women and the story of adam and eve’s curse are consistent. And there is a reason that when the story of Prometheus is taught in the schools, the part about women is left out and a sanitized version of pandora is told.
Wisdom and truth, whatever the source, is still wisdom and nd truth.
if there is one consistent pattern I have noticed is that every generation seems to think their experiences are unique and discounts the lessons of the past because of the source (how many millineals scoff at the bible because it was written by men? or primatives? or woman haters? or… the list goes on.)
that which survives, survives because it speaks to the human condition.
How many stories out there have men laid low by women?
Samson and Delilah, Anthony and Cleopatra, Arthur and Guinevere, The list is endless.
The real crazy thing about our society is the default view of them is heroic. Heroic single mothers, heroic activists, whatever they do they are viewed as heroic. They are viewed and told they are exceptional simple for existing.
once you understand hypergamy, you realize just how destructive this is to any civilization. no civilization can survive it.
@Scott
The individual interpretation concern is overblown.
How many Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, whatever actually read their Bibles? My guess based on the people I’ve known is not very many. Most follow what they are told by their leaders or by the people and culture around them.
I’m thankful to have access to documents, both the Bible and the writings of ancient believers, to verify that what my leaders tell me is the truth or not.
It comes down to the hierarchy of responsibility: yes my pastor is responsible for teaching me truth, but what if he fails? Yes I’m responsible in guiding my family, but what if I fail? In each case, the Bible is there as a redundant backup, if any one else fails.
There is a reason God told the ancient Israelites to memorize his commands, teach them to their children, and write them on their doorposts and gates in Deuteronomy 11. It is like DNA, it is the truth we go back to to verify if the things others are telling us are true.
I don’t unequivocally trust anyone with the care of my soul such that I will turn off my brain and not verify that what I am told is the truth.
@Scott re “Bible study”
You are the authority in your family. So you will (and should) lead as you see fit.
Within the limit of the statement above, I would encourage a few thoughts:
– consider Acts 17:11; what behaviour is encouraged? Generically speaking, what two sources of religious truth are being presented, and of those two sources, which are we encouraged to trust for ourselves?
– if you trust the interpretation of tradition and/or church fathers, who are you really following – God himself, or that tradition/church fathers?
– seeking the advice of those more learned than I is of course wise. Prov 13:10. No dispute there.
@ Scott
That sounds like a good argument, but the reason I can’t accept that argument is the abundance of nonsense I witnessed in the Catholic Church.
I’m not familiar with Orthodoxy, but being from a Catholic country, and having grown up among fellow immigrants (most of whom were Catholic), there’s an abundance of nonsense among those led by ones who claim Apostolic succession. And that nonsense exists because the leadership either ignores it, or even promotes it. Or – in the case of all the Sodomy among the leadership – covers up for it.
DaleU
Who colllected and collated the books of “the Bible” and what gave them the authority to do so?
Secondly, how did the Christians of the first, second and third centuries know how to behave without it?
Were the Christians who labored in the kingdom before the printing press, Luther and translated scriptures lacking what they needed for fullness in their faith?
Trust me, I’ve been over this a bazillion times and I’m not converting back to protestism.
I just find the lack of acknowledgement that at some point, you either accept the authority of someone else, or you are your own church.
The books of the Bible had arguments and evidence for their authority that the early Church submitted to. They weren’t picked out of a hat among equals.
To the extent that they followed false traditions, yes. Do you think Christians that were Catholic or Protestants lack the fullness of faith by not being Eastern Orthodox? If you think they lack the true faith, then they would.
We collect 12 people to choose if someone should be imprisoned for life or put to death. They are instructed to stick to the evidence presented.
If something is true or false doesn’t come from authority, we can only do the best we can with the evidence we have.
For example there is no evidence around Mary being bodily transported to heaven and no Church leaders talk about it before the 6th century, even when writers before that do make lists of all known examples of people being bodily transported to heaven and leave Mary off the list.
Protestants see a lack of historical evidence and philosophical arguments around Mary being a “co-redemptrix” and so can’t mentally agree to statements made about her without convincing arguments.
@Scott
That, like, could mean anything, man; and hard to do if the truth isn’t known or understood. Acceptance of authority (not least in the Church) is missing and desperately needed, but the example set by the overwhelming majority of OCs and RCCs is heterodoxy and heteropraxy. The children of Christians who don’t read the Scriptures are ignorant of The Truth and don’t practice it. Just ask the children of earlier immigrants.
It’s a different world. The practices established within a wholly Christian context (the European Medieval world) are of little effect in the Modern World. We have exited the world Constantine established and so–like the pre-Medieval Christians who circulated, read, and studied what became The Gospels and The Epistles–it is necessary that we too corporately and individually study the Scriptures.
7817 said “The individual interpretation concern is overblown. How many Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, whatever actually read their Bibles?”
The problem is the pastors are doing the individual interpretation; it’s becoming epidemic in Evangelical megachurches.
Listen to a few episodes of the podcast “Fighting for the Faith”. It’s a discernment ministry. The examples he gives of pastors twisting scripture and coming up with new theology out of thin air are jaw dropping.
You do know there is a growing trend for modern pastors to consider themselves apostles don’t you? And I mean capital A apostles–people whose word carries the same weight as Paul or John. When many modern pastors say “God said to me”, they don’t mean they had a strong feeling, they mean God literally spoke to them, as in “thus saith the Lord” spoke to them.
If anything, the individual interpretation concern is underblown. There is a lot of new theology entering the scene today, and it’s entering through these megachurches built around a single pastor, where the church becomes caught up in fulfilling the pastor’s vision.
Trust me, I’ve been over this a bazillion times and I’m not converting back to protestism.
I just find the lack of acknowledgement that at some point, you either accept the authority of someone else, or you are your own church.
Indeed. But I have come to understand that the mindset gap between apostolic Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, Armenians, Copts, Jacobites) and Protestant Christians is gargantuan, such that trying to discuss these issues is like pissing in one’s own face. Best I have found to agree to disagree, because there really isn’t any way to bridge the gap.
Barnie —
‘Once you agree that men can’t be trusted with actual physical authority over their families then you are on shaky ground to argue these other issues.’
Yes. The push of the inceptive Divorce/Domestic Violence Industry in the Sixties fell solely upon that single point. All efforts were concentrated to assure society that wicked, cruel, heartless MEN could not be trusted with physical authority. Be assured that the worst, most grievous examples of wife-beating were trotted out, over and over. And over. Never ceasing, to this moment.
Once this husbandly authority was ‘legally and duly’ removed, marriage in the Western nations adopting Total Feminism became a sham. Merely a matriarchal cover. Doomed to failure, except amongst those outliers whose wives submitted voluntarily. A tiny percentage.
This is why Nathan (like the millions preceding him) couched his double-bind in the form of a ‘free’ interrogatory. Dalrock thus is forced to reject the only cure for the sickness, or be dismissed categorically as an Abuser of Women. The scarlet letter of the modern West.
Cane
Excellent analysis and I can accept all of that
It lends itself to a complex set of infinite variables.
But my starting point would be apostolic succession which is ancient. It’s not a made up innnovation.
Without it there are no sacraments. And without sacraments the Christians soul starves.
@Otto
It would be difficult for you to prove my point any better. If you re read the rest of my comment, I think we agree more than we disagree.
@Scott
Why did you make any denominational switches? If you had accepted the authority of your leadership would you not have stayed put? How was your change of churches not an improper use of personal interpretation? My point is that men must use discernment. If you are following Christ in Orthodoxy, good for you, my desire is not to convert you away from it some way.
@Scott
Not trying to “convert” you, since a child of God is a child of God… and that is the end of what matters for his own salvation.
Since you asked however…
>Who colllected and collated the books of “the Bible” and what gave them the authority to do so?
God used the fallible, sinful people there. Same as always. See the various prophets God chose to use. The fact that Daniel was used by God to give prophecy, i.e. Words of God, does not prove that EVERYTHING Daniel said was reliable or true. I am certain Daniel sinned and made mistakes; see Rom 3:21-26. Oh, a VERY good example is the prophet Jonah. I challenge you to read the short book of Jonah, and not conclude that Jonah was both a prophet who was effectively used to speak the perfect words of God, and also a very sinful and selfish man who also said sinful and stupid things. Both are shown, coming from the same mouth, in the same book.
>Secondly, how did the Christians of the first, second and third centuries know how to behave without it?
Deut 6:4-9 gives an example of God commanding his people to not only teach (presumably verbally), but also to write down his (exact) words. So the children received not only teaching from their “teachers/elders”, but also read the words of God for themselves (on the doorposts). Some of the early Christians you mentioned did exactly that; we know this from the exhortations we find in the NT Scriptures to “read the letter to the Laodicieans, and have them read this letter”. And the NT Scriptures themselves refer to the letters/epistles as Scriptures.
>Were the Christians who labored in the kingdom before the printing press, Luther and translated scriptures lacking what they needed for fullness in their faith?
If you mean for salvation: The list in Romans 10:9-13 is very short; only two items are given for salvation. I would “hope” that the genuine shepherds around at that time were able to effectively teach a list of only two items.
As for “fullness”, meaning, “work out your salvation”, then yes, of course they were lacking. Just as lacking as any person today who only hears the words of God for a few hours a week, and then hears nothing the other six. Joshua 1:8 shows God commanding Joshua to “meditate on the words of this book DAY AND NIGHT” (emphasis mine). So God commanded the continual contemplation of God’s word.
1) A “protestant” who refuses to read the Bible, and hears God’s Word only once a week on Sunday… Is he doing as God commanded the leader of God’s people in Josh 1 (re continually)?
2) A “whatever tradition-based” person, who hears only what his priest tells him is in God’s word once a week on Sunday… Is he doing as God commanded the leader of God’s people in Josh 1 (re continually)?
I would say both men are failing in his leadership of his family; the “which faith-group” part is irrelevant. Col 3:15-17 is interesting… “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another…”. If I only hear/read the words of Christ once a week, should I expect that I have fulfilled the “dwell in you richly” part? Or if I do not even hear the words of Christ, but rather settle for the second-hand interpretation of some other guy, is that better?
May God continue to bless and guide you, as he sees fit.
Good post, Cane.
There’s definitely a needed via media between
1) Interpreting the Scriptures completely on our own, home church fellowship style. This casts aside the consensus of the church and all the brilliant men who have gone before us, and
2) The RCC/OC position, also shared by some hard-core Anglo-Catholics.
Daniel,
I hate to say it, but yes, you can’t do much. I believe your wife may still be reborn in her spirit, but she sounds like she is acting just like my exwife. I was “controlling and abusive” according to her because I expected her to live up to what she said she would do. She thought that was only OK to expect “some of the time”.
It is not God causing this, it is her choices. God has chosen to let us go through some things. I am not sure what you could do, but you may have some time before you become like my situation of having her completely gone, though that ultimately has merit as well, since she has already effectively abandoned the marriage.
She may be pushing to get you to file for divorce though. I think my wife did her misbehavior to push toward something she could use to justify her rebellion.
Daniel,
Do keep in mind that most Christian men will not support you. It sounds like you at least know some who may be helpful. I wish I had some of those now.
Oops, wrong thread for those replies….
Just surfed the Mensactivism site, first story timely —
http://news.mensactivism.org/?q=node/32868
Most relational/domestic abuse in the modern Anglosphere is perpetrated by females. Also, the vast majority of physical abuse of children — often severe and repeated — is perpetrated by females.
I will wait for the Bravehearts over at WarHorn Media to run with these horrible truths. After all, the mortal welfare of children isn’t merely at-risk, it is demonstrably evident and in our faces.
Who will stand up for the tens-of-thousands of abused kids in the Western gynarchies? Some who are screaming even at this moment. Where is Christianity? Where are the Warriors of Jehovah?
Hello, WarHorners. Hello? Hm I guess their horns are pointed in some other direction.
@Scott
Now that my brain is in gear…. Question for you. If it is best for us to learn from and obey our church leaders, without us trying to directly obey God, what do you make of these passages? Feel free to ask your church leadership to review the Bible passages with you, as you feel appropriate.
Col 4:16 “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.” Why should the letter have been read to the entire church, and not merely to the church leadership, who then lead others?
I already mentioned this, so it is a repeat; sorry. Col 3
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Do you think this passage above is only for the leaders? If so, the exhortation “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly” applies only to the leadership.
Also a repeat, but consider for the question. Acts 17:11
11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
As for your challenge, yes, I absolutely see the problems with having the attitude that each man will read and interpret as he sees fit.
God’s word shows that each husband is to be the leader in his own home however. Wife and children obey. So I do not think God is unaware of the potential for abuse, yet God still chose to set up the family authority in this way. Consider how 1 Peter 2-3 shows that God knows about the sinfulness of leaders, yet commands that we obey our various masters/husbands anyway.
I would offer a challenge back. Do you see how another man might think it is superior
1) for each man to imperfectly strive to understand and obey God directly, in fellowship with others for correction and learning (Col 3:15-17, Heb 10:24-25)
than
2) for each man to imperfectly strive to understand and obey his church leadership (be that one man or a group of 2000 year’s worth of men) who is imperfectly striving to understand and obey God
I will not argue that either is perfect. We live in a sinful world. But which seems best likely to bring people to a better understanding of God and his commands?
Scott —
“Without it there are no sacraments. And without sacraments the Christians soul starves.”
I don’t practice or accept any sacraments. Unless the Lord’s Prayer is considered a sacrament.
My soul is not starving.
Thanks! As always your writing is dead on! I am MGTOW and for a few months upon going my own way I had trouble swallowing the pill and I was bitter. I spent a few months on online forums sharing my complaints but the whole thing got tiresome and I moved on. My point is that there will always be a small, vocal minority, that cannot get over the bitterness and because they are loudest they come to represent the group as a whole, which is why many see MGTOW as misogynist, although most who would define themselves as MGTOW really don’t hate women at all but just hate the current gender culture we find today.
@ray:
I don’t practice or accept any sacraments.
Unlikely that your statement is correct… Baptism and the Lord’s supper (aka eucharist) are 2 of the recognized sacraments. Since those two are commanded in Scripture, I am hoping you have had those in your life 🙂
Marriage is a third.
Generally speaking, arguments in the form of “mah Theology! Yor doin’ it Wrong!” here in comments tend to become long, drawn out rabbit trails that eventually lead nowhere. No one is converted or convinced to change denominations. However, they do get men riled up at each other, even angry with each other. and in the process take our attention away from whatever the Original Topic may have been.
There could be better uses for our time, more important things than getting the last word. Writing from personal experience, here, not just theory.
Not picking out any person in particular, rather Just Saying.
@Zarathustra
Men coming to terms with the reality of “what women are” and “what men are” tend to go through a number of phases including denial and anger. This is even more true for any man going through a frivorce, or a man realizing just how contentious his wife really is, etc. and so forth.
There will always be angry men in the androsphre, because there will always be more men putting on The Glasses and being shocked by what they actually can see. Some men get stuck in the “anger” phase for a long time, and some of them will become strident, aggressive MGTOW who are very difficult to engage in any conversation.
Stick around, read and comment, you’re welcome here.
Scott and Dale,
I agree with Ray that sacraments do not exist. By saying that, I’m not saying Baptism, the Lord’s supper, or marriage do not exist, or that they are not good things. I’m just saying they are not sacraments. The very idea of a sacrament depends on a distinction between clergy and laity. Sacraments are those things considered too sacred (hence the name “sacrament”) for anyone but the clergy to perform them. However, you can read the new testament cover to cover and there is not even a hint of a distinction between clergy and laity. It’s just not there.
Baptism – the great commission was a command given to all christians, not merely to “clergy”. We are all called to go into all the world evangelizing and baptizing. Note that the great commission says to baptize. There is no hint that people are supposed to bring saved people to their clergy to be baptized. I realize this is a minority opinion, but ALL christians are free to baptize new believers, regardless of education, ordination, or church employment.
Lord’s Supper – for the first few hundred years of the early church, the Lord’s supper was a full meal eaten together. Only later did it become separated from true communion in the church community, to become some sort of separate sacred ritual that only clergy are allowed to officiate.
Marriage – as near as I can tell, there are only three things needed to create a marriage. Intentionality, commitment, and consummation. You don’t need a permission slip from the government, and you don’t need permission or approval from “clergy”.
@Scott
The Bereans serve as example of proper response to teachers; they are praised for searching the Scriptures to see if what the teachers said did not contradict Scripture, or could be supported by Scripture. At that time that would have been the OT only. But they accepted what Paul taught them as also coming from God.
In my personal experience, I’ve come to know the Lord by the work of His Spirit in me, which pushed me to start to read the bible, which caused me to surrender to Christ. Only after that I started looking for a church to join. Since then I’m determined to trust God and His Word. Scripture is what He has left us, together with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That should always come first. It has always been sufficient in my walk with the Lord.
And yes, that means in a sense that you are your own church, which is completely in line with what we are to expect: to appear before God to give account of our deeds. God will ask YOU about YOUR deeds, which includes who YOU decided to listen to.
Having grown up in an American, individualist Protestant culture, i can truly appreciate the sentiments of so much conviction about private interpretation and the rejection of all human authority in biblical matters.
However, I also believe that since the majority of the Christian manoshere is of the same cloth, it will be the primary reason it will fail to develop and mature into a movement of singular purpose and resolve to fix marriage.
Most of the men here believe, way down in their gut that they can go it alone by finding the unicorn or that they will survive the coming collapse by force of will.
This saddens me greatly because rallying around a purpose and solving a gigantic problem is something really only men were built to do.
But it means falling in line behind an authority and a greater purpose. This is foreign to most of us now.
And let that critique not be so hurtful to anyone in particular.
I stay here in this space because even in the bizarro anonymity of these boards, I have developed a real kind of “love” for the brothers here.
When one writes “please pray for me” I actually pray with my family around our table for you.
When one expresses anxiety about a job interview I cringe and experience angst it too.
When another writes “I found a job and can finally pay my bills” or “I got a higher custody of my kids” I feel joy.
When yet another reads a silly ljubomir post and writes to my email “your romance inspires me and I hope to find that some day” I weep with an ache that you do actually find it.
But these are strange times we live in and I guess things will never be perfect until we are all called home.
rejection of all human authority in biblical matters.
No, I defer to my betters, while seeking to corroborate their understanding, and only if they are proved wrong would I disagree.
However, I also believe that since the majority of the Christian manoshere is of the same cloth, it will be the primary reason it will fail to develop and mature into a movement of singular purpose and resolve to fix marriage.
I don’t believe that such a movement is possible, and if it was it would eventually be subverted due to the sinful nature within Man.
Most of the men here believe, way down in their gut that they can go it alone by finding the unicorn or that they will survive the coming collapse by force of will.
On the contrary, that is impossible. True friends and good groups are more valuable than gold, and about as rare.
But it means falling in line behind an authority and a greater purpose. This is foreign to most of us now.
I think heaven will have a hierarchy that is completely good because it is unspoiled by sin, and I greatly look forward to assuming my low place within. But here there has to be failsafe of some kind because all are fallen, so unavoidably some in the hierarchy will be evil and abuse their power and position. The Catholic church is the clearest example of failure of what should be a Christian hierarchy.
Just because I say we should read the Bible for ourselves does not mean the hierarchy is bad, or something I am opposed to, or even reject. It’s just that this world is a shipwreck, and all of us were traitors, and some continue to be, but we can’t tell who is faithful for sure. So we deal with people and hierarchies that are broken, and submit to those who we can tell are our betters, and be faithful to God above all.
@Paul
I think the only reason it says sin entered the world through one man is, not because for Adam to eat the fruit was inherently worse, or only mattered whether or not Adam ate it, but because Adam was humanity’s last hope to not be tainted with sinfulness. Now, some may think that because Adam “sealed the deal” on our sinfulness it is all his fault/responsibility. However, Eve is still complicit for the fact that she was a stumbling block to him – she probably filled him with a false sense of boldness he wouldn’t have had otherwise. All of this in addition to the fact that her action in and of itself was sin.
In others words, I don’t believe Paul would have intended for the statement “sin entered the world through one man” to be convenient fuel for the feminist world view.
Scott,
Believing leadership unconditionally would also require believing anything they decided is truth, including female worship. I would not have stayed true to my faith if I just bowed to others who claim to know better.
Jesus said His Church was built on the revealed knowledge that He is the Christ. A different word is used for Peter and the Rock the church is founded on. Though I suppose that distinction may not override the words of those who say otherwise, since they are authorities.
But go for that, as long as Jesus truly has been made the Lord of your life. I have enough to deal with in my own life, you can figure yours out!
I find great value in studying the Scriptures with others, unfortunately I find very few that haven’t made them of no effect with their traditions, whether RCC, Orthodox or some variation of Protestant.
Though I would be interested in your comments about why the Bereans were praised if studying the Scriptures didn’t have value for any but church leaders.
So what I’m seeing in total is, rather than an actual exchange of ideas:
1. A “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question from Nathan;
2. A detailed response from Dalrock, and;
3. A “I’ll have to think about it” response from Nathan.
4. Rinse and repeat.
Did I miss anything?
@PokeSalad
Did I miss anything?
You missed the community that our brothers have been having in this forum 🙂
Even the discussion (hopefully it is seen as a discussion, not an argument) about submitting to God versus to a church hierarchy, is meant to push one another toward godliness. Praise God for my brothers in Christ! May God correct my incorrect beliefs through their rebukes and challenges.
And hopefully God may use my to help and correct others… Otherwise, what use is community?
I do fear that Scott is right about the unlikelyhood of true teamwork and trust. I can trust you all with my words and ideas, when that trust costs me nothing. But such a “trust” is useless in any crisis.
Feel free to offer suggestions.
@Mountain Man
Sacraments are those things considered too sacred (hence the name “sacrament”) for anyone but the clergy to perform them.
Interesting response. I was just using the term that Ray had used, for continuity with his comments. I will admit to general ignorance about the proper use of that term, as I have not studied the word.
As you correctly note, the commands from Christ were given to the whole church, not the religious professionals.
PokeSalad,
Did I miss anything?
On Warhorn, you missed nothing.
On other recent subplots, you missed something quite funny, so I am including it over here for your enjoyment :
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/warhorn-interview-define-red-pill-game-and-mgtow/#comment-304839
RPL —
It’s been v long since I read PKD, can’t exactly recall the end of Divine Invasion. But it is an extremely powerful book, that transmits quite useful information indeed about our past, present, and future. As the item about the Mooslims and Pope confabbing illustrates.
Stripped down of plot devices and dead-ends, there is authentic prophecy in some elements of Divine Invasion, and to much lesser extent, ‘Transmigration of Timothy Archer’. Certainly these texts are nothing approaching Scripture, yet resonate Scripture strongly in places.
Heinlein’s book was much more potent culturally, across the West, but containing far less of elemental truths. Stranger sent multiple mindwaves through anglo civ, and given Bob’s military/intel associations — not to mention the free-for-all culture that resulted — one must be skeptical, seeing Bob as more of a deliberate, calculated change-agent, rather than transmitting more wholistically and open-sourced, as Phil Kindred did. Somehow, I don’t think Bob had permission to decide what Michael says and does. Got folks thinking he did, though.
PK had no ulterior associations of which I’m aware, and his ansible, however static-filled, was more reliable. He was sufficiently crazy to allay deke fears, a wild-man thunder-son, and the way I read Invasion in particular is, expect an occasional gold nugget amongst the technique, imaginative fails, and rocks.
Billy S —
“Ray,
The ironic thing is that Eve was already “like God” when she was tempted by the serpent. Adam was made in God’s direct image and she was produced from that, so both were already like God.”
No. The man was/is ‘in the image of God’. God’s pneuma is not a subway token. It’s not transferable to anybody. He gives it or not.
The woman was/is like the man. She was created of the man, for the man.
But I would have you know,[Scott] that the head of every man is Christ. Not some church leader.
I Just popped open Psalm 119, a psalm about God’s word, and studied it for a moment. It was fun.
Psalm 119:18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Is he hearing it from a teacher, or seeing it with his own eyes?
Psalm 119:97 O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. 98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
How are you ever going to get more understanding than your teachers if you rely on them?
Psalm 119:124 Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. 125 I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.
Shouldn’t he have been afraid of developing a private interpretation, learning directly God?
Psalm 119:162 I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.
Ahh “bible study”
So glad I rid myself of these.
Perhaps your church has taught you a wrong attitude towards God’s word.
I try to capitalize the “B” in Bible. I think that is the orthodox English spelling. Out of respect for God’s word, and the enlightening privilege it is to read it.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
But stay away from God, you might get a private interpretation. /S
FWIW, the last time I came up with a private interpretation.(Women aren’t in the image of God) I discovered online, that it was actually the belief of the early church fathers from their earliest writings, and some others on this very site had come to the same interpretation privately themselves. LOL So much for it being private!
@BillyS
Your wife isnt saved. Otherwise she will repent because God transforms hearts to want to be righteous and obedient to him.
Exwife I mean.
@Micah
When you look at it from the perspective that Adam was the spiritual responsible, that is the head, of his wife, and that Eve was actually taken out of his body, while he was the first “man” or “adam”, and realize all his offspring literally came from him through Eve, and was called by his name “adam”, you can see that he not only is the first of all of humanity, but he represents, that is stands for, all humanity. Hence when he sinned, it can be understood that it had different impact, and hence was called “through one man sin entered the world”.
I don’t find this feminist at all, exactly the opposite actually; it shows the utter inequality between man and woman.
@Paul
…it can be understood that it had different impact…
Again, I can’t help but think that’s only because after Adam ate, there were no more humans left without sin.
I didn’t say it was feminist, just that it’s easy for feminists to abuse. After all, what better a precedent can society ask for to blame men for women’s problems than to be able to pin 100% of the blame for the introduction of sin into the world on a man?
In other news, Wilcucks is at it again. He has an entire video hectoring men to marry, and uses Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson as an object of disapproval that he can hector into signing the government contract :
Everything he says about the damage of not having two parents is true. But 100% of the problem, of course, is due to men.
Another Strong, Independent Single Mom, and her Boyfriend, kill mom’s daughter. (In this case, an adoptive daughter.) https://nypost.com/2019/02/20/man-who-acted-out-twisted-fantasy-with-adoptive-mom-pleads-guilty-to-murdering-teen/
A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the rape, murder and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl, and the victim’s adoptive mother has agreed to plead guilty and serve a life sentence. …
Sullivan was Sara’s boyfriend.
Prosecutors have said that Sara Packer, a former foster parent and county adoptions supervisor, watched Sullivan act out a rape-murder fantasy they shared.
Did you get that? This woman was also a “county adoptions supervisor.”
Sara has a fucking neck beard? Is that a tranny? Urgghh! I think I’m going to throw up…
And then to think gender identity disorder was reclassified as NOT a sexual disorder anymore..
@feministhater,
The weight makes it harder to identify an adam’s apple, but I’m pretty sure that’s a dude (biological male).
@micah
Truth is truth. Whether we like it or not. Darkened minds come to darkened conclusions even with truth it seems.
Like the accuser satan himself. Those women resemble him in this way as the accuser.
I wouldn’t have checked the link but FH’s comment made me interested. If Sara is a woman, than woe is her, she’s been dealt a tough hand. If not, then WBIR is complicit in the perversity of it all.
I wouldn’t trust your local random pastor of some random Christian church but if you associate with a world wide church like Orthadox or Catholicism it seems silly to be second guessing every word. You studied the scriptures in making the decisions to join that Church – now you go to learn their doctrine and follow Christ not argue with them and waste time double checking. That’s what you do before you join. That might explain some of the discrepancy in the views on this issue.
Sacraments vs ordinances. I was unfamiliar with Mountain Mans definition of sacrament. In my church we call these ordinances and they can only be done by people with authority but that authority extends to all worthy men in the organization – we have a lay clergy so all men can perform our sacraments/ordinances.
@Micah After all, what better a precedent can society ask for to blame men for women’s problems than to be able to pin 100% of the blame for the introduction of sin into the world on a man?
Feminists don’t like male headship. They won’t blame Adam.
HOWEVER, it shows that men should withstand woman’s sin.
As have been discussed endlessly here, both the church and the state are not only unwilling to do that, but make it virtually impossible for “real” men to effectively do so.
Ray,
Both were made in the image of God, Eve just came later and got that by being in the image of Adam.
info,
It depends on what it means to be saved. I believe salvation should transform us, but none of us ever reach perfection on this earth, so clearly it is not just doing everything right. It is a question of if someone’s spirit is alive or dead. That is what died in Adam and Eve and what gets reborn. I can find nothing that says it dies again, so I believe it is a one-time event, not based on outside actions. Otherwise anyone who ever tells any untruth (lie) is not saved. No one is saved if that is true. Some may lie, but the inner nature is not a liar, which is what will never inherit God’s Kingdom.
A bit more depth to walk through here though.
I would take Jesus story about “depart from Me, I never knew you” much more seriously than many do today. Trying to get away with excuses to act selfish is dangerously close to that and I wouldn’t risk it even if I am convinced I can never lose my salvation.
My exwife’s biggest problem is that her expectations were set wrong and she thinks life should revolve around her. She is convinced she was controlled and abused, so nothing can break through that mindset. Too many churches reinforce that idea, unfortunately.
https://pjmedia.com/faith/southern-baptist-president-j-d-greear-abusers-have-no-place-in-the-sbc/
@BillyS Both were made in the image of God, Eve just came later and got that by being in the image of Adam.
I disagree, see also earlier discussions. (e.g. https://bnonn.com/are-women-made-in-the-image-of-god/)
Summary: yes, woman is made in the image of man, who is made in the image of God. Question to consider: when Adam and Eve walked in the garden and encountered God, did He look more like Adam or more like Eve?
Billy S —
I covered this stuff about females not receiving God’s pnuema in previous threads. Not going to repeat it all.
And they let “Sarah” adopt a child? Sure, same sex couples adopting has no problems, right….
Blech.
You were wrong their too Ray. Though believe whatever you want.
I note you ignored the Scripture reference Paul.
@BillyS of course not, but you did ignore what I wrote earlier about it.
To repeat:
at the moment [Gen 1:26-27] is said, it is only a summary event of what is expanded in chapter 2. “in the image of God he created him” is clearly talking about Adam being created out of the earth, directly receiving the breath/Spirit of God, whereas “male and female He created them” refers to the moment both Adam and Eve were created, with Eve being created both AFTER Adam and OUT OF Adam, two theologically VERY significant events. The “in the image of God he created him” cannot therefore not immediately be extended to the creation of females.
Therefore the “in the image of God he created him” seems to more properly refer to Adam only, which would better fit the 1 Cor 11:7 text.
The link I left about ‘pastor’ J.D. Greer acting the Braveheart and shouting from the mountaintop the mantra of the Age: Abuser males have NO PLACE in Southern Baptist blah blah virtue signal, grovel.
This is the template used to destroy most male organizations and male spaces. Given the inevitability that SOME males (like some females) will take advantage of position to solicit/demand sex, ALL male orgs eventually can be annihilated, even while preening in moralism and self-righteousness.
Target the ‘offending males’, separate them from the Good Males (like Greer, Wilcucks, Nathan etc.) and loudly and constantly assure the real powers of the church — the females — that NO ABUSERS will ever etc. and etc. Only the apologizing, repentant, chastened ‘men’ remain in their church, while female hegemony grows due to the culling.
It’s easy, it’s fun, it feels good, and it’s profitable. Satan approves.
Billy S — “You were wrong their too Ray.”
Speaking of wrong: there. Billy.
Summary: yes, woman is made in the image of man…
I don’t even believe that. I don’t see that anywhere in the Bible.
Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: 4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
The Bible specifically tells us that Adam’s son was in his own likeness and after his image for a reason. It sets the pattern. Notice the daughters are not said to be in his image. Was God a piss-poor forgetful author again? Or did he not tell us that the daughters were in Adam’s image, because even a small child can tell you the daughters are like their mother, not their father, in all the important dimorphic characteristics?
@Sharkly
That was indeed a bit sloppy of me; woman is made in the image of God only indirectly via Adam, and only for the aspects she shares with Adam. So indeed, technically she is not made in the image of God, but she shares many aspects of that image, but not certainly not all.
“The link I left about ‘pastor’ J.D. Greer acting the Braveheart and shouting from the mountaintop the mantra of the Age: Abuser males have NO PLACE in Southern Baptist blah blah virtue signal, grovel.”
And taking Rahm Emanuel’s advice (“never let a good crisis go to waste”) the SBC is using this to attack phantom “racism,” too.
This will allow the likes of Ron “Thabiti” Burns, Kyle J. Howard, etc., to push their white guilt/reverse racist agenda.
Off Topic: “German” (Turkish) ISIS bride tells her tale of woe…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6720689/German-ISIS-bride-tells-spent-wedding-night-blood-stained-torture-chamber.html
Mario Sciannimanica? Sounds more like pasta than kraut.
Sure she did. Clearly she’s a modern day Mother Theresa.
That’s for all the dumbasses in the androsphere who think Islam will cure what ails Western women.
See? Even ISIS chicks are hypergamous!
Chicks dig jerks!
See? Even ISIS chicks are feminists!
Ya gotta love the passivity in that statement. It’s just “bad luck”.
Poetically, their relationship ended where it began, in an ISIS torture chamber!
Silly Krauts. Why bother? leave her where she chose to go. Good riddance.
Hilarious stuff Oscar.
haha, Oscar, truth is sometimes more truthful than fiction. Nobody, but nobody could make that up…
Damn Oscar, that story brought a tear to my eye… the romance, the scenery, it’s just all too much… such a heroine, treated so badly by the men in her life, leading her to become an ISIS bride..
Germany playing Cap’t Save-a-hoe again….
IRT women not being created in God’s image:
GENESIS CHAP 1 V 27
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Would this not possibly mean that women are created in God’s image, or does the 2nd chapter break it down more clearly, thereby proving that women are not created in God’s image?
Never mind, most of you answered this earlier in the thread.
@Oscar:
That’s truly the ultimate real-life comedy drama!
All this talk of God’s/man’s image reminds me of the tradition stating that “jews” inherit their status as such through their mothers. Based on all that I’ve read from the OT, this never sat well with me. Perhaps it’s the case with talmudic judaism, but I don’t think Torah teaches it. Just another doctrine of demons handed down from the pharisees and swallowed hook, line, and sinker by gullible Christians. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Karaites officially believe it either.
I understand “mankind” to be made in God’s image, as a bride for the Son. As a race we are feminine relative to God. Within mankind, in each marriage, the husband represents God and wife represent humanity. So, it’s not accurate to say that women are not made in the image of God. But within the image of God, they play the role of the image of mankind.
@Drifter tradition stating that “jews” inherit their status as such through their mothers.
That’s Rabbinic Judaism, a continuation of the party of the Pharisees, the same that set out to kill the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. Only a brief glance at the Tenach shows patrilineal decent everywhere.
@Warthog
Mankind is not the bride of the Son, the Church is.
Adam and Eve, husband and wife, Christ and the Church, Lord and servant, Shepherd and follower, head and body, teacher and pupil, those are just some of the parallel images used in Scripture.
…Rabbinic Judaism…
As Sean Spencer use to say, “I’ve heard it both ways”.
@Paul
But the Church certainly blames Adam. Hasn’t it also been said endlessly on here that the Church has become feminized?
Dalrock himself has referred to the modern theology regarding the fall as a “feminist friendly interpretation.”
drifter says:
February 20, 2019 at 3:21 pm
”All this talk of God’s/man’s image reminds me of the tradition stating that “jews” inherit their status as such through their mothers. Based on all that I’ve read from the OT, this never sat well with me. Perhaps it’s the case with talmudic judaism, but I don’t think Torah teaches it. Just another doctrine of demons handed down from the pharisees and swallowed hook, line, and sinker by gullible Christians. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Karaites officially believe it either”.
What you say is true. Matrilineal descent is a Talmudic teaching and is not present in the Old Testament.
There are many Christians, some in my family, that look to Jews and Jewish sources for the spiritual inspiration in Scripture. They are badly mistaken.
According to the Talmud, the seventy elders that remained at the foot of Mt Sinai when Moses ascended to meet with God and get the law received a second, more profound and comprehensive revelation. This was not written but became the ”tradition of the elders” or the oral law. It is also the law that Jesus furiously condemned.
During the Babylonian exile the law began to be written down and was finally codified after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. But it is the teaching of the Pharisees and therefore diametrically opposed to Jesus.
You will find that the gullible, particularly women, will drift into jewish mythology to come up with notions regarding God. The most famous of these is the ”Shikaina” or ”holy spirit” (lower case intended). According to the jewish teaching the shikaina is female. The story goes that this ”completes the trinity” when it does nothing of the kind. Rather it is blasphemous.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He illuminates them, points them out, comforts and guides. But He is the third member of the Trinity.
Scripture is sufficient. Attempting to look for more profound revelations or meanings will cause you to go onto a very slippery slope that ends in the pit of hell.
BillyS, Warthog,
“[Gen 1:27 KJV] 27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Both were made in the image of God, Eve just came later and got that by being in the image of Adam.”
You can not correctly understand Genesis 1:27 by only looking at Genesis. You have to include and study it together with I Corinthians Chapter 11.
I Corinthians 11 is more recent revelation. I Corinthians 11 becomes the lens we look back at Genesis with.
The most famous of these is the ”Shikaina” or ”holy spirit” (lower case intended). According to the jewish teaching the shikaina is female. The story goes that this ”completes the trinity” when it does nothing of the kind.
Philip K. Dick’s The Divine Invasion had something about one of the characters — Fox? being God’s female half.
The boy — who was supposed to be Jesus, and being raised by Elijah? — was examining a 3-D Torah. The Divine Invasion said something about God have been split in two (not three?) and I think the boy was trying to see a way to reconnect the male and female halves. It was like the Torah was a kind of puzzle box, with all the answers and mysteries to the universe.
The horror writer Clive Barker also dealt with the concept of a godhead being split into different entities.
Barker (a homosexual) has claimed that he is Christian, but that the Catholic Church and patriarchy stole and ruined true Christianity/ He sees the resurrection story as a beautiful myth, rooted in older pagan traditions, and reflecting ancient mystical truths. That how I read Barker’s ramblings on the subject.
Bee,
I have heard teaching that God made man male and female, but took the female part out to make Eve. I am not sure I fully agree with that, but I do see the point.
Note that Jesus is/was fully submitted to the Father, but that didn’t make Him any less, unlike how some are turning this to apply to women. The order in marriage (and Church leadership) is clear, but that should not be stretched past its bounds anymore than we should say Jesus is less than God the Father.
@BillyS
No one reaches perfection. But there is no example of a spirit filled believer that is unrepentant either in the NT. There is no saved man that sins and think he is in the right.
King David repented also.
A person with changed heart will not remain the same because the foundation of who they are changes also.
Your exwife remains unrepentant and decieved despite having a spirit that guides into all truth. That means she doesnt have gods spirit and is no different from an unregenerate woman.
BillyS,
The issue is not stretching bounds.
The issue is what do I Corinthians 11 and Genesis 1 say.
Peering deep into the psyche of woman
@Dalrock
I’ve been reading here for a while now, but I never can seem to adequately keep in mind the various aspects of female nature – I haven’t seen any kind of list, so to speak.
That said, what are some good bullet points to summarize female nature, and some respective bullet points on how a man should deal with it?
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid or silly thing to ask for. But I’m ADHD, so I haven’t got enough patience to scour your material to pick from it a “curriculum” of sorts. After all, you would be familiar with your own material and thus could think of things off the top of your head. And you’re really efficient at what you do.
I don’t want to get stuck in “red pill bitterness,” as you call it.
You can not correctly understand Genesis 1:27 by only looking at Genesis. You have to include and study it together with I Corinthians Chapter 11.
I Corinthians 11 is more recent revelation. I Corinthians 11 becomes the lens we look back at Genesis with.
Oddly enough I first came to believe that women aren’t in the image of God by reading Genesis 1:27.
Snipped from my comment here:
https://v5k2c2.com/2019/02/18/dishonest-dalrock-thinks-hes-winning-again/#comment-5074
{Then one day while reading Genesis 1:27 I suddenly saw that it was a legally correct product description.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Firstly we are told doubly that “’âdâm” was created in God’s image, and then we are told that God created both sexes, specifically omitting mention of that being done in His image. A poetic contrast.}
If you start off not wanting to jam women into God’s image, and start off believing that God is the world’s greatest author, and He writes what He means to, and omits what He means to, and is not prone to intentionally making the plain truth a complicated matter, then you’ll be able to see like I did that God was sure to tell us that the man was made in His image, and just as sure to not say the same about the woman, ever, in all 66 Books of the Bible.
Furthermore, as Y’all point out there is 1 Corinthians 11:7
KJV For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
NASB For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.
VOICE Here’s the distinction: man is created in God’s image and for His glory, so he should not cover his head. But a wife is the glory of her husband. She ought to be covered.
NOG A man should not cover his head. He is God’s image and glory. The woman, however, is man’s glory.
YLT for a man, indeed, ought not to cover the head, being the image and glory of God, and a woman is the glory of a man, (a literal translation of the Greek)
So, yet another time, here in the New Testament, we are told that men are in God’s image, and that is in direct contrast to womankind. She is not to do what men are to do, because men are in God’s image, but instead she is to do the exact opposite. You really have to have a Feminist stronghold in your life, to not see the plainest reading of the text there. It is also because of that stark contrast of doing the exact opposite, and not attempting to cross-dress women into the image of God, even partially, that I believe the text is teaching me that women are not at all in the image of God, whatever it actually entails in men.
According to the jewish teaching the shikaina is female.
Matthew 1:20 KJV But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Matthew 1:20 YLT And on his thinking of these things, lo, a messenger of the Lord in a dream appeared to him, saying, `Joseph, son of David, thou mayest not fear to receive Mary thy wife, for that which in her was begotten [is] of the Holy Spirit,
According to the New Testament the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant. That makes the Holy Spirit the masculine element in the conception. Furthermore the Holy Spirit gave Mary a son with a Y chromosome, and interestingly, every barren woman in the Bible ever granted a miraculous conception, had a male child. Mary gave birth to a child, but God’s Spirit gave the child His masculinity.
Isaiah 9:6 KJV For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6 YLT For a Child hath been born to us, A Son hath been given to us, And the princely power is on his shoulder, And He doth call his name Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.
The Bible there, correctly identified the male as determining the sex of the baby, long before “science” figured that out.
There is no feminine aspect to God. He never gave birth to anything, never breastfed anything, has no periodic time of uncleanness, And I have the faith to believe, that He can parallel park a car.
@Red Pill Latecomer
I was curious about Clive Barker for that did not sound like a typically American name. Barker, I see, comes from Liverpool which is a city (and unlike any other English City) strongly divided between Roman Catholics (of Irish origin) and Protestants. I was thus surprised to see that he attended though not at the same time the same schools as two of The Beatles (John and George – it was the reference to Quarry Hill School, the Beatles originally being The Quarry Men that set off my suspicions) who were I seem to recall of Protestant origin and thus I was surprised he claimed to be Roman Catholic. Either way he lives now in California with a man baby for he seems to be from what I read of a feminine persuasion so you are welcome to him. Miss Coulter called him out on his religious views.
@ray
pjmedia.com/faith/southern-baptist-president-j-d-greear-abusers-have-no-place-in-the-sbc/
“Seventh-grader had begun to work as a model”. LOL. And she already knows how to work the casting couch.
Sluts? In my church? It’s more likely than you think.
@Spike There are many Christians, some in my family, that look to Jews and Jewish sources for the spiritual inspiration in Scripture. They are badly mistaken.
They are mistaken, because most of them look at Rabbinic Judaism (or even worse, modern Judaism), a continuation of the party of the Pharisees, which persecuted both Jesus and his followers, and of which the apostle Paul was a member before conversion. It’s awful what’s written in the Talmud regarding Jesus Christ. And they tend to skip Messianic prophecies like Isaiah 53:
or
(the latter channel has many impressive interviews with Jews who found Jesus)
The interesting part is if you look at Karaite Judaism, which does not accept the Talmud or any oral tradition, but only looks at the Tenach, in many cases it comes to similar conclusions as many orthodox Christians regarding interpretation of the OT.
But never forget what the apostle said regarding Jews who are not born again: “Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.”
@BillyS I have heard teaching that God made man male and female, but took the female part out [of Adam?] to make Eve.
That is indeed Talmudic teaching. But not according to the biblical record; Adam was created male, not some male-female hybrid. This can be seen from the fact that God ONLY took a part from his side, and closed it again with flesh. No mention of any transgender surgery to turn him into a male. Therefore as the male Adam was created in the image of God, it makes sense God makes himself known as both God the Father (=male) and God the Son (=male).
@Sharkly
Another interesting piece of information to consider is that according to Mosaic Law, the time for the mother being ritual unclean after birth is twice as long for female babies as for male babies.
And another thing; the sign of the OT covenant was in circumcision of males ONLY, making them carry the sign of the covenant, whereas women do not carry such a sign.
and we are worried about misogynists..https://nypost.com/2019/02/19/i-was-abused-by-my-girlfriend/
I don’t know about mysogynists but work like yours attracts “my pill’s redder than yours” types. I don’t see a lot of them around here – I think you banned some of them.
This isn’t just a manosphere thing – it’s an internet thing – you see this in the HDB/race-realist community too.
@Micah But the Church certainly blames Adam. Hasn’t it also been said endlessly on here that the Church has become feminized?
Yes, I agree. But I disagree that the exegesis that women are NOT created in the image of God has anything to do with it, because most of the people who blame Adam, believe that women are created in the image of God. Even more, that women are more spiritual than men, and therefore women are somehow MORE created in the image of God than men. The tendency for women to want to be like God, and for men to pedestalize, even idolize (that is, make into false gods) women, closely follows the Gen 3 pattern. From a position of make women into false gods, “of course” women cannot sin, hence the cause of ALL the problems MUST be men.
The whole Desert Sky God fiction was created to:
1.Promote progeny
2.Maintain Tribe Supremacy in the Region
3.Create a civil society by the concept one is always being watched and will be held accountable.
Today we have cameras and Blue Gun thugs to serve the same purpose,except with more expediency.
Why fear “God” when Sheriff Glock is at your door,what is your priority?
Nathan’s (adopted) policies have resulted in:
!.Churchian heresy
2.No progeny except by unwed mothers (bastard majority)BASTARDS
3.Morbidly Obese Land Whales that hate men,love whine and cats
4.Men walking The Fuck Away
I once had a car had a broken door would not let me in.
Did I hate that car to TRY to fix it so it could be used for it purpose?
Misogyny.
Kiss my dirty ass Death Cult Prophet!
Maybe Warhorn grew up listening to J.V.?
https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/thru-the-bible-with-j-vernon-mcgee/
22:45
The man is to see in the woman one he can worship…”Do you mean worship?” I.mean exactly that.
“The most famous of these is the ”Shikaina” or ”holy spirit” (lower case intended). According to the jewish teaching the shikaina is female. The story goes that this ”completes the trinity” when it does nothing of the kind.”
If Glory is female sin must be male.
Orwellian
This is why I say there is no “Judeo-Christianity.
You can have Judaism,fine.
You can have Christendom fine.
But you CANNOT have a bastard mix of both and call it “sound doctrine” when in fact they are OFTEN mutually exclusive.
The jews have said they are not white.
The jews have said they are not Christians.
Good for them,why is the white so WEAK as to commit blasphemy in order to stay
“politically correct?”
Because POWER is the only True God.
Usury is POWER
Money creation is POWER
Do not cross the Real God of this world.Power/money
All this disseminate becomes wearisome,but OTOH I do thank Dalrock for the platform to express my views.
I know it’s not real popular,what I say,but then look what The Jews did to Christ.
Roman authority=Sheriff Rocket launcher.
Yes the cops do launch GRENADES into “civilian” homes.
After the mandantory Dog Killing of course.Gots to have our kicks and send The Message.
All power comes from the end of a barrel.
This is why ((they)) want the guns,so the genocide will never be resisted.
+Europe shall show you the truth very soon,Just wait here,It’s on the way.
Like Judas These False Prophets get PAID.
In silver or pussy,does it matter?
Judas was gutted while hanged,by God Fearing Christians.
@freebird Judas was gutted while hanged,by God Fearing Christians.
You’re entitled to your own uninformed opinion, but where did you find this nugget of misinformation?
Try search terms; “How did Judas die?”
After spoonfeeding you that.You can be informed too!
Perhaps next time do some research BEFORE refuting.
Ok?
The most likely scenario reconciling the accounts of Judas’ death is:
He hung himself from a tree.
The body remained hanging, during which time it started to decompose and bloat.
The tree limb or rope broke (due to wind or weight or some other factor).
When he hit the ground, the rotting, bloated body burst open.
There’s no indication in the text that anyone gutted him. The text says he fell, and bust asunder. The plain reading of the text indicates the fall caused him to burst.
Ah, you mean the first hit in Google? https://www.gotquestions.org/Judas-die.html
Then it must be your reading capabilities because nowhere it is mentioned he was gutted while hanged by God Fearing Christians. Thank you for the clarification, and sorry for attributing it to a hypothetical writer, instead of blaming it on your intellect. I stand corrected.
Sharkly,
“Oddly enough I first came to believe that women aren’t in the image of God by reading Genesis 1:27.”
I will have to read and ponder what you have written on this.
Also, thanks for your Bible study about God always giving a male child to a barren woman. I had never heard or read that before. Thanks for sharing your Bible studies.
I have heard that the branch of the Jews that did not accept the Talmud (I forget the name now) were exempt from the pogroms in Russia, as one thing to consider.
Modern Judaism is a reworking because they don’t have the Temple. It is not what Jesus faced, except for its hatred of Him.
One big hole in the “woman was not made in God’s image” argument is that it would then require that the feminine aspects came out of nowhere.
Too many of you are trying to conform God to the image of your puny human mind (mind is puny in this case as well). Analogies only go so far. They help us understand some things, but it is not the entire picture.
It still says that God created “man” as male and female. You may have had an enlightenment while reading that to see the opposite of what it said, but that is on the same order of the enlightenment many modern preachers have had with submission in marriage.
Men and women are both also heirs of salvation, but I am sure you will have some hand waving for that.
This is almost like the fact that feminism has pushed the culture so much that “man” only means “male” in the eyes of many, even though it had meant men and women when used as an aggregate.
But don’t let me stop you. Knowing this is as vital as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or if God can make a rock He couldn’t move. We need to think on those rather than figuring ways to reach people for His Kingdom. They can’t truly come unless they have this issue down perfectly after all.
Paul,
The view that the female aspects of Adam were removed (whatever that means) were taken (at least in part) from the fact God made man “male and female”. No Talmudic idiocy is required.
@BillyS
https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/12523/UP
“The Karaite form of Judaism is so strange that Russian Tsars categorized them as non-Jews. So did the Nazis. Thus, they escaped Russia’s pogroms and the Nazi holocaust. But Karaites know they are true Jews. They follow only the Tanach, the Jewish Bible, rejecting rabbinic interpretations.”
https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/judaism/judaism/karaites
“Karaite Judaism can be summed up by [..]: “Don’t rely upon me, but study diligently the Holy Scripture.” Hence, according to Karaite belief, every person has the ability to comprehend the word of the Torah, and intermediaries are not required to mediate between humans and God. “
Modern Judaism is a reworking because they don’t have the Temple. It is not what Jesus faced, except for its hatred of Him.
Jesus faced the Pharisees, who concocted Talmudic Judaism (aka Rabbinical Judaism) after the Temple fell. In fact, some of the same Pharisees who personally opposed Jesus were likely still alive, and involved in developing post-Temple Talmudic Judaism.
Bee,
Be cautious building a theology on that. Men have been in a lead role, due to God putting them in that role, throughout history.
I am forgetting the details now, but Moses made a special exemption in The Law to provide for a father who only had daughters so that their husbands could be adopted into the family to maintain the inheritance line. This would seem to still show favoring the male, but it also shows God didn’t always have a key woman birth a male. See the genealogy of Jesus, this happened at least for Joseph and I believe one other time.
We have to watch building a passionate theology on a weak base that we then put too much focus on.
I remain in the image of my grandfather BTW, because I look just like him, except that I am about 1 foot taller. But I was not directly from him. God made Adam in His own image directly and also took a part of that and personally made Eve as well. No “substandard” element is required, though Eve still remains in the image of Adam since that is where the rib came from and who she was crafted to please. Both being in Adam’s image and God’s image are possible as I am both in the image of my father and grandfather. (I can’t comment directly on my maternal grandfather since he died when I was very young, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some resemblance there as well.
@BillyS One big hole in the “woman was not made in God’s image” argument is that it would then require that the feminine aspects came out of nowhere.
Exactly Billy! But it’s only an imaginary hole, because we EXACTLY know where the feminine aspect came from:
“And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.”
God created the woman out of the male (XX chromosomes out of XY chromosomes, possibly creating some unique genetic differences between Adam and Eve), from there on DNA combination yield all human offspring. As for any spiritual aspects (as some churches teach that everytime at conception a spirit/soul is created ex nihilo), God can create any needed feminine aspect as well. But because in heaven we will be like the angels, it might be in our new bodies we don’t have any sexual differences between males and females.
@BillyS The view that the female aspects of Adam were removed (whatever that means) were taken (at least in part) from the fact God made man “male and female”. No Talmudic idiocy is required.
No indeed, you only have to ignore that Adam was created male, and God did not change him after his creation.
RPL,
I believe Talmudic Judaism came in the 2nd century, which was quite a while away from Jesus’ time. The Pharisees may have led to that, but it was like the 1950s in the US led to the modern US. That is true, but incomplete.
Note that we find no case of a Sadducee converting to Christianity, though many Pharisees did. They had zeal, just misplaced. Some got it properly redirected, most did not, unfortunately.
Where does it say that? Nothing says Adam was not changed even a bit when Eve was created. Nothing says he was as well, but this just shows we cannot build doctrine on that assertion, either way.
God’s explicit creation of Eve, just as He made Adam indicate more than simply adding some stuff not in His image.
But as I said, believe whatever you want. You can remain completely irrelevant to the modern situation as well.
@BillyS Where does it say that? Nothing says Adam was not changed even a bit when Eve was created. Nothing says he was as well
Well, just have a look at Gen 2
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”
God only took one of Adam’s ribs, and closed up the flesh. He didn’t change his genitals.
If you want to argue otherwise, you do not have proof whatsoever. If this is not enough for you, you can look at Gen 5
“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: ”
A son in his own likeness, after his image. If that does not count as male, I don’t know what is.
On basis of what texts do you proof that Adam was some kind of tranny?
@Sharkly
What the text of Genesis says is that man is made in the image of God, and women are made in the image of man, and a reflection of a reflection shows the same image. The emphasis here is on order and proportion more than bifurcation. Adam didn’t have a belly-button but he did have nipples. Men contain and pass on both womanhood and manhood without aforethought, but God passed on both because he created them of Himself. Women are weaker than men, St. Paul wrote. Jesus laments that He longed to gather up Jerusalem as a mother hen gathers up her chicks, and He says that after the resurrection no one is given in marriage.
Male and female are important because they are symbols that point to something greater. It is good to uphold male and female as distinct things with real meaning. It is not good to mistake the symbol for the truth. We should honor and follow the map, but the map is not the territory.
That has some interesting parallels to the Church today.
I don’t believe we are ever told anywhere in the Bible that any woman is in any man’s image. All I see is that the woman is the glory of the man.
If you can find anything in the Bible saying any woman on earth is in any man’s image prior to her death and receiving a glorified body, I’ll be happy to retract that.
SlushFundPuppie —
Yup.
I was a bit wrong, it does say God remove “a rib” from Adam. It does not say if that was gone forever or restored in another way afterward (such as by regrowing a new rib), so we should not make doctrine.
I never said Adam was a tranny Paul. You are acting like an idiot. But I guess that is your role now.
Cane,
I am not sure I completely follow your point, but I agree that we should not worship the Book, only use it as guidance to our Lord, the only One we worship. It has value and is worth digging into, but only towards the end of worshiping Him more and carrying out His will on the earth.
And it still says “male and female” create He them. Sorry, both natures are covered. I am not going to get stuck on exactly how it was, I was just noting one possibility. Keep railing against your windmills though. They won’t get any attention otherwise!
@BillyS
No need for namecalling if you find yourself unable to properly respond!
it still says “male and female” create He them
I never denied that, but that’s different from your earlier statement that the text says that “man is created male and female”. It just doesn’t say that.
It does not say if that was gone forever or restored in another way afterward
Well, it does say that. Literally. But that’s not the point. You stated that Adam was created male AND female (hence my “tranny” remark). I showed you Adam was created male.
You did not counter my arguments, and try to let me look like a fool. It has exactly the opposite effect: it makes you look like a fool.
JRob,
“Maybe Warhorn grew up listening to J.V.?”
Wow. I used to have a high opinion of J Vernon McGee.
Thanks for pointing this out.
One big hole in the “woman was not made in God’s image” argument is that it would then require that the feminine aspects came out of nowhere.
LOL One big problem with your problem, God created everything on earth, but man, out of nowhere. Where had a pig existed before, where did the porcine aspects come from? He spoke things into existence and then formed things from the dust.
So, when God created the unclean swine, was it out of nowhere, or do swine also have to be in God’s image, because your god can only create stuff by giving birth from aspects within herself? Does your god roll in her own shit like a sow? My God can easily create pigs and women and other things without them necessarily having to be in His image.
Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Adam said she was of his bones and flesh, not “Hey, there’s a weaker dude in my own image, I’ma gonna cornhole that image of God.” By the way, that is why homosexuality and effeminacy is such an abomination, because it violates the image of God.
I meant to say faggotry and effeminacy violate the image of God. Lesbians are just operating against nature and God’s created order, their sinful acts of lesbianism can in no way tarnishes the image of God. Angry fat lesbians only debase themselves. They bump their doughnuts in futile rebellion, and then eat ice-cream to sooth their angst at the Creator, who made them without a penis.
But don’t let me stop you. Knowing this [women aren’t in God’s image] is as vital as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or if God can make a rock He couldn’t move. We need to think on those rather than figuring ways to reach people for His Kingdom. They can’t truly come unless they have this issue down perfectly after all.
Now you’re saying knowing some truths is not important, because other truths may be more important. If women are in fact not in God’s image, then they are lesser vessels, not equal at all. It demolishes the entire foundation of Feminism. It explains why women should reverence their husbands. The image of God becomes the ultimate pedestal that only men can stand on. It answers hypergamy. It gives a logical natural reason for everything, instead of just “because the Bible said so”. Furthermore you can take this bit of God’s foundational knowledge and build from it. Whereas the house built on the foundation of equality is crashing down around us. Open your eyes man. Glorify God in your body. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ye are gods! Don’t be deceived into letting women claim equality to you. Take your rightful stand on the image and glory of God that women don’t have. They “Can’t touch this!” Hammer-time!
@Bee on February 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm
You’re welcome.
Men and women are both also heirs of salvation, but I am sure you will have some hand waving for that.
Nope.
Luke 13:30 And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.
In fact some women being last in Creation, might supersede us in God’s kingdom if they are in subjection and reverence to God’s image as they are to be, in this life.
Not speaking about you specifically, but, if you claim you are only an equal, and not her rightful head, you might tempt or even help her to usurp the image of God, and may rob her of eternal reward. It would be eternally cruel to deceive her, hiding the truth of your divine glory under a bushel, and leaving her more likely to usurp you out of ignorance, and by her lust for power. She owes the image of God you currently exist as, her subjection and reverence. The Church should teach such truths, and teach women reverence for husbands, instead of having Satan’s cunt-worshipping clowns in the pulpit mocking men and cursing men made in God’s image to a lifetime of usurpation and rebellion.
James 3:8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
What a Patriarchal statement!
God, even the Father! His divinity(God) is embellished by His masculine Fatherhood of all.(even the Father) men, which are made after the similitude of God.
It’s in the Bible!
Male and female are important because they are symbols that point to something greater.
Thanks for the reminder, Cane.
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
…
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
We are taught that the male(husband) is a symbol of Christ and the female(wife) is a symbol of the church.
Can anybody tell me, which one of those two, the husband in the image of Christ or the wife in the image of the church, is in the image of God? I await your answer.
Male and female are important because they are symbols that point to something greater.
That bears repeating, You make an excellent point!
Sharkly —
“If women are in fact not in God’s image, then they are lesser vessels, not equal at all. It demolishes the entire foundation of Feminism.”
Yes. Man as the sole human image of God the FATHER is the fundamental disproof of the Doctrine of Equality, a masonic (satanic) ruse that the created complementarity of the human sexes signals and demands political and spiritual Equality.
This is an ancient Chaldean cultural practice that passed through many other hands, including multiple Gnostic schools/cults, and later the Endarkenment I mean Enlightenment, which perfected the socio-political dimension of the deception. Well, more a mass delusion actually.
@Sharkly If women are in fact not in God’s image, then they are lesser vessels, not equal at all.
Both consequences are not dependent on the first part, and can be proved otherwise. We also have enough other Scriptural evidence to discuss other insights on male-female relationships anyway. But I fully agree that the consideration on being created in the image of God adds a powerful “rationale” for some of these insights on male-female relationships.
Today it’s exactly a year ago I wrote about it on this blog
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/god-spoke-to-him-about-the-holy-threatpoint/
Man created in God’s image (and maybe woman too, but might be open to discussion)
I was at that time trying to find theologians who might have written about it. Since I could find none, I started studying it further myself, and along the way got some “aha!” moments, very similar to some of the experiences you are describing. Only recently I’ve read that some church fathers also had the same opinion that women were not created in the image of God, but I still haven’t found the exact references.
For me it is still a topic I’m actively researching, because I agree it has profound impact if it can be sufficiently “proven”.
”Adam was a carbon copy of God. And Eve was a carbon copy of a carbon copy.”
Adam therefore resembles God more directly thereby establishing the hierarchy. Man as the head of woman. Christ as head of man. And God as head of Christ.
Adam was not a carbon copy. Mankind, even before the fall, is still well below God.
There is no contradictions between Gn 1:27 which seems to say that both women and men are made in the image of God and 1 Cor 11:7 which seems to say women are not made in the image.
Also, we can’t read 1 Cor 11:7 and use it as a way to go back and interpret Gn 1:27.
Aquinas, Augustine and all Christian churches teach that women are made in the image of God because of the understanding of that in which the image consists which is that humans have intellect and will. We can use our rational mind to know our Creator and our ability to discern an order established by Him. We also have a will in which to choose to order our lives towards Him. This is the principle way humans image God.
Aquinas in dealing with 1 Cor 11:7 said that Paul was not referring to the principle way man images God but was referencing secondary or accidental characteristics of nature in which man images God in a way that woman does not as his helper. He also noted that because Paul only says woman is the glory of man but refrains from saying she is the image of man shows that he was not denying that woman is made in the image of God.
Augustine concludes that what Paul was indicating was that it is proper in WORSHIP that the fullness of human nature is expressed allegorically. In the human intellect, it is a higher good and we image God when we contemplate eternal truths and it is a lower good but NOT an image of God when we are focused on and managing our temporal affairs. For Augustine, man represents humanity’s contemplation of eternal truths and woman as man’s helper represents humanity’s management of temporal affairs. Each one represents part of the fullness of humanity (concern with higher and lower goods which is the lot of both sexes) but in worship the woman is covered because in her part of the allegorical sense of humanity, we show that contemplation of our temporal affairs should be restrained due to our imaging God by thoughts of a higher order. He says the symbolism of this order is “pleasing to the angels.” He writes of 1 Cor 11:7 ““if this does not refer to some hidden sacramental or symbolic meaning, it will remain quite pointless””
L. C.
Here is Augustine in his own words:
St. Augustine, On the Trinity (Book XII), Chapter 7 “How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of God, But the Woman is the Glory of the Man, is to Be Understood Figuratively and Mystically.”
“that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.”
Thanks Bee for the reference, see also
https://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/103/1030169.html
@LC
Thanks for your considerations.
There is no contradictions between Gn 1:27 which seems to say that both women and men are made in the image of God and 1 Cor 11:7 which seems to say women are not made in the image.
We agree that 1 Cor 7 seems to say women are not made in the image of God.
However, Gen 1.27 does NOT say both man and woman are made in the image of God
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-27.htm
“So-created God A/adam in His own image in the image of God He created him male and female he created them.”
This is describing two different and separate facts:
(1) Adam/adam was created in the image of God (mentioned twice)
(2) God created them male and female
(1) is a summary of Gen 2:4-21, introduced by the ‘toledoth’ of Gen 2:4, showing the literary connection to Gen 1:1-2:3 to be indeed of a telescoping nature. Gen 2:7 has
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/2-7.htm
And-formed God Yahweh A/adam from the dust of the ground (adamah) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and-became A/adam a being living.
(2) is the summary of the outcome of Gen 2, which includes the special creation of the female out of the male. Note it does NOT say ‘male and female He created him‘! There are TWO separate creations, one of A/adam (man/male), one of Eve (woman/female). Only ONE of these creations is specifically mentioned to created in the image of God, and it is not Eve.
That completely agrees what 1 Cor 7 is saying according to the both of us.
Now, being in many aspects very similar to the male, the female is therefore in many aspects very similar to the image of God. That might include several aspects that are traditionally interpreted as the imago Dei, such as ratio.
This interpretation does not diminish the value of the female, nor does it necessarily elevate the value of the male, but it might help to shed more light on the order in God’s creation. An order God created with specific qualities in males and in females, which are unique, and to be properly honored and celebrated. It might help us to better understand the reason why a man should not cover his head, whereas a wife should when praying or prophesying, or why the man is the head, and the wife not, or why the man symbolizes Christ, whereas the wife the Church.
@Dalrock
There does indeed to seem a long delay now and again between posting and seeing your post appear on the page, especially for longer posts.
Bee
“Here is Augustine in his own words:…..”
Yes. This is the text that I was referencing. The part you quoted was his explanation of the question of what Paul was talking about. He is referring to man and woman imaging God in a secondary or accidental sense rather than in the principle way in which they both image God because they both have a rational mind and will. They share the same human nature in this principle way. The paragraph you pulled the quote from starts this way….
“10. But we must notice how that which the apostle says, that not the woman but the man is the image of God, is not contrary to that which is written in Genesis, “God created man: in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them: and He blessed them.” For this text says that human nature itself, which is complete [only] in both sexes, was made in the image of God; and it does not separate the woman from the image of God which it signifies. ”
So here he is affirming that Gn 1:27 shows woman and man are both the image of God. Human nature is not complete in only one sex or the other but human nature is complete as male and female together who share in common that they each have a rational mind and will.
He then goes on to ask (referring to 1 Cor 11:7)
“How then did the apostle tell us that the man is the image of God, and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? ”
He answers with the text you pulled but you left out the beginning “When I was treating of the nature of the human mind….” [which the difference in man and woman signify in a secondary or accidental way rather than the principle way by a shared human nature of intellect and will.]
“…when I was treating of the nature of the human mind, that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.”
So it’s the woman’s “quality of help-meet” in which in a secondary way she is not the image of God (that which she signifies by covering) but the woman together with her own husband (after her “quality of help-meet” is covered) is the image of God. We can say that because man does not have the “quality of help-meet” he fully images God in a way that woman does not. However, when she covers herself and thereby covers that one part in which she does not image God (that which makes her man’s glory), then it can be said “that whole substance of man and woman together may be one image.”
He further explains what he means by man and woman as symbolic of the nature of the human mind.
“As we said of the nature of the human mind, that both in the case when as a whole it contemplates the truth it is the image of God; and in the case when anything is divided from it, and diverted in order to the cognition of temporal things; nevertheless on that side on which it beholds and consults truth, [which is what both sexes do in worship] here also it is the image of God, but on that side whereby it is directed to the cognition of the lower things, it is not the image of God. [[woman as man’s help-meet and glory] And since it is so much the more formed after the image of God, the more it has extended itself to that which is eternal, and is on that account not to be restrained, so as to withhold and refrain itself from thence; therefore the man ought not to cover his head. But because too great a progression towards inferior things is dangerous to that rational cognition that is conversant with things corporeal and temporal; this ought to have power on its head, which the covering indicates, by which it is signified that it ought to be restrained.”
Also the final paragraph (12) from that same chapter which is titled
How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of God, But the Woman is the Glory of the Man, is to Be Understood Figuratively and Mystically. [as opposed to making a statement about the human nature of woman not imaging God.]
“…man was not made in the image of God according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational mind. For the thought is a debased and empty one, which holds God to be circumscribed and limited by the lineaments of bodily members.”
” If, then, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and he is the new man who is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him; no one can doubt, that man was made after the image of Him that created him, not according to the body, nor indiscriminately according to any part of the mind, but according to the rational mind, wherein the knowledge of God can exist.”
“Who is there, then, who will hold women to be alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus?” Pray, have faithful women then lost their bodily sex? [Of course, the answer here is no] But because they are there renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind. ” [so the bodily differences which can teach us something figuratively or mystically about God in the way accidental characteristics show a resemblance or lack thereof, when it comes to the “image of God” both are made so due to it pertaining to the mind and not the body.]
“……because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it was possible rightly to represent under her bodily covering that part of the reason which is diverted to the government of temporal things; so that the image of God may remain on that side of the mind of man on which it cleaves to the beholding or the consulting of the eternal reasons of things; and this, it is clear, not men only, but also women have.”
@LC
Thanks for your considerations.
There is no contradictions between Gn 1:27 which seems to say that both women and men are made in the image of God and 1 Cor 11:7 which seems to say women are not made in the image.
We agree that 1 Cor 7 seems to say women are not made in the image of God.
However, Gen 1.27 does NOT say both man and woman are made in the image of God
biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-27.htm
“So-created God A/adam in His own image in the image of God He created him male and female he created them.”
This is describing two different and separate facts:
(1) Adam/adam was created in the image of God (mentioned twice)
(2) God created them male and female
(1) is a summary of Gen 2:4-21, introduced by the ‘toledoth’ of Gen 2:4, showing the literary connection to Gen 1:1-2:3 to be indeed of a telescoping nature. Gen 2:7 has
biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/2-7.htm
And-formed God Yahweh A/adam from the dust of the ground (adamah) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and-became A/adam a being living.
(2) is the summary of the outcome of Gen 2, which includes the special creation of the female out of the male. Note it does NOT say ‘male and female He created him‘! There are TWO separate creations, one of A/adam (man/male), one of Eve (woman/female). Only ONE of these creations is specifically mentioned to created in the image of God, and it is not Eve.
That completely agrees what 1 Cor 7 is saying according to the both of us.
Now, being in many aspects very similar to the male, the female is therefore in many aspects very similar to the image of God. That might include several aspects that are traditionally interpreted as the imago Dei, such as ratio.
This interpretation does not diminish the value of the female, nor does it necessarily elevate the value of the male, but it might help to shed more light on the order in God’s creation. An order God created with specific qualities in males and in females, which are unique, and to be properly honored and celebrated. It might help us to better understand the reason why a man should not cover his head, whereas a wife should when praying or prophesying, or why the man is the head, and the wife not, or why the man symbolizes Christ, whereas the wife the Church.
Men and women are made in God’s image, but women aren’t? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense….
Someone needs to study up on logic a lot.
@BillyS
”Adam was not a carbon copy. Mankind, even before the fall, is still well below God.”
I need to adjust my analogy. Adam is like a photocopy. An image rather than a replication. It was not the best analogy for sure.
But it does seem to me that Eve is derivative in the similar way to which the carbon copy of a carbon copy is derivative.
Women being the “glory of man” as Paul would say
Paul
““So-created God A/adam in His own image in the image of God He created him male and female he created them.”
This is describing two different and separate facts:
(1) Adam/adam was created in the image of God (mentioned twice)
(2) God created them male and female”
And yet the usage of A/adam in Gn 1:27 is translated as meaning mankind rather than just the male sex.
See Adam in Genesis and Creation as explained here.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Adam
Paul
“This interpretation does not diminish the value of the female, nor does it necessarily elevate the value of the male, but it might help to shed more light on the order in God’s creation. An order God created with specific qualities in males and in females, which are unique, and to be properly honored and celebrated. It might help us to better understand the reason why a man should not cover his head, whereas a wife should when praying or prophesying, or why the man is the head, and the wife not, or why the man symbolizes Christ, whereas the wife the Church.”
Value of male and female is not in dispute so I’m not sure why you are making that point.
What you describe here as “specific qualities in males and in females, which are unique” are the secondary or accidental characteristics in the bodily differences between the sexes. This is something different and subordinate to their shared human nature in which they both image God. The reason the differences between the sexes is a secondary image, with man as an image of God and woman as help-meet and not an image of God, is because this image shows man as woman’s end in the temporal order as she was created to help him for the purposes of generation.
However, the ultimate end of both man and woman is God. To hold the temporal image (which is what Paul is referring to in 1 Cor 11:7) as the principle way in which man and woman images God is to put that which pertains to man ahead of that which pertains to God. This is why in worship woman is to cover herself as the glory of man because in worship we are ordered not one to the other but both is ordered to their true end which is God. Man’s and woman’s shared human nature, that which make them the same beyond their bodily sexual differences, is made in the image of God (the meaning in Gn 1:27 – Let us make man[kind] in our image) in that they both have intellect and will so they can attain their final end in Him. “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created after God;”
Please remember that the English word ‘mankind’ used in a very few translations also means the opposite of womankind. The original word was ’âdâm a masculine noun is often translated “the man” or just used as the man’s name, Adam. Those who claim that women are in the image of God can show zero places in the Bible where any woman or womankind is said to be in the image of God here on earth. I can not only show you multiple places where men are said to be in the image of God, but the first mention in the Bible says it even twice for emphasis. Perhaps for those who are slow to learn. Then when women are specifically mentioned, the image of God is not, providing a poetic contrast.
Augustine and other Church fathers clearly understood that the Apostle Paul was saying that women should be covered because, unlike men, they aren’t the image of God.
What Augustine does from there is presumption. He speculates as to what the image of God is. We are not specifically told what the image of God is, that I am aware of. Then based upon his own speculation as to what the image of God might be, he draws conclusions that are backed up by his own reasoning using his prior speculation as a given fact. He seems to think the image of God is the ability to have abstract reasoning.
Some of the church fathers speculated that the image of God was ‘having dominion’. Dominic “Bnonn” Tennant also claims that: God made men and women to image his dominion in the world. He then goes on to come to different conclusions, from Augustine, based upon his different presumption as to what the image of God is. We should be careful to not get dogmatic based upon our own presumptions. If I were to speculate that the image of God consisted in having a penis and a couple of testicles, I could then prove that women aren’t in the image of God, but that many male animals are in the image of God. Did you see how easy that was?
Nobody answer’s my challenges. They beg to differ, even without having a belief that offers answers. I really think their is a religious desire in people to worship women, and to make them superior to men in the name of equality. They claim women have all the good things bestowed upon man, plus she gives life and nourishment to children, and controls the holy vagina the source of the divinest fun and validation in this world.
Have at some of these challenges, using your beliefs:
Can anybody tell me, which one of those two, the husband in the image of Christ or the wife in the image of the church, is in the image of God? (and explain how) I await your answer.
If women are in the image of God, why didn’t God just say: So God created man in His own image, then he created woman in His own image, male and female in His image created He them? Is God really unable to write well. Did God fail by not having another member of the trinity proofread and edit the Bible for clarity?
If men and women are truly equally in His image, why was it then that God created an equal, subjected to be a helper for the man already before she even transgressed?
How is hypergamy supposed to work together for our good if men and women are equally divine in their creation? Every woman wants a man she can look up to. You don’t look up to an equal. That is a fundamental problem that the cunt-worshippers fail to have an solution for.
The deceiver doesn’t degrade the image of men for no reason. While his imps whine out a constant chorus about women being degraded by men, when women mostly degrade themselves.
Those who reflexively talk down men, are Satan’s messengers.
If this is not my best reasoning forgive me. I am sleep deprived.
@LC And yet the usage of A/adam in Gn 1:27 is translated as meaning mankind rather than just the male sex.
You might have noticed I actually added links to the interlinear Hebrew of that verse? It says ‘adam’ (the Hebrew does have no difference between upper/lowercase). As in many cases translation is interpreting, and the translation ‘mankind’ does not prove your point.
@LC The reason the differences between the sexes is a secondary image, with man as an image of God and woman as help-meet and not an image of God
You agree woman is not made in the image of God?
@Lc Man’s and woman’s shared human nature, that which make them the same beyond their bodily sexual differences, is made in the image of God (the meaning in Gn 1:27 – Let us make man[kind] in our image)
So you say, but without proof. And the text you give still says ‘adam’, ‘man’.
You might have missed my explanation that all humans are called ‘adam’ after ‘Adam’, because they all come from him, and hence he is the sole representative of the whole human race.
And it is primarily the bodily sexual difference that IS the difference between man and woman. And it EXACTLY is this bodily sexual difference God has CREATED also for symbolic purposes, and He commands different spiritual rules for members of the different sexes. Man and woman are LITERALLY not created equal, but DIFFERENT, and God also assigns them different roles, both physical and spiritual.
Even the RCC who promotes in the imago Dei equality between man and woman, still will not allow women to become priests.
We all understand men and women both have similarities and differences. Given the biblical texts, the literal texts strongly suggests that being created in the image of God is a difference, not a similarity.
And as I’ve stated elsewhere: when Adam and Eve saw God in Eden, which of the two looked more like Him? Was it him or her?
When God walked the garden of Eden, and created Adam out of the adamah (ground) in His image, breathed the breath of life in his nostrils, and Adam became a living being, who did Adam see when he opened his eyes?
I tend to think it was God the Son, through whom everything is created. Others have been ambiguous about it and only speak of God, and often assume it is God the Father. However, either God the Father or God the Son, the revealed titles of Father and Son, IMMEDIATELY refer to male identity. Isn’t it therefore not VERY significant that the FIRST human created was male? And is Adam not repeatedly said to be created in the image or likeness of God? Something that is not said directly of woman anywhere in Scripture?
When Adam opened his eyes, he saw his own naked male body without shame, and saw God, who most likely revealed to him he was created in the image of God, and understood when looking at the created animals God brought to him, that because he was created in God’s image, and the animals were not, he was to rule over the animals and the rest of the earth, like God rules the universe.
When God created Eve, He created her literally out of Adam’s flesh. Nowhere it is said she was created in God’s image. Nowhere it is said God breathed the breath of life into her. What’s the first thing the woman sees? She also sees God. What does God do with her? He brings her naked to the man, He presents her to him, just like He brought the animals to him. And just like the name of the animals was according to the name Adam gave to them, so it was with the name of the woman.
And what does Adam say about the woman? Finally, bone of MY bones, flesh of MY flesh. He sees her naked, and sees her differences, yet also immediately recognizes the similarities. She is created to be a helper to the ruler of the earth, so that both can fill the earth and rule it effectively. To rule the earth, her role as helper is essential. And to fill the earth the difference between man and woman is crucial, and the sexual union and the following one-ness is both necessary for offspring and so profound, it’s an image of the relationship between Christ and His Church and their offspring.
To therefore reduce the sexual differences between males and females to only of secondary importance with respect to talking about the image of God does not seem to best fit the data.
L. C.
“Also, we can’t read 1 Cor 11:7 and use it as a way to go back and interpret Gn 1:27.”
Your statement is FALSE.
The reason we know that it is correct and true to use New Testament portions to correctly interpret related Old Testament portions is because Jesus, Peter, and Paul all did this. They routinely explained and amplified Old Testament portions into New Testament Christian principles.
Sharkly and Paul,
This debate will go in endless circles because you are both using the division of the sexes at the starting point for your position that woman is not made in the image of God. The division of the sexes, while ordered and created by God, belongs to the temporal order of things. This temporal order is not eternal and passes away. Woman in her earthly role as help-meet is ordered to her end which is man. This is not her final end though. In the order of grace, her final end is God. In this specific way, woman doesn’t image God because He does not exist for the sake of another. These roles [marriage] pass away as they are only useful for governance of our earthly life. These accidental characteristics of the division of the sexes are secondary to the fact that man and woman share one human nature.
The shared humanity of woman and man in which in there is no division is the fact that they have a rational mind and a free will. In this way, humanity primarily images God. God “knows” and loves perfectly. Mankind “knows” and loves imperfectly. God is the final end of both woman and man. This is a higher order than the temporal order. It’s why Paul says it’s better not to marry. It is a more noble endeavor to be about the Lord’s business as this is the end of every human person than to have a divided mind in which you are looking to also please your spouse.
You are both free to interpret things however you want but the historical precedent and understanding is that both man and woman are created in the image of God by virtue of their shared humanity and that the division of the sexes is a temporal and secondary image that while useful in a symbolic way and certainly orders our earthly life as God willed, it is not eternal like the ability to know and to freely choose. It is in this image that we are capable of finding salvation. There is no marriage in heaven and any hierarchy there is based on the choices we make in this life where the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
It does not take away from the value of the man to say he shares a common humanity with woman in which they both have their final end in God any more than woman as man’s help-meet doesn’t lessen her value.
Paul, you are putting too much emphasis on the body as the place where the image resides. This is projecting our humanity onto God. Augustine says “….man was not made in the image of God according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational mind. For the thought is a debased and empty one, which holds God to be circumscribed and limited by the lineaments of bodily members. “
Bee
“Your statement is FALSE.
The reason we know that it is correct and true to use New Testament portions to correctly interpret related Old Testament portions is because Jesus, Peter, and Paul all did this. They routinely explained and amplified Old Testament portions into New Testament Christian principles.”
No. It’s not false. The NT can helps us interpret the fulfillment or the fullness of the meaning of the OT but in verses that seemingly contradict one another we either have to admit that Scripture can contradict itself (which leaves us wondering which is true) or we have to assume that there is no contradiction and that we are not understanding the meaning in the context of which the author is stating it. This was the conundrum that faced Aquinas and Augustine and other Church Fathers. How to reconcile Gn 1:27 or even Gn 5:2 which adam is interpreted as mankind collectively with Paul seemingly to imply woman is not made in the image of God. (which he never states)
The conclusion that was reached and that is the widely and historically accepted one is that Gn is referring to man and woman together that make up mankind in which they have a shared humanity and way of being that is made in the image of God. That is not rooted in their bodily differences but rooted in the rational mind and the will. This is the faculty both use in which to accept Christ and to be incorporated into the Body of Christ in which they find salvation. If women didn’t image God in this primary way, they would not be able to be saved.
They also conclude that Paul was not speaking of this image that is common to both man and woman but was referring to bodily differences that give us our temporal roles. Woman as man’s glory in the temporal order should cover that glory in worship so that the principle image where our minds are solely focused on God and where we most image Him should take precedence in this setting. This is why Augustine said “the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; ” With man’s glory covered the whole substance of the both together making one image shines forth in worship.
As I said, those of you who conclude woman is not made in the image of God are free to take that as your position but you will be on the fringe of the common and accepted interpretation in all of Christianity that I know of.
@LC
Thanks for your response, I didn’t notice we’re moving in circles, only that you don’t respond to some of the arguments put forward.
Woman in her earthly role as help-meet is ordered to her end which is man. This is not her final end though. In the order of grace, her final end is God. In this specific way, woman doesn’t image God because He does not exist for the sake of another.
I did never claim anything beyond the earthly life yet, all my arguments are referring to the current state of affairs as determined at creation. I already asked you once, and you seem to confirm again here: do you agree woman is not created in the image of God whereas man is, as far as Adam and Eve and their descendants are concerned?
@LC If women didn’t image God in this primary way, they would not be able to be saved.
That’s mere conjecture, not proof. Please provide proof for that.
ALL references to salvation include both men and women explicitly, hence cannot be dependent on the property of being created in the image of God. Note that we both acknowledge that women are created by God, and we both acknowledge that women are called ‘man’ (adam), and hence in Adam all have sinned.
@LC The NT can helps us interpret the fulfillment or the fullness of the meaning of the OT but in verses that seemingly contradict one another we either have to admit that Scripture can contradict itself (which leaves us wondering which is true) or we have to assume that there is no contradiction and that we are not understanding the meaning in the context of which the author is stating it.
Apart from a few limited places where we’re not sure about textual reliability, in most cases it is due to our misunderstanding, because God did inspire His Word and He does not contradict Himself.
In this case, if Paul STRONGLY suggest woman is NOT created in the image of God, it can only mean we need to step back and carefully reconsider our exegesis.
That’s exactly what I did; only during the past year I have started to doubt the common assumption that both men and women are created in the image of God. Now that I’ve seen that a proper exegesis seems to be possible where women are NOT created in the image of God, I think we should seriously consider that, especially because it seems to have greater explanatory power.
I really don’t want to enter the fray here, but according to Gen. 5:3, Adam’s son Seth was created in “his own likeness, in his own image.” So much theology in so many traditions is based on us being created in God’s image…but I’m not sure how/if that verse changes things.
Paul
“That’s exactly what I did; only during the past year I have started to doubt the common assumption that both men and women are created in the image of God. Now that I’ve seen that a proper exegesis seems to be possible where women are NOT created in the image of God, I think we should seriously consider that, especially because it seems to have greater explanatory power.”
What does the image of God consist of, in your view?
“….it seems to have greater explanatory power” As in explaining what?
Paul
“ALL references to salvation include both men and women explicitly, hence cannot be dependent on the property of being created in the image of God. ”
Why? Being made in the image of God is the only things that separates us from the beasts. What do men and women have that makes them human and what faculty do they share in common with each other and not with beasts but their rational mind and free will? If the image is primarily based elsewhere, how is woman not a mere beast? Animals are not made in the image of God.
Again, in your point of view, what does the image consist of?
@LC What does the image of God consist of, in your view?
That’s a very good question. I’m sure I do not have a complete answer. I’m aware that historically a lot of discussion around that arose, and I’m also aware you quoted Augustine extensively. I think Augustine is at times too speculative for my taste, and too many theology is built on top of it that assumes his arguments were flawless. Well, they aren’t. The imago Dei discussion in the RCC is useful, but I do not adhere to all its conclusions.
Well I do think the image of God DOES include physical appearance, which is often ignored or denied by others (especially in the Augustine tradition, who himself had a very low view on the body, probably due to his gnostic past), but certainly it is not limited to that. Obviously, we are not God, hence it does not mean we have all properties of God, but it does indicate we are somehow like him, hence we at least share some properties. I’m open to consider which those properties are, but I’m aware the Scriptures do not give much information on it. Hence we then move in to the territory of speculation. I’m currently not that interested in that.
@LC Being made in the image of God is the only things that separates us from the beasts.
For obvious reasons I disagree. Consider this: even if God had created us NOT in the image of God, that would not mean we would be identical to the beasts. God could have created humans in whatever way He pleased. You here merely show the assumption that the difference between man and beast depends on being created in the image of God, because you already defined that difference TO BE being created in the image of God. Classical circular reasoning.
We know the difference between man and beast is not in the emotions, beasts show emotions,
It is not in thinking, beasts can think. It is not in language, beasts know limited forms of language. It is not in the use of tools, beasts know limited use of tools.
I would say the essential difference is that we have a spirit which allows us to pray and connect to God, whereas the beasts do not pray to God.
Paul
“Well I do think the image of God DOES include physical appearance, which is often ignored or denied by others (especially in the Augustine tradition, who himself had a very low view on the body, probably due to his gnostic past), but certainly it is not limited to that.”
I don’t think Augustine’s (and other’s views) that the body is not the source of the image has much to do with having a low view of the body but rather that having a body is simply not an attribute of God as He is pure spirit. Jn 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Note: It doesn’t say God has a spirit but that He is spirit.
Christ did take on our humanity but he is and was fully God before He entered time and took our humanity upon Himself for our sake not because it is an essential attribute of the Godhead. The Mormons I think are one of the few groups that believe that God the Father has a body . You’re in small company with your interpretation.
“Obviously, we are not God, hence it does not mean we have all properties of God, but it does indicate we are somehow like him, hence we at least share some properties. I’m open to consider which those properties are, but I’m aware the Scriptures do not give much information on it. ”
You will have to also consider that if women do not have the image of God, what properties do men and God share that women do not have a share in that makes men uniquely to be in the image of God. These will have to be properties that are not just confined to the temporal order but continue beyond this life. With marriage not existing in heaven, that would be a pretty tall order. Good luck.
Paul
“Consider this: even if God had created us NOT in the image of God, that would not mean we would be identical to the beasts. God could have created humans in whatever way He pleased. You here merely show the assumption that the difference between man and beast depends on being created in the image of God, because you already defined that difference TO BE being created in the image of God. Classical circular reasoning.”
Consider this: The Bible tells us that we ARE created in the image of God. It gives an account of the creation of the beasts and it’s not until the creation of man that it is mentioned that mankind (male and female) are created in the image of God. This is not something of little significance. It is foundational to our understanding of God, why it’s not sinful to take the life of a mere beast but why it’s it sinful to kill another person without just cause, why beasts in general can’t sin etc. Because all people bear the image of God, it is a grave offense to sin against another person because it does dishonor to God.
“We know the difference between man and beast is not in the emotions, beasts show emotions,
It is not in thinking, beasts can think. It is not in language, beasts know limited forms of language. It is not in the use of tools, beasts know limited use of tools.”
Well, yes. In a limited way we do share some properties with beasts but a rational mind and a free will is not something that is shared. It makes us unique in all creation and it’s purpose is so that we can know and understand our final end and freely choose to order ourselves towards Him. But that way my point. We have something that makes us in the image of God that the beasts don’t have. While the great thinkers have pondered what that is through the ages, the rational mind and free will makes the most sense.
“I would say the essential difference is that we have a spirit which allows us to pray and connect to God, whereas the beasts do not pray to God.”
Bingo. We have spirit (an eternal soul) and a rational mind in which we can have a personal relationship with God and the beasts do not. Where does our ability, will and understanding in order to pray come from if not from these faculties which the beast do not share? If spirit is the difference between man and beast and God is spirit, wouldn’t this indicate that the image of God resides in the realm of the spirit and mind rather than the body?
L.C. says:
Being made in the image of God is the only things that separates us from the beasts. What do men and women have that makes them human and what faculty do they share in common with each other and not with beasts but their rational mind and free will? If the image is primarily based elsewhere, how is woman not a mere beast? Animals are not made in the image of God.
All things are not revealed to us.
Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?
An image is something that can be seen, or visualized. Is it not? Men aren’t supposed to cover their heads, when they pray to God because that visible sign that is then seen goes against how the visible image is intended to be portrayed. Some of the early church fathers also believed the image of God was in the face, visage, or countenance of man.
1 Corinthians 11:10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
The covering is a visible symbol to be witnessed on praying women, by others.
Leviticus 19:32 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.
Just sayin’
The face of God is a term used many times in the Bible
2 Corinthians 3:18 (YLT) and we all, with unvailed face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
That is some stuff to think and pray and search your Bible about.
I too, like Paul, only came to the knowledge that men alone are in the image of God, this last year. But it seems to clear many things up as you begin to think about things in that light.
At this point I have not exactly decided what I believe the image of God is, however I believe only men were created in it and should not cover their heads because of it. In the coming life it talks about us all being conformed to the image of Christ, so I agree that the sex based differences in the image of God may only apply in this life. Which is why it should behoove the churches to teach women to reverence their husbands during this brief life that it may go well for them when they are judged for all eternity based upon how they treated the least of these. And it is hard to teach somebody to reverence their equal. Why not be merciful to women and teach them the truth, that men are a greater vessels created in the image of God, and deserving of their reverence.
@LC I don’t think Augustine’s (and other’s views) that the body is not the source of the image has much to do with having a low view of the body but rather that having a body is simply not an attribute of God as He is pure spirit.
Please answer my previous question: who did Adam and Eve see in the garden? How did he look like?
@LC You’re in small company with your interpretation.
Your example of the Mormons is not applicable. I’ve told you that I think it was God the Son in the garden, a view shared by multiple church fathers. Maybe a small company, but good company.
@LC what properties do men and God share that women do not have a share in that makes men uniquely to be in the image of God.
Again an excellent question, to which I do not have the full answer. However, ONLY men can be fathers and son, just as God made himself known as the Father and the Son. That is not shared with women. We can speculate about it and try to describe it, but it is not spelled out in Scripture.
These will have to be properties that are not just confined to the temporal order but continue beyond this life.
Again, yet another one of your speculative assumptions. Prove it!
@LC With marriage not existing in heaven
You are aware that we will be resurrected in different, not earthly, bodies, aren’t you?
@LC it’s not until the creation of man that it is mentioned that mankind (male and female) are created in the image of God.
I’ve shown that it was adam/Adam/man that was created in the image of God. You cannot just counter my claim by only repeating yourself.
info,
Your analogy has some value, but it is limited. Adam was not a copy, mirror image, or whatever of God. He was “made in God’s Image” as far as his nature, character, capabilities, etc. He was not a copy (in any rational way) of God as we think of a copy.
A photograph would be the closest, but that is not even the same thing.
Those who claim Eve lost those similar elements and is ONLY in man’s image are not using their brains much. A woman in marriage is place positionally below a man, but that does not indicate value or image of God anymore than Jesus being below the Father positionally makes Him less God.
Paul,
You have not proven that Woman was also not made in the image of God. She got parts from Adam, but the Creator was the same.
That is like saying that a table I would make (if I could build stuff like that) that took a leg from another table was made from the other table, when just a part was.
Sharkley
“All things are not revealed to us.”
And yet you are certain that your conclusions that the image of God does not include woman is the correct one. Even though you can’t exactly say what is the image of God and what is not.
“Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?”
And? That men and beasts have in common that they die? So what? That doesn’t mean mankind doesn’t have other attributes that separate them from the beasts. This verse isn’t really making any kind of argument or point about the image of God. It just shows that man shouldn’t make so much of himself from vanity. He’s still vulnerable to the consequences of death.
I’d like to answer some of the points made by you and others but have no more time tonight. Maybe later.
LC, Sharkly, BillyS
I appreciate the discussion here. Can you please have a look at some of the unanswered questions and address these before bringing new points to the table? Then we can try to progress arguments.
You have not proven that Woman was also not made in the image of God.
“Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.[..] A man ought not to cover his head,since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.”
BillyS, please fill in the blanks:
1. A man SHOULD NOT cover his head BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God
2. A woman SHOULD cover her head BECAUSE she is … the image and glory of God (BUT she is the glory of man)
Paul,
I could not easily find those questions and I don’t really want to debate the issue as I find it ludicrous as I noted. Positionality and reporting order is not the same as image, as I noted.
Also saying Adam was in God’s image, but Eve was not is the idiotic base. Even if she was made form man, she is still in God’s image since God made her (male & female as it notes). I know Sharkly had a revelation on that verse to mean the opposite, but I don’t buy that anymore than I buy mutual submission for marriage.
God is not a physical being, at His core, so Adam could have only possibly looked like the physical presentation he picked. He did not physically look like an image of him the same way a son may look like their father. I have no idea what God’s physical representation was at that time, only that it existed (since He walked in the Garden).
Though you can believe what you want. I do see this impugning salvation and women’s free moral agency though, since they would not have the same position that man had if females are inherently a lower being.
Everything produces after its “kind” too, so Adam and Eve could not have produced children if they were not the same kind. That just hit me and reaffirms what I have said even more.
Although I think the matter of the image of God, is foundational, a matter of much gravity, and destroys the foundations of Feminism when understood correctly, I can still find a bit of humor in our debate, and the similar debates I’ve had with some others on this topic. I too believed just like some of you, just a year ago or so. I thought men and women were both basically equal in their creation as the image of God, but contrarily observed that women were just somehow God’s most defective version.
The funny parts are the made up objections to God’s revealed truth:
L.C. says women are beasts if they don’t have the image of God.(I am guilty of bestiality. LOL)
Others say that women can’t be saved if they aren’t in God’s image.(They could only be created either irredeemably vile or already in God’s image)
BillyS says that men and women can’t even reproduce if women aren’t also in God’s image.(just like mules LOL)
Your silly knee-jerk reactions to preserve the Feminist foundation that you were taught is humorous.
Adam recognized Eve was of his own flesh and bone, a fellow human. I was not mating with an animal, and, BillyS, I’ll have you know, my wife and I have bred successfully, repeatedly. Women are not irredeemable, they’re just not men in God’s image. They’re a weaker vessel. It is only fitting, in the Lord, that they be put to their best intended use, serving their husbands, satiating the intimate desires within their carnal union, making babies, nursing infants, keeping house, and being a testimony of their own redemption. Neither man nor woman was created defective, just frail and fallible, prone to wander, and now we are all perhaps equally fallen. Men however, were created to be the preeminent earthly sex, both before and after their fall, and were made in the image of God to be the image of Christ, to their wives who image the church, which is so prone to fall into the temptations of error.
I think contending for the faith is part of my calling, I believe God’s spirit illumined my mind to receive the truth of his words, after, much fervent prayer with fasting, requesting it. Apparently God’s Spirit is revealing this to others also. I like the debate. If I am mistaken or have presumed wrong beliefs, I’d surely like to have them pointed out, as iron sharpens iron, rather than falsely teach others in my error. However, even as I am learning and growing in my new knowledge, from God’s word, and red pilling experience and reading, I am finding that the basics I now know remain true. Men were created in God’s image and glory, women are the glory of man.
I am prepared to discuss God’s truth in this matter until it is settled and accepted in the minds of all those who choose to seek out truth and leave their former ignorance. Paul and I, appear to have worn Bnonn out:
https://bnonn.com/are-women-made-in-the-image-of-god/
And it seems like some of y’all here, who elevate women into the image of God without a verse that says such, are tiring out too.
I will elevate men above women, to the glory of God, even the Father. By God’s Word I will strive to cast down the deceiver’s Feminist strongholds. Praise be to God who made men in His own image and glory. May I eternally thank Him for it, though we can’t see clearly yet with full understanding. And may I be further conformed, in glory, to the image of His only begotten Son, the lamb who was worthy to be slain. May I be ready to die for Him, who died for me. May I be like the Good Shepherd who was ready to lay down His life for His sheep. May I endure to see my God face to face and His name be upon my forehead. May my own lambs, which are departed from me, hear my voice, and come back to be cleansed by the washing of God’s word. Amen!
That’s a good prayer. I’m in on that.
No Sharkly, I say they must be the same “kind” whatever that means. One could not be one kind and one another. That is a principle in life, however much some evolutionistas claim otherwise.
@Sharkly I think contending for the faith is part of my calling, I believe God’s spirit illumined my mind to receive the truth of his words, after, much fervent prayer with fasting, requesting it. Apparently God’s Spirit is revealing this to others also.
Although I’m always a bit hesitant to attribute things that happen in my life directly to God, I also believe that He through His Spirit prepared me to change my mind, and at times showed me a new light on verses I thought I already understood, throughout a period in which I personally experienced the evils so often shared on this blog by numerous others. I too think it’s my calling to deeply delve into God’s Word to both defend and distribute God’s awesome message of judgment and salvation, and to build up the faith of the saints.
I might be wrong at points, which is why I’m careful with words, and am putting my interpretation up for both scrutiny, as well as to learn from others. It has been my repeated experience that God reveals His truth differently in different people, and when sharing with others I’ve often learned more than I could have learned on my own. To me this illuminates what God revealed:
For this reason I kneel before the Father (Patera), from whom every family (patria) in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Sharkly, well done, your boldness is encouraging and inspiring to me.
@BillyS I could not easily find those questions and I don’t really want to debate the issue as I find it ludicrous as I noted.
And yet you keep on debating, without answering any of my questions – not even the simple one to just fill in the blank – or rebutting any of my arguments, while using insult upon insult.
A common objection here is that women could not POSSIBLY be NOT created in the image of God, because …
The arguments used ascribe MORE meaning to being created in the image of God than is warranted on the texts of Scripture, and most often no proof is given for such assumptions. Can I ask everyone to defend his position with an argument, instead of just building upon prior assumptions. The value is that we can then both grow in understanding, even though in the end we still might disagree.
@LC Bingo. We have spirit (an eternal soul) and a rational mind in which we can have a personal relationship with God and the beasts do not.
It is not our rational mind with which we can have a personal relationship with God.
If spirit is the difference between man and beast and God is spirit, wouldn’t this indicate that the image of God resides in the realm of the spirit and mind rather than the body?
No, because having a spirit is not DIRECTLY coupled to being created in the image of God.
Of Adam it is said that he was created out of the earth, his body was ready and formed, but he was NOT a living being until God breathed with His breath (wind/spirit?) into his nostrils. Similarly, after the Fall we’re dead in our sins (the day you eat you will certainly die), not alive, and unable to deeply connect with God, until we’re born again by His Spirit, just like the wind goes, and God does indwell our inner being, and our spirit is renewed.
Scripture is NOT clear of what it means in detail to be created in the image of God, but to me it is quite clear that women are NOT created in the image of God. I understand you want to disprove the latter, but that still leaves you to prove the significance of being created in the image of God based on Scripture. I would love to hear that and learn from it.
@LC We have something that makes us in the image of God that the beasts don’t have. While the great thinkers have pondered what that is through the ages, the rational mind and free will makes the most sense.
Only if you assume both men and women are created in the image of God, the rational mind and free will might be the significant difference between men and beasts. But it is a reasoned approach from looking at differences between beasts and men, to try to determine what the ‘image of God’ means. It is not deduced from Scripture. It is only speculation.
I think we all agree Scripture shows:
1. man/adam/Adam is created in God’s image directly by God out of the ground
2. wo-man is created directly by God out of Adam’s side, to be Adam’s helper/helpmeet.
3. woman was brought by God as helper/helpmeet to Adam, and named ‘Eve’ by him, similarly to how God brought the animals to Adam, and they were named by him (but they were not SUITABLE helpers).
4. she was an ‘adam’, flesh of Adam’s flesh, bone of Adam’s bones.
5. (nearly) all of Adam’s descendants are his offspring through sexual intercourse, and are (therefore) named ‘adam’.
6. men should NOT cover their heads during prayer or prophecy BECAUSE they are created in the image and glory of God
7. women should cover their heads during prayer or prophecy BECAUSE they are created in the glory of man.
We also agree that it is speculative what it exactly means to be created in the ‘image of God’. It’s a bit of a mystery to us. Therefore it’s also a bit of mystery what it means if you’re not created in the image of God. We can agree that IF indeed we would conclude that women are not created in the image of God, the significance of women’s position should not contradict other Scripture.
Now let me list some of the objections together, with some quick rebuttals.
Even if she was made form man, she is still in God’s image since God made her
“Even if”? She was made from man. The God creates something is NOT proof of being created in the image of God.
God is not a physical being, at His core, so Adam could have only possibly looked like the physical presentation he picked.
Let’s leave aside some of the details here, but that is more or less what I’m saying: Adam looked like the physical appearance of God in Eden.
He did not physically look like an image of him the same way a son may look like their father.
Huh? I’m not sure what you’re saying, can you clarify and prove your point?
I do see this impugning salvation and women’s free moral agency though, since they would not have the same position that man had if females are inherently a lower being.
Well, I did not claim women are “a lower being”, hence your argument falls apart. Women are ‘adam’, descendants out of Adam, and unlike Adam and Eve, we are all born out of women. They are not equal to men though (which although it is self-evident, seems to trigger most people these last days).
I fully believe in women’s free moral agency, more than most Christians seem to do, and I fully believe in the need and availability of women’s salvation in Christ. I yet have to be shown how that is impossible if indeed women are not created in the image of God.
I do find it telling that most churches ignore Scripture that tells us that men should not cover their head, but women should cover their head during praying or prophesying, BECAUSE man is created in the image and glory of God, but woman is created in the glory of man.
Everything produces after its “kind” too, so Adam and Eve could not have produced children if they were not the same kind. That just hit me and reaffirms what I have said even more.
Adam and Eve ARE of the same kind: ‘adam’. So it reaffirms nothing.
I really don’t want to enter the fray here, but according to Gen. 5:3, Adam’s son Seth was created in “his own likeness, in his own image.” So much theology in so many traditions is based on us being created in God’s image…but I’m not sure how/if that verse changes things.
Indeed, so much theology is based on equality of men and women, and see where that brought us. So much theology ignores the differences between men and women, even to the point to flat out ignore it when Scripture spells out the difference. To reconsider and reevaluate the importance and meaning of being or not being created in the image of God might help us more appreciate and properly honor the differences God created.
A woman in marriage is place positionally below a man, but that does not indicate value or image of God anymore than Jesus being below the Father positionally makes Him less God.
Huh? You need to clarify what you mean here. It does not seem related to any point I’ve made.
You have not proven that Woman was also not made in the image of God. She got parts from Adam, but the Creator was the same. That is like saying that a table I would make (if I could build stuff like that) that took a leg from another table was made from the other table, when just a part was.
Huh? God did create Eve out of a part of Adam, after He created Adam in His image. How do YOU prove Eve was created in the image of God?
Sharkly “”The face of God is a term used many times in the Bible”
It doesn’t mean God literally has a face as an essential part of his nature. Besides women have faces, and arms, and hands, and all the human parts used to describe God. God is often described with human terms because humans are limited in their ability to describe God. For example, when Scripture speaks of His mighty arms it is a way of describing His strength. It doesn’t mean He literally has arms. If Scripture tells us that God is spirit then when it also talks of body parts of God, it must mean that the body parts are symbolic of some other attribute of God. Scripture can’t contradict itself.
Sharkly “2 Corinthians 3:18 (YLT) and we all, with unvailed face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
That is some stuff to think and pray and search your Bible about.
I too, like Paul, only came to the knowledge that men alone are in the image of God, this last year. But it seems to clear many things up as you begin to think about things in that light.”
That verse is pretty unconvincing to your case. First, it says “we all” are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as the Lord, the Spirit. Are women not included in the “we all” that Paul is referring? If it were saying something about our actual physical selves, then are women being transformed into male bodies?
Besides the verses preceding this one say
5 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
These verses don’t tell us anything about humanity or even men being in the image of God. They are saying that “anyone who turns to the Lord” will reflect the glory of the Lord.
Sharkly “”At this point I have not exactly decided what I believe the image of God is, however I believe only men were created in it and should not cover their heads because of it. In the coming life it talks about us all being conformed to the image of Christ, so I agree that the sex based differences in the image of God may only apply in this life. ”
How can you believe only men were created in an image that you don’t even have a firm grasp on what it even consists of? And yet you speak of certainty in that women are not. How are we conformed to the image of Christ in the coming life? Again, are women’s bodies changed to male bodies or is it perhaps the image is some similitude other than physicality?
Sharkly “”Why not be merciful to women and teach them the truth, that men are a greater vessels created in the image of God, and deserving of their reverence.”
Is it merciful to teach them something as truth that you yourself haven’t worked through as what exactly the basis of that truth consists of? Not to mention that male and female created in the image of God is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. On what basis would anyone take your interpretation as the correct one?
I’d be careful bringing your personal interpretations to others as fact before you’ve got your arguments fully worked out. Especially this one in which you are trying to prove a division where Christianity says a unity exists. Satan, the Father of lies, likes to divide that which is united.
Paul “Please answer my previous question: who did Adam and Eve see in the garden? How did he look like?”
The Bible doesn’t say that Adam and Eve saw God with their eyes. It says “8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ” and “But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
I think it’s pretty telling that the Bible uses hearing as the sense in which Adam and Eve are aware of God’s presence and communicate with Him rather than sight. Considering, according to your argument, that it was Christ (the Logos/Word), who was there.
Paul “I’ve told you that I think it was God the Son in the garden, a view shared by multiple church fathers.”
The pre-incarnate or the incarnate Christ? The Church fathers say pre-incarnate.
Paul “@LC what properties do men and God share that women do not have a share in that makes men uniquely to be in the image of God.
Again an excellent question, to which I do not have the full answer. However, ONLY men can be fathers and son, just as God made himself known as the Father and the Son. That is not shared with women. We can speculate about it and try to describe it, but it is not spelled out in Scripture.”
If the image consists of Fatherhood and Sonship, then that doesn’t really answer the 1Cor 11:7 model of image that your are holding up as the basis of your argument where man is not the head of woman as her father but as her husband. She’s not her father’s help-meet but her husband’s. Christ is not the father of the church but her head as husband with the church as His bride.
“…Most men either reject the truth outright or make it to the other side with an appreciation for women as they really are.”
And then there are the Red Pill men (like myself) who have accepted the truth about the females in Western society and just don’t care about them anymore.
‘Appreciate’ them? No. We Red Pill men will treat Western women like they demand: as ‘Equals’ to us, without chivalry or any special treatment as there was in the past. Aside from the same public social politenesses which we would also show to fellow men, women receive NOTHING from us.
They will receive the ‘Equality’ which they demanded.
It is gratifying that a federal judge also seems to have taken ‘The Red Pill’:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/02/24/military-draft-judge-rules-male-only-registration-unconstitutional/2968872002/
Paul – I said: These [properties that man has but woman does not if only man has the image) will have to be properties that are not just confined to the temporal order but continue beyond this life.
You replied “Again, yet another one of your speculative assumptions. Prove it!”
I already gave a reason for my statement in my comment – February 23, 2019 at 8:43 am
You, on the other hand, really have no explanation as to how man is made in the image of God (not just as symbol in this earthly life in terms of temporal roles but that there is something in his human nature (which consists of both soul and body) in which he images God. Everything you describe has to do with man’s “doing” or with his physical body but that doesn’t really touch that to be “made in His image” has something to do with our “be-ing.” IOW, it’s essential to our nature and who we are and exists no matter what roles we take on (or not) or are capable or incapable of doing. If the image is tied to man’s doing, then are unmarried men not in God’s image because they are not the head of a wife? If the image is tied to the body, does a physically or mentally disabled man lose the image? Of course not.
@LC It doesn’t mean He literally has arms.
Well, Scripture does contradict you. In ALL descriptions where people either had visions, or did meet “God”, He had a visible form. And God the Son now still has a male (or resurrected) body.
So in that sense, God literally has arms.
@LC How can you believe only men were created in an image that you don’t even have a firm grasp on what it even consists of? And yet you speak of certainty in that women are not.
I think Sharkly has made it clear that it is based on interpretation of Scripture. By the way, you yourself have admitted that you don’t exactly know what the image of God consists of.
@LC The Bible doesn’t say that Adam and Eve saw God with their eyes.
Yes, it does imply that they saw Him, you only need to read carefully. Apart from countering your explanation regarding God walking, have a look at the following texts.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
The moment God breathed in his nostrils, the man became living, when Adam opened his eyes, he saw God.
“Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
God Himself brought Eve to Adam, hence they both saw Him
“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
God Himself made these garments and clothed Adam and Eve, hence they saw Him.
Paul “@LC It doesn’t mean He literally has arms.
Well, Scripture does contradict you. In ALL descriptions where people either had visions, or did meet “God”, He had a visible form. And God the Son now still has a male (or resurrected) body.
So in that sense, God literally has arms.”
No it doesn’t. Any time God meets with someone, He appears to them in a form in they can understand in their limited human capacity. A burning bush. A cloud or even as a man as when Jacob wrestled with God. This doesn’t mean that fire, a bush, a cloud or even a male person tells us about what God looks like or who He is. If God is spirit, none of these things are essential to His nature or who He is. If they aren’t essential, then the image of God in man aren’t in the realm of these things. God doesn’t need a body to be God. He doesn’t need fire or a bush or a cloud. How he manifests Himself to humans is a condescension on His part. They might highlight a certain one or other of His attributes, but they aren’t Him.
Yes. God the Son is resurrected and still has his male body but that again was a condescension to and for the sake of redeeming human nature. It is not essential to who He is because even before He created the world and entered time to become incarnate, He is, was and always will be God.
Paul “I think Sharkly has made it clear that it is based on interpretation of Scripture. By the way, you yourself have admitted that you don’t exactly know what the image of God consists of.”
Based on HIS interpretation of Scripture which up to this point is sorely lacking and unconvincing. Not knowing what the image of God exactly consists of is not the same as stating that 1/2 of humanity is not made in that image especially when they share the same human nature as the other 1/2. Stating that it is based on sexual difference and not being able to show how man’s body uniquely is an image of God rather than just a manifestation of a particular attribute or set of attributes of God is just not going to win over very many converts to his interpretation of things. If it’s based on the body, we could say a woman giving birth in pain with the flow of blood and water to bring forth new life proves that woman is made in the image of God because Christ suffered and died so that we may be born again to new life. While we see an image there that helps us understand an attribute of God, can we base “the image” in which man and woman is made on that? ….or is it something that is shared by both sexes and based on something in human nature that they have in common?
Paul “@LC The Bible doesn’t say that Adam and Eve saw God with their eyes.
Yes, it does imply that they saw Him, you only need to read carefully. Apart from countering your explanation regarding God walking, have a look at the following texts.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
The moment God breathed in his nostrils, the man became living, when Adam opened his eyes, he saw God.”
You are inferring that when they opened their eyes they saw God in the fullness of His glory and as He really is (In the Divine Essence) and you are inferring that what they saw was a human form based on forming a man from the dust of the ground as a human would make something out of the dust of the ground. Perhaps while they could see something visible, it may not have been a human form. We just don’t know. To assume with certainty that it was a human form is projecting what is human onto God. This is common in pagan religions. If it was a human form, again how humans “see” God or a manifestation of Him doesn’t not mean they see Him as He really is in the Divine Essence. ….or it’s also possible that God was not visible to them but they experienced Him through the senses of hearing and/or touch. Based on the text, that possibility is not out range. Again. We just don’t know so to say “They saw God in the form of a human male, therefore that is what the image of God consists of and is proof that women are not made in that image.” is not some kind of proof to hang your hat on, so to speak. Not to mention what do we do with Gen 9: 6-7?
L.C.,
You make many good points, and I appreciate that you continue to discuss this with us.
I didn’t present 2 Corinthians 3:18 believing it would change your mind. I presented it because it is part of God’s inspired word, and as such,(hermeneutically) what we discuss should be in accordance with it. I’m trying to get at God’s truth, not win some temporal debate. I want the truth to win out.
The verse points out that we behold the glory of God, as if an image in a mirror.(as though we see it) And that we all(perhaps meaning Christians) are in the process of being turned into celestial citizens, when we will eventually be transformed, and receive even more glorified bodies. Transformed from(glory to glory) men being created in the glory of God, and women being the glory of men, to all of us becoming even more glorified with God’s image and glory in our being. For men, we become further in the image and glory of God. While women go from not being the image and glory of God, to being that also.
If it were saying something about our actual physical selves, then are women being transformed into male bodies?
Perhaps. We are not told exactly. Perhaps women will eventually get the penises they’ve always envied, after all. Jesus glorified body still appeared visibly to be that of a male.
And yet you are certain that your conclusions that the image of God does not include woman is the correct one. Even though you can’t exactly say what is the image of God and what is not.
Yes. As Paul correctly surmised above, I get this from the plain reading of Genesis 1-2 combined with 1 Corinthians 11 in such a way that they are both in full agreement, and are not contradicted by any other Bible passages. God told me in His written Word that men are in the image and glory of God. He told me that because of that, they should not cover their heads like a woman during prayer. He told me women were created after and for the man, as man’s glory. That is my main point.
Similarly I believe God formed us from the dust of the earth,(because He said so) even though he doesn’t tell us exactly how He did that. There are plenty of things in the Bible we believe by faith, because God, who cannot lie, told us it was so.
John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?[Psalm 82] 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
If The Bible says that women should cover their head when they pray or prophesy, unlike men who disgrace their head if they cover it, because they are in the image and glory of God. I believe that women are therefore not in the image and glory of God, and are in fact, the glory of men, as the scripture which cannot be broken, tells us.
Asking questions of my belief does not disprove it. Even if I don’t have a good answer, or even give a wrong one. The truth is not bound by my ability to comprehend it, or convey it, or defend it. I believe in a scriptural argument the agreed upon foundation is:
Romans 3:4b let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
So, we should not rely on our extended reasoning to trust our own theories built upon theories, but we should build our arguments upon the foundation of the Word of God.
As I have tried to convey before, those who claim to know what the image of God is, and don’t use scripture, but presumptuous reasoning, to arrive at their supposition, and then build doctrines off of their own presumptuous suppositions, lack the justification of those who base their arguments off of the plain reading of scripture.
I’m not sure if the scripture tells us what the image of God is, mainly because I have not yet searched them for that answer. I don’t see anybody else citing scripture telling us what the image of God, is, but that doesn’t mean we are not missing clues in the word of God. Perhaps that should be sought with much prayer, and fasting.
I have read quite a few differing opinions as to what the image of God is, and based upon that some make further extrapolations. However most people come to their initial decision as to what they believe the image of God to be by a process of finding something that fits their existing beliefs. Just like you’d like it to be something that both men and women have, and I might rather consider it to be something only men have. If however we are determined to look for it by our deductive reasoning alone, we should look for it honestly, and consider all possibilities that do not directly contradict the plain reading of scripture. The question of whether the “image” of God, or the glory of God are things that can be seen by men, would be important in narrowing things down, if we could prove that one way or the other.
Do we see God literally or only figuratively?
Sometimes the scripture takes some thinking to reconcile:
1 John 4:12a 12 No man hath seen God at any time.
John 1:18a No man hath seen God at any time,
John 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?
Colossians 1: 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
John 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
Hebrews 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
3 John 1:11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
MKT,
Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
I take that verse to show how the image of Adam made in the image of God is transferred down to his own son. Notice the daughters are not said to be in Adam’s image. No woman in the Bible is ever said to currently be in God’s or any man’s image. Though we all may become conformed to the image of Christ in the life to come. Humans reproduce humankind(after their own kind), but sons are in the image of their fathers not their mothers, and daughters are in the image of their mothers, not their fathers.
L.C.,
Is it merciful to teach them something as truth that you yourself haven’t worked through as what exactly the basis of that truth consists of? Not to mention that male and female created in the image of God is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. On what basis would anyone take your interpretation as the correct one?
Is it OK for your wife to drive a car with an internal combustion engine, if you don’t fully understand the “Otto cycle”?
Of course it is.
Is it OK to read the book of Revelation if you don’t have it all figured out?
Is it OK to take communion if you disagree with the person giving it over transubstantiation?
Not to mention that male and female created in the image of God is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
Well, the early church fathers didn’t believe women were in the image of God. It wasn’t fundamental to the founders of the church. It was a heresy that crept in to bolster the deity of Mary heresy, IMHO. I am contending that it is fundamentally wrong. And I have seen zero scripture or empirical proof that women are in the image of God. While the Apostle Paul tells us that they are instead, the glory of man.
On what basis would anyone take your interpretation as the correct one?
Reading comprehension. The Bible made it clear to me and the early church fathers, and most anybody else who isn’t under the satanic influence of the temptation to elevate women to equality or even above men. Others can see it also, if they will look for the truth, instead of just looking for validation of what they have been previously taught.
I’d be careful bringing your personal interpretations to others as fact before you’ve got your arguments fully worked out. Especially this one in which you are trying to prove a division where Christianity says a unity exists. Satan, the Father of lies, likes to divide that which is united.
I’m not making the division between the sexes, nor is it satanic, God made that division, and made Adam in His own image and glory, and made Eve to be Adam’s glory.
The satanic lack of unity is created by women failing to reverence men, due in part to false teaching, that they are equal to men, when they are not.
And a lack of complete knowledge is no excuse for not sharing what you do know.
I’ll admit, that even though I’m scientifically minded, I’m not sure how a dry powder fire extinguisher functions chemically. So if somebody, in an emergency, asks me where, the thing is that puts out fires, do I refuse to tell them, because I don’t understand how it works?
LOL I’ve even used a dry powder extinguisher, and I still don’t know how it worked.
There is a marriage emergency in our world, and mine is on fire even now.
I can and will boldly proclaim God’s truth, in spite of my own limited understanding.
Women not being made in the image of God, like men, but later, as a second class of humans, is proof of our unequal creation, and undermines the foundation of Feminism, a female supremacist ideology.
While you ask good questions, they don’t dissuade me from what truth I know. They serve to sharpen my thinking.
L.C.,
If it’s based on the body, we could say a woman giving birth in pain with the flow of blood and water to bring forth new life proves that woman is made in the image of God because Christ suffered and died so that we may be born again to new life.
So as you can see you can force things into an analogy or image, and claim that must be the image that is being referred to as the image of God, but in reality we are best off sticking with what we are told in the Bible, and what we can prove directly from it. Indirect proofs are sketchy.
Do you agree we are clearly told that men are created in the image of God?
Do you agree we are never clearly told that women are in the image of God?
Do you agree that women should wear a head covering when they pray? Why or why not?
Why does it disgrace a man’s head, if he, being in the image of God, covers his head during prayer? Why does it disgrace a woman’s head to be uncovered in prayer before God? Why is it not the same, if both are exactly the same in the image of God? Was the Apostle Paul just a misogynist writing his own personal opinions as divinely inspired?
Paul and ray,
Thank you men for sharing. it is encouraging to me also that you yourselves independently came to similar conclusions after reading the Bible. And I am also encouraged that men like Bee, and others, will ponder these things, and perhaps investigate them in God’s word also.
Thanks all for your contributions to this mini-debate.
@Sharkly Do we see God literally or only figuratively? Sometimes the scripture takes some thinking to reconcile: 1 John 4:12a 12 No man hath seen God at any time.
Those texts are one of the reasons I’ve come to a preliminary conclusion that ALL physical appearances of God in the OT or those of God the Son. If you take other aspects into consideration (everything created through the Son, including Adam, references to Angel of the Lord “we’ve seen God and still we live” versus “nobody can see God and live”), this has only confirmed this to me as an interpretation that seems to unify otherwise seemingly contradictory texts. The “no man hath seen God” then does refer to “God the Father”.
From a theological perspective, if you look at the theology of the trinity, you could maybe say that God the Father is God outside time and space, and God the Son is God inside time and space.
Read for instance carefully the famous “burning bush” history (Ex 3)
“There the angel of the Lord> appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.”
“When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!””
“Then he said, “I am the God of your father, a the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”
“The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ”
“God said to Moses, “I am who I am. ”
Compare with John 8
““Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”
The Jews presumably picked up stones because here Jesus identifies Himself with God.
@LC Any time God meets with someone, He appears to them in a form in they can understand in their limited human capacity.
Here you are logically turning things around.
Well it might be true that God appearing in physical, human form, talking to people is something they can understand, at the same time people just hear the voice of God, or have visions of God they don’t understand at all. Therefore your claim is false in the general case.
However, many appearances of God or the angel of the Lord are described in Scripture, and there we see that people see a human form, similar to them, or sometimes of extraordinary appearance, but still recognizable as human form (similar to how many angels appear to have human form).
But still this is missing the point. WHY is a human form of God understandable to humans? Because it is easier to relate to a fellow human being, only?
I say it is the other way around: it was God who created the human form AFTER HIS OWN LIKENESS, IN HIS OWN IMAGE.
God does not look like us, we look like God! More specifically, men look most like God. In his physical appearance God NEVER appears in female form.
And this isn’t some modern interpretation either; all art sponsored by the Church pictures God as a man. The most famous is probably the painting of Michelangelo in the heart of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, “The Creation of Adam”
Let’s look more closely at what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians.
This gives an easy answer to the question implied in item 2. Specifically, the woman SHOULD cover her head BECAUSE doing so is disgraceful.
Why is it disgraceful? This passage does not say whether or not a woman is made in the image of God. I believe Paul (and others?) is supposing that verse 7 means the woman is not the image of God and this is the reason it is disgraceful to pray with her head uncovered. It does not say that. Read it carefully.
The other certain version of item 2 is: “A woman SHOULD cover her head BECAUSE she is the glory of man.”
In short, this passage does not say whether or not a woman is made in the image of God. Arguments on that topic need to use other scripture(s).
@OR
Let’s just for this moment postpone the idea if woman is not made in the image of God.
And let’s look at the text (and of course I’ve studied it carefully)
“For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”
If we split that we have and slightly rephrase we get (1)
1. A man SHOULD NOT cover his head BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God
Now, think about that for a moment. A visible sign for a man, is to not cover his head, a visible sign for a woman is to cover her head, to show the difference between and woman. And what difference is that? The text explains the reason behind this difference:
“BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God”
Now we can IMMEDIATELY logically deduce that
woman is NOT “the image and glory of God”
Because, if being the image and glory of God was not THE reason for the difference, it would NOT have been mentioned (because if they BOTH are the image and glory of God, it would NOT explain why a man should not cover his head, but a woman should cover her head)
Next to the logical deduction, we also have
“BUT the woman is the glory of man.”
showing a contrast between man and woman. This is an extra piece of information and nicely fits in:
woman is not the image and glory of God, BUT is the glory of man.
Conclusion: the text shows that woman is not the image and glory of God.
Paul — ‘God does not look like us, we look like God! More specifically, men look most like God. In his physical appearance God NEVER appears in female form.’
Right. Demons, however, can and will take female form. God does not, because He is masculinity itself.
I’ve said this in other ways many times on this forum. Man and the angels appear like God because He made us in His image, including His unique quality of masculinity, transferred via His pneuma. Our masculinity isn’t a shared-animal quality, as satan’s world (including many Christians) attempts to convince us. Masculinity is a godly quality — a reflection of the glory and holiness of the LORD. That’s why He goes nuts about homos, feminism, etc., and that’s why His servants react likewise.
Here is a secret only two persons on planet currently know. I’ll bury it here because few will read back this far.
Eight or ten years ago I got ‘recalled’ for a correction, the only time in my life such a thing has happened. One instant I was here, the next I was there, and He was in front of me and not particularly happy. I’d say He appeared dumbfounded, and irritated, at my stupidity and cluelessness. Like a dad who just can’t believe his kid doesn’t get it.
For now, I will skip the corrective content, and move to appearance, as that’s the instant issue. He was quite humanoid and nothing about His appearance caused question or discomfort in me, aside from His dour countenance. So, yes, He looked like a person, but in actuality, persons look like Him.
Zappo and I was back on terra infirma, and in weeks and months subsequent I dwelt on this experience, and I knew 100 percent that I’d been called before Father. I know my own there like I know my own here, it was Papa and no mistake.
It wasn’t until a year or so later that it dawned on me that the person I’d seen was Jeshua. And I was tremendously joyed at this, because of what it means for you, for this world.
Here I will speculate. I think at Calvary, when Jeshua came into full oneness with Father, it subsequently became impossible to distinguish between the two. That is, I do not believe the angels can now distinguish, either.
This is very great news, the best news that Earth and the universe could hope for. Because when King Jeshua sits as planetary regent in Jerusalem — very soon — Earth will have GOD THE FATHER in person, directing affairs on this shattered rock of a world. And those of you who’ve been here for awhile know that’s what it’s gonna take. Nothing less will do.
Now, if a woman is not the image and glory of God, can she nevertheless still be the image of God? To be continued.
Sharkly 2 Corinthians 3:18……The verse points out that we behold the glory of God, as if an image in a mirror.(as though we see it) And that we all(perhaps meaning Christians) are in the process of being turned into celestial citizens, when we will eventually be transformed, and receive even more glorified bodies. Transformed from(glory to glory) men being created in the glory of God, and women being the glory of men, to all of us becoming even more glorified with God’s image and glory in our being. For men, we become further in the image and glory of God. While women go from not being the image and glory of God, to being that also.
Christians are in the process of being transformed into the image of Christ which will be complete at the resurrection. The phrase glory to glory refers to going from a lesser glory to a greater glory. The plain reading of the text doesn’t distinguish between the sexes because it refers to those who are in Christ and would include both men and women. (In Christ there is no male and female) You are forcing the issue when you read a distinction into the plain meaning where none exits.
But if we go with what you are proposing, then this means that the image of God that is in men goes from glory to glory as from a lesser glory of the image of God to a greater glory of the image of God. For women, you are saying they go from an image that doesn’t exist to suddenly having that image presumably when they die or are resurrected. It wouldn’t be a transformation from glory to glory. It would be just simply a taking away of one type of glory and being given a glory of another type which doesn’t fit the plain reading of this verse nor it’s context within the entire passage.
As a matter of fact, the verse in it’s plain reading would strengthen the argument that the correct translation of Gen 1:27 is that women are made in the image of God. In order for a person to be able to be transformed into the image of Christ, they would first have to accept Him and have His Spirit dwelling in them. What is it in human nature that even makes a person capable of recognizing and responding to grace other than being made in the image of the One who supplies the grace? In order for something to transform, it has to exist in some form in the first place.
Sharkly I wrote “If it were saying something about our actual physical selves, then are women being transformed into male bodies?
You replied: Perhaps. We are not told exactly. Perhaps women will eventually get the penises they’ve always envied, after all. Jesus glorified body still appeared visibly to be that of a male”
Let’s not give the argument about transgenderism being a “natural occurrence” or “just the way God made me” any kind of starting point.
Sharkly ” As Paul correctly surmised above, I get this from the plain reading of Genesis 1-2 combined with 1 Corinthians 11 in such a way that they are both in full agreement, and are not contradicted by any other Bible passages.”
Ignoring that adam has two meanings depending on context. You’ve simply picked which one it should be, based on 1 Corinthians 11:7, but that’s not how reading in context works. Reading in context has to do with the usage of language within the context of the passage that it resides. What you are trying to do here is say that 1 Cor 11:7 makes explicit that woman is not made in the image of man so therefore, the correct interpretation of Gn 1:27 must be that adam means the male sex and not mankind.
However, Paul never says women are not made in the image of God. His point of emphasis wasn’t image but glory. He mentions image in reference to man because the male reflects both image and glory together. There is no distinction between the two of one honoring God and the other honoring man. There is no need for him to symbolize by covering, that one of the aspects does honor to someone other than God. Both aspects in the male do honor to God. As to woman, he only mentions glory and avoids saying she is not in the image of God. Why? Why not write, “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is not the image of God but the glory of man.” in order to be consistent with what he wrote about the man? He says that it’s for the reason that she is man’s glory that she ought to be covered. What women symbolically cover by use of the veil is their being made for man’s glory because man’s glory should be hidden in the context of worship so that the image of God (contained in both male and female) should shine forth all the greater. It is never mentioned that the veil is symbolic of an absence of image. Besides how and why would one cover the absence of something?
Paul goes on to point out that this distinction of the sexes doesn’t affect their unity.
“He writes “Nevertheless, IN THE LORD woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”
The not covering/covering is based only on the distinction of sex (male and female) due to one being made for the other because he then goes on to remind them of their unity both IN THE LORD (all are one and there is no male or female as he teaches elsewhere) and in that they share the same human nature in which “everything comes from God.” This is seen in that woman was taken from man’s side and that all men thereafter are born of woman as God made them to be.
Paul,
From this passage, it is certainly possible that a woman is the image of God, because the phrase “not the image and glory of God” is not necessarily equal to “not the image of God and not the glory of God”. One must go elsewhere in Scripture to find the answer.
@OR
So you agree that woman is not the image and glory of God.
Paul “Now, think about that for a moment. A visible sign for a man, is to not cover his head, a visible sign for a woman is to cover her head, to show the difference between and woman. And what difference is that? The text explains the reason behind this difference:
“BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God”
Is the text really trying to show the difference between men and women? ….or is it to cover the one aspect in which woman differs from man so that what unifies them in human nature (made in God’s image) takes precedence in worship?
If we take your reading of it, that it’s meant to highlight their difference, you state that the text explains that the reason behind the difference is “BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God.” But the explanation is not in the same verse that makes the statement but in the verses that follow.
“8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own[c] head,”
The woman coming from man and created for him is what makes her his glory.
Paul,
It may be true that a woman is not both of those, but one cannot “IMMEDIATELY logically deduce” this from the text. In fact, I think a plain reading of the text suggests that the difference of note here between men and women is not the issue of “the image of God” but the “glory of God” contrasted with the “glory of man”.
As far as I can tell, the question of interest here is: “Are women made in the image of God?” I do not think this passage provides a clear answer to that question, which is why I said one must look to other scripture for that answer.
@LC But the explanation is not in the same verse that makes the statement but in the verses that follow.
First, I don’t understand how it is relevant in what verse what is mentioned; it’s the idea that is conveyed that counts. Second, the reason is mentioned in one and the same verse:
“For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”
Is the text really trying to show the difference between men and women?
Well, regardless of what the apostle Paul is else trying to say, whatever statement he has written down, I consider it to be true. In this case it’s about head covering and being the image and glory of God.
….or is it to cover the one aspect in which woman differs from man so that what unifies them in human nature (made in God’s image) takes precedence in worship?
… what unifies them in human nature takes precedence in worship…
The text is stressing the DIFFERENCE in worship, more precisely, in praying and prophesying: man should NOT cover their heads, women should cover their heads. I’m not sure where you get your precedence idea from.
The woman coming from man and created for him is what makes her his glory.
That might be true, but that was not the point I made, nor does it counter it.
My point is that woman is NOT the image and glory of God, but man is.
In the past you’ve alluded that you agree to that at least to some extent. I asked you to clarify if you agreed on that, but you still did not answer that. Can you clarify if you think for the earthly realm, man is made in the image of God, and woman is not?
@OR I think a plain reading of the text suggests that the difference of note here between men and women is not the issue of “the image of God” but the “glory of God” contrasted with the “glory of man”.
You suggest that the text only reads:
“For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”
I agree that man is the glory of God and woman the glory of man, HOWEVER, the text also clearly speaks of man being the image of God.
IF the text would have ONLY mentioned the glory of God and glory of man, than your argument would hold:
a. man is the glory of God, therefore should NOT wear headcover.
b. woman is NOT the glory of God, but the glory of man, therefore SHOULD wear headcover.
But that is NOT what the text says. You have to address the significance of man being in the image of God with respect to wearing a headcover.
@LC Why not write, “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is not the image of God but the glory of man.”
Or why not write
“A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is not the image and glory of God but the glory of man.”
To me the answer is simple; because it is implied already, and the addition of ‘but the glory of man’ gives extra information on the woman if she is not the first.
Reasoning from what someone did not write is always trickier than to reason from what someone did write. It does usually make weak arguments.
Paul
I had to re-read your post to see if I was understanding your point. You wrote:
“For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”
If we split that we have and slightly rephrase we get (1)
1. A man SHOULD NOT cover his head BECAUSE he is the image and glory of God”
When I read the second part though, I don’t see it the same you way do. “..an extra piece of information and nicely fits in:
“woman is not the image and glory of God, BUT is the glory of man.
My reading of the text is.
1. A man should not cover his head because he is the image and glory of God;
2. … but a woman should cover her head because she is the glory of man.
He shows the reasons for the two visible signs and offers further explanation of his reasoning in the next verses.
It just doesn’t make sense why Paul would mention only glory and not image in reference to the woman if it was a factor in why she should cover. The omission seems to imply that she is made in the image of God and does NOT factor in as a reason for covering. The verse just doesn’t tell us whether she is or isn’t so it fails as some kind of proof for the meaning in Gn 1:27.
Paul “… what unifies them in human nature takes precedence in worship…
The text is stressing the DIFFERENCE in worship, more precisely, in praying and prophesying: man should NOT cover their heads, women should cover their heads. I’m not sure where you get your precedence idea from”
Worship in assembly with other Christians is an entrance into and a participation in the ongoing eternal worship of God that is in heaven. I think that is why Paul mentions the angels because they are in our midst in worship as a uniting of heaven and earth. Other themes in the N.T. talk about being one in Christ where there is no divisions. While in the temporal order there are necessary divisions but entering into worship puts us into the spiritual order where unity takes precedence over any differences (no male/female, slave/free, gentile/jew.) Because the verses in dispute are in the context of what is fit for worship, I think a certain unity is stressed rather than difference. Why would a woman need a covering to show her difference from man in the context of worship when her body already shows that? I think the covering is actually a symbol to obscure that which makes her different from man as his glory so that the image they share and which unites them to each other and to God is one during worship.
Paul “Can you clarify if you think for the earthly realm, man is made in the image of God, and woman is not?:
It’s difficult to answer your question because I think to be made in the image of God is not something that’s limited to this earthly realm but is something that resides in the soul and is something eternal. In the earthly realm, in marriage specifically, I think that the husband takes the role of head of the wife as Christ is head of the Church and that the wife takes on the role of the Church towards her husband. While it is an image of Christ and the Church, I think it’s not the same thing as “to be made” in the image of God. It’s more than a temporal role. It’s an actual eternal image.
Paul “Reasoning from what someone did not write is always trickier than to reason from what someone did write. It does usually make weak arguments.”
Paul did not write that the woman is or is not made in the image of God. Mentioning image in regards to the man only affirms that he is. Omitting the information either way in regards the woman leads us “to reason from what someone did not write.”
L.C.,
It just doesn’t make sense why Paul would mention only glory and not image in reference to the woman if it was a factor in why she should cover. The omission seems to imply that she is made in the image of God and does NOT factor in as a reason for covering. The verse just doesn’t tell us whether she is or isn’t so it fails as some kind of proof for the meaning in Gn 1:27.
LOL, now you want it both ways depending on which verse you are examining. Proof by omission for me, but not for thee.
You contend that the when God specifically and pointedly omits to repeat “in the image of God” for the female in Genesis that we can’t assume that omission was in any way intended. Yet in 1 Corinthians 11 when God omits to specifically repeat “in the image of God”, we now must assume the omission was absolutely intended, and not an automatically assumed linguistic omission for brevity, and thereby ignore the direct contrast that is written.
LOL You’ve got to change the rules of your interpretation verse by verse to keep women elevated into the image of our masculine God. That isn’t a desire for truth, that’s a desire for women in the image and glory of God, No matter which way the text is written.
Both passages can be plainly read(in agreement) as contrasts between the sexes.
J.B. Phillips New Testament:
For if a woman does not cover her head she might just as well have her hair cropped. And if to be cropped or closely shaven is a sign of disgrace to women, then that is all the more reason for her to cover the head. A man ought not to cover his head, for he represents the very person and glory of God, while the woman reflects the person and glory of the man. For man does not exist because woman exists, but vice versa. Man was not created originally for the sake of woman, but woman was created for the sake of man. For this reason a woman ought to bear on her head an outward sign of man’s authority for all the angels to see.
for about the first 1950 years of the church I believe the majority view was that women were not in the image of God, and thus they all wore head coverings, at least in church, if not everywhere.
Then folks claimed women were equally in the image of God, and women threw off submission and its symbol, and began the battle of the sexes that is destroying families today.
L. C. says:
The division of the sexes, while ordered and created by God, belongs to the temporal order of things. This temporal order is not eternal and passes away.…
To hold the temporal image (which is what Paul is referring to in 1 Cor 11:7) as the principle way in which man and woman images God is to put that which pertains to man ahead of that which pertains to God.
2 Corinthians 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
So then, do you think the “temporal image” and glory of God in man, the Apostle was referring to, is an image we can see,(as in a mirror) or is it unseen? You seem to have implied that it is unseen. While I think an image is generally something that can be seen or visualized. Thus the need to go from this temporal glory that can be seen, like a woman’s long hair which is a glory to her and her husband, to an eternal glory which cannot yet be seen. From glory unto glory.
When you make the image and glory of God out to be something that cannot be observed, doesn’t the slight of hand only gets easier for a deceiver to shift it around and deceive folks?
Just asking.
1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
The word “but” is said by the Oxford English dictionary to be a conjunction: Used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned.
Webster’s dictionary says “but” means: without the concomitant that
And “concomitant” means: something that accompanies or is collaterally connected with something else
So by choosing the word “but”, the English translators meant the statement about the woman to be in contrast to what was stated as accompanying or being connected to the man.(the image and glory of God)
Let’s try to get some clarity and common ground before we move on. I’ll try to make this as simple as possible, but I’m afraid it does involve a bit of propositional logic. Let’s start from the whole 1 Cor 11 chapter, and extract some truth statements from there, which I think are self-evident.
“Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head”
We derive
M1. man should NOT cover the head when praying or prophesying
W1. woman should cover the head when praying or prophesying
“A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.”
We derive
M2. man is the image and glory of God
W3. woman is the glory of man
This is not a mere repetition of M1, but an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head, while a woman should.
Now let’s review the following mutually exclusive statements, one or the other is true.
W2a. woman is the image and glory of God
W2b. woman is NOT the image and glory of God
Suppose W2a is true. We have
M1 “because” M2
and we can similarly construct
W1 “because” W2a
“man should NOT [..] because man is the image and glory of God
“woman should [..] because woman is the image and glory of God
now if both man and woman are the image and glory of God, how does that function as an explanation for that a woman SHOULD cover her head, but a man should NOT cover her head? There is no difference at all between the two.
THEREFORE W2a is false, THEREFORE W2b is true:
woman is NOT the image and glory of God
Q.E.D.
Please excuse me if this has already been stated, but I think it is possible that “image” may have different meanings in different contexts, and this even includes the phrase “image of God”. For example, “image of God” could refer to God’s physical attributes (although I don’t know how that is possible), God’s spiritual attributes, or other aspects of God. In other words, we may be comparing apples to oranges in the various scriptures referring to the image of God.
Supposing it is true that women are made in the image of God, the fact that people misunderstand and misapply this truth does not change its truth. For example, it is still the truth even if false teaching about the position of women results from misunderstanding it.
On the other hand, if we suppose women are not made in the image of God, what impact does this have to Christian life today? As I understand it, this does not change the position of women, for example, that wives are to submit to their husbands. In other words, what difference does it make?
@OR In other words, what difference does it make?
That’s the challenge to find out.
It at least has an elegance to it in terms of explaining WHY man is the head etc. and WHY God is pictured as male. Discovering truth has its own reward. God knows what helps His Church best.
Sharkly “You contend that the when God specifically and pointedly omits to repeat “in the image of God” for the female in Genesis that we can’t assume that omission was in any way intended. Yet in 1 Corinthians 11 when God omits to specifically repeat “in the image of God”, we now must assume the omission was absolutely intended, and not an automatically assumed linguistic omission for brevity, and thereby ignore the direct contrast that is written.
LOL You’ve got to change the rules of your interpretation verse by verse to keep women elevated into the image of our masculine God. That isn’t a desire for truth, that’s a desire for women in the image and glory of God, No matter which way the text is written.
Both passages can be plainly read(in agreement) as contrasts between the sexes.”
I beg to differ that both passages are trying to show a contrast and here’s why.
1)In Genesis there is no omission because no contrast between two things is being made.
2)The omission in 1 Cor only seems to be so; rather than he was just simply giving positive reasons for being uncovered or covered and wasn’t omitting anything.
In Genesis the first part of the verse isn’t setting out to show a contrast between two things. It starts off making a statement that adam (man or mankind) is made in the image of God.
The middle statement, “In the image of God He made him” is a restatement as if to amplify what is said in the first part in order to note a point of great importance. The use of him doesn’t prove that the use of adam should be man rather than mankind. Him is referring back to the word adam and has the same double meaning as adam. It could mean man or it could mean mankind because when we are speaking of both men and women, we use the masculine sense. Or as seen in some translations them is used to make the meaning more clear. (and no, it’s not a feminist conspiracy).
The last part “male and female He made them” indicates support or gives the sense for which way adam should be translated. Mankind is male and female. It is not meant as a contrast because the first part is not setting out to show a contrast but rather to simply made a statement.
In 1 Cor, we do see that Paul is setting out to make a contrast. Not only does he use the Greek words that specifically mean man/husband and woman/wife but is giving the reasons for being uncovered or covered. For the man, the reason is twofold. He is the image and glory of God. For the woman, the reason is because she is the glory of man.
There are four possibilities to consider as to what Paul is trying to say.
1) In the plain sense reading we would get the explanation above. Simple statements listing the reasons for being uncovered or covered. Two reasons for the man. One reason for the woman.
2) Paul has omitted mentioning image in the case of the woman because she is not in the image of God and he was trying to show a contrast with the fact that man is. But why try to show a contrast by an omission? Usually when we are trying to convey a contrast we list the differences between the two rather than stating attributes of one and not the other. Why would he omit it if he is listing reasons for why she should be covered?
3)We think Paul has omitted it because stopping short of contradicting Gn 1:27, he is indicating that she IS made in the image of God. But then again, if he wanted to indicate this, why do it with an omission rather than say “but the woman, even though made in the image of God, is the glory of man” so as to draw out that which he meant to contrast?
4) Image in the sense that Paul is talking about is not referring to humanity being “made in the image” referred to in Gn 1 (which resides in the spirit because God is Spirit ) but is used in the sense that the man, in his particular expression of humanity as male, shows forth more prominently the attribute of God’s loving sovereignty due to his being made first and not for the woman but the woman for him. In his temporal role, he is representative of God in this sense.
The second and third options just leaves us with too many questions, makes less sense than the other two and doesn’t affirm anything one way or the other.
We also have to consider that in the creation story, up until God makes mankind, there is no mention of anything being made in His image. The only point of contrast regarding image seems to be what separates humanity from the rest of creation rather than a contrast between man and woman.
Sharkly “J.B. Phillips New Testament:……”for about the first 1950 years of the church I believe the majority view was that women were not in the image of God, and thus they all wore head coverings, at least in church, if not everywhere.
Then folks claimed women were equally in the image of God, and women threw off submission and its symbol, and began the battle of the sexes that is destroying families today.”
There are plenty of commentaries before 1950 stating that this verse does not mean that woman is not in the image of God. Even the example you gave says the image is meant in the sense as representative of God. IOW, speaks with authority on his behalf.
Vincent’s Word Studies (1887)
“Image and glory ( εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα )
For image, see on Revelation 13:14. Man represents God’s authority by his position as the ruler of the woman. In the case of the woman, the word image is omitted, although she, like the man, is the image of God. Paul is expounding the relation of the woman, not to God, but to man.”
Calvin’s Commentary on the Bible (1840-57)
“7.The man ought not to cover his head, because he is the image The same question may now be proposed respecting the image, as formerly respecting thehead. For both sexes were created in the image of God, and Paul exhorts women no less than men to be formed anew, according to that image. The image, however, of which he is now speaking, relates to the order of marriage, and hence it belongs to the present life, and is not connected with conscience.”
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible (1801-1803)
Theodoret observes, that man is here stiled the image and glory of God, neither as to his body, nor as to his soul; for in respect of the soul the woman is equally the glory of God, as to spirituality and immortality, and so is equally said to be made after his image. See Genesis 1:26-27.
Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary (1863-1878)
“The Apostle omits εἰκών, because anthropologically the woman is not the image of the man, on account of the difference of the sexes: and also perhaps because thus he would seem to deny to the woman the being created in the divine image, which she is as well as the man, Genesis 1:26-27
Matthew Poole’s English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1685)
But the woman is the glory of the man, created for the honour of the man, and for his help and assistance, and originally made out of man, so as man may glory of her, as Adam did of Eve, Genesis 2:23, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. The glory of God ought to be revealed and uncovered, manifested to all: the glory of the man ought to be hidden and concealed.”
Schaff’s Popular Commentary on the New Testament (1879-90)
“1 Corinthians 11:7. For, etc. This whole view of the relation of the sexes is founded on a combination of Genesis 1, 2. As the first chapter gives the creation of man as man, both sexes are included (1 Corinthians 11:27); the woman, as an essential portion of humanity, created in Adam, being as truly “the image and glory of God” as the man. “
Sharkly “So then, do you think the “temporal image” and glory of God in man, the Apostle was referring to, is an image we can see,(as in a mirror) or is it unseen? You seem to have implied that it is unseen. While I think an image is generally something that can be seen or visualized. Thus the need to go from this temporal glory that can be seen, like a woman’s long hair which is a glory to her and her husband, to an eternal glory which cannot yet be seen. From glory unto glory.”
I think temporal image and glory are visible expressions that confirm that the image of God resides in the soul and that different attributes of God within that whole and undivided image find greater or lesser expression in the body and mind of both male and female. For example, take authority and reproduction (creating). In the male, nature confirms that by his larger stature and strength and that he reproduces away from himself so to speak, that God has given him the primary rule over creation. The female, smaller and lesser in strength, and who reproduces from within herself, tell us that she has a secondary authority over creation but under that of the male and both are under God.
Sharkly “When you make the image and glory of God out to be something that cannot be observed, doesn’t the slight of hand only gets easier for a deceiver to shift it around and deceive folks?
Just asking.”
I didn’t say the image and glory of God was not something that can be observed. I said what we can see is not the basis for it or where it’s derived from. If it comes from what can be observed then as the body weakens and dies so would the image and glory. If the image resides in the soul, it is carried throughout eternity even if the temporal roles of this earth pass away.
Sharkly “The word “but” is said by the Oxford English dictionary to be a conjunction: Used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned.
Webster’s dictionary says “but” means: without the concomitant that
And “concomitant” means: something that accompanies or is collaterally connected with something else
So by choosing the word “but”, the English translators meant the statement about the woman to be in contrast to what was stated as accompanying or being connected to the man.(the image and glory of God)”
Sure. Paul was making a contrast as to the reasons for being uncovered or covered. It doesn’t mean he has to give an equal number of reasons on both sides.
OR “On the other hand, if we suppose women are not made in the image of God, what impact does this have to Christian life today? As I understand it, this does not change the position of women, for example, that wives are to submit to their husbands. In other words, what difference does it make?”
That is the best question yet in this whole discussion.
The difference it makes has to do with where each person derives their human dignity from. It’s more than just authority and submission. To say that those things are the sum total of the image of God is to put God in a box in terms of our temporal roles.
For example Genesis 5:9 where God says
“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
by man shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.
If woman is not made in the image of God, then we could say her life has less value than a mans and while we might still determine on our own that taking the life of a woman should be punishable by death, there would also be room to determine some other punishment and where would that be? Lifetime imprisonment? 20 years? 1 year? 50 lashes? 10 lashes?
It would also mean a government would do no wrong in determining that a certain number of female babies should be aborted but never a male baby.
Another example James 3:9
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse man, who has been made in God’s likeness.
Would this then leave room to be interpreted to mean anyone who curses a man would dishonor God but to curse a woman there is no dishonor to God there?
How about “love your neighbor as yourself?” On what basis would this apply to women if they weren’t made in the image of God?
By saying she’s not made in the image of God, it would leave room to interpret her submission as slavery rather than her way of willingly showing love to her husband.
Where does man’s dignity above the other creatures come from other than being made in the image of God? If only man has that dignity, woman is on par with the animals. While it would be cruel to kill her or starve her or work her to death, and we might even give a slap on the wrist for it because she is a living being, but it certainly wouldn’t be worth a man losing his life or freedom for.
@LC You still have not answered my direct questions. You also did not counter yet my proof that woman are not the image and glory of God.
@LC If woman is not made in the image of God, then we could say her life has less value than a mans
Only in your world where you a priori have determined that the “image of God” cannot POSSIBLY refer to bodily image AT ALL, WITHOUT any scriptural proof whatsoever.
I have shown an alternative interpretation, based on exegesis (which you are free to disprove, which you did not do yet), which does not lead to such conclusions that women are mere beasts.
I’ve already stated that because woman is created out of man, she shares many properties with man, who is created in the image of God, and she is called by the name out of whom she was shaped: ‘man’.
You are attacking straw men. You have admitted the meaning of the image of God is highly speculative. Yet you are sure it cannot mean something else, without any proof, and while avoiding exegetical challenges.
I wanted to comment on Nathan’s site, but see from reading the comments that he responds uncharitably to anyone with a pseudonym or who is anonymous. So, I was going to use at least my real first name, but you also have to sign up for an account to comment on his website, and they ask for your name (although it says optional) but they also ask for the name and website of your church (doesn’t say it’s optional). Why? So they can go and tell my pastor that I’m being radicalized by the manosphere?
The comment by Nathan I wanted to respond to on his site was “We didn’t want to get too far into the weeds of Dalrock’s philosophy. To do that was to risk validating a dishonest and uncharitable man.” I wanted to comment to the effect that if you were to write a critical review of Hitler’s Mein Kampf by discussing the ideas contained in it, that does not mean that you are validating Hitler’s philosophy. (Not at all meaning to equate Dalrock with Hitler, of course, but to counter the silly idea that to discuss an idea is to validate it.)
As far as anonymity, I would like to know more about you, Dalrock, but not in the sense of where you live, where you work and what your real name is. What I mean is that you have mentioned that you have discussed some of the ideas on your blog with your pastor, and perhaps other people in your church. What I would like to know about is, what happens when you do that, and also, how to do it. What are these conversations like and what is the outcome? I’m interested, because I do talk to people at my church about these things sometimes.
Paul “@LC You still have not answered my direct questions. You also did not counter yet my proof that woman are not the image and glory of God.”
I took a quick look through the exchanges of the past couple days and don’t see any questions directed specifically to me. My time is limited so I answer any points that stand out to me as most prominent. I can’t answer every post point by point. As far as I can tell, the points I have picked to address pretty much cover most of what any one else has said.
If there are specific questions directed to me that I missed, I’d be happy to answer if you would kindly set them out for discussion again.
As for countering your proof. I didn’t see any proof. I saw you offering one possible way of trying to interpret what Paul meant. …and your interpretation begins with the assumption that the point of contrast that Paul was trying to show was what man is and what woman is not and an assumption that there was a deliberate omission. But there’s no need for that assumption because the verse starts with what is meant to be contrasted. “For a man ought no cover his head for (because)….Paul wasn’t making the point of what man is and what woman isn’t. It’s quite clear his point was to list the reasons why a man should not cover and why a woman should.
Why does there need to be an equal number of reasons on both sides? Perhaps woman being man’s glory is the only reason on her side of why she should cover. That’s the overwhelming historical interpretation.
“For a man ought not cover his head for he is the image and glory of God….but a woman should cover her head for she is the glory of man. ”
This simple reading doesn’t need a contorted word salad to try to fit in preconceived assumptions so it will mean what one wants it to mean at the outset.
Paul “@LC If woman is not made in the image of God, then we could say her life has less value than a mans
Only in your world where you a priori have determined that the “image of God” cannot POSSIBLY refer to bodily image AT ALL, WITHOUT any scriptural proof whatsoever.”
I never said cannot POSSIBLY refer to bodily image AT ALL. See me reply to Sharkly Feb 26th 12:10pm.
Paul “I have shown an alternative interpretation, based on exegesis (which you are free to disprove, which you did not do yet), which does not lead to such conclusions that women are mere beasts.
I showed alternative interpretations that show there are other, simpler interpretations that make more sense and don’t contradict Gn 1.
What does the Bible teach that separates man from the beasts? How could it possibly not lead to such conclusions if woman is not made in the image as well?
You act like the only thing that matters about the woman is that she was made from Adam’s rib and forget that it was God who fashioned her and gave her a soul that man had no part in giving her. She is more God’s creation than adam’s. Look at the painting you posted above. Who do you think is under God’s arm before she was even taken from Adam’s side? What do you think the painter was trying to convey?
Do you think God would give her a human soul that didn’t bear his image?
How is she to be further transformed into the image of Christ without that image already imprinted on her soul?
If you don’t think that woman not being made in the image of God can lead to the conclusion that she is a mere beast, then you have to be able to answer what gives her her dignity above them? That she shares flesh and bone from Adam? It’s not Adam’s flesh and bone that separates him from the beast. He’s merely another animal in that respect.
Paul “You are attacking straw men. You have admitted the meaning of the image of God is highly speculative. Yet you are sure it cannot mean something else, without any proof, and while avoiding exegetical challenges.”
You can’t just accuse me of attacking straw men. In what way are my arguments not a refutation to your proposition that woman is not made in the image of God? The issue of women and beast came up in the question from OR as to what difference it makes if they are or aren’t. I answered that because being made in the image of God is what separates us from the beasts. That’s not a straw man argument to that question.
Yes. I have admitted that no one knows for sure what it fully consists of. That doesn’t mean I can’t have a belief about where the image is imprinted. However, through reasoning I firmly believe that it resides in the soul. That doesn’t rule out that different expressions of that limitless image doesn’t find it’s way into human nature and the differences between the sexes but I also think there is more to the image of God than authority and submission. Those are just two aspects that shine forth in greater and lesser measure in man and woman.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:23: For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.
The only thing about us that is eternal is our soul and the last I checked women have one too.
@LC Fair enough you do not have the time to respond all points. I however asked you the same question however repeatedly without you answering it.
I don’t mind saving time and limit the discussion to a small number of points before moving on.
I already stated that: can you disprove my logic that woman is not the image and glory of God?
I’m not asking for a long rebuttal, just point out the fault in my logical derivation.
And it would help if you refrain from stating points which both Sharkly and I also agree to, but you bring up as if they counter our position.
@LC However, through reasoning I firmly believe that [being created in the image of God] resides in the soul. That doesn’t rule out that different expressions of that limitless image doesn’t find it’s way into human nature and the differences between the sexes but I also think there is more to the image of God than authority and submission.
Well, in a sense, that’s not contradictory to my statements. I have stated that man is created in God’s image, and woman is not, HOWEVER, because woman shares many properties with man, woman at least will show some of the same divine properties.
However, being created in the image of God FIRST originates with man/male, and I think ONLY man/male reflects the image of God to the fullest.
That’s also why man/male bears the title and honor to be created in the image of God, and woman not.
@LC Look at the painting you posted above. Who do you think is under God’s arm before she was even taken from Adam’s side? What do you think the painter was trying to convey?
Does God has a beard or not?
I can’t find any Scripture that says he does or doesn’t. The question is not relevant at all. How God choose to appear is up to Him as well and seems to adapt to what humans can see. It does not necessarily encompass all that is God. Go with what is Written and the understanding that God is far above us.
Though some women have beards….
@BillyS it was about the painting…
Paul “I already stated that: can you disprove my logic that woman is not the image and glory of God?
I’m not asking for a long rebuttal, just point out the fault in my logical derivation.”
I thought I already did when I stated that you were making preconceived assumptions when reading the text to get there.
As best as I can make out in your logic, this is where the fault lies.
You wrote
“This is not a mere repetition of M1, but an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head, while a woman should.
Now let’s review the following mutually exclusive statements, one or the other is true.
W2a. woman is the image and glory of God
W2b. woman is NOT the image and glory of God”
Rewriting what you wrote, here is how I see the logic flowing
This is not a mere repetition of M1, but an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head, while a woman should. (So far, so good)
Now let’s review the following mutually exclusive statements, both are true
W2a man should not cover because he is the image and glory of God
W2b woman should cover because she is the glory of man
How you can go from stating this is an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head, while a woman should to whether she is or isn’t in the image of God can only be gotten to if you ignore that he is listing reasons for not covering/covering but is rather giving a statement about women and whether or not they are in the image of God. That wasn’t the point.
After looking at the two mutually exclusive statements that explain the reason for not covering/covering, it may lead us to question why image is not listed as a reason on the woman’s side.
1) Is it because she is created in the image of God as Gn 1 tells us and therefore would not be listed as a reason for her to cover? (Simplest explanation)
2) Is it because she is not created in the image of God and would we have go back to Gn1 and rework the meaning of adam from mankind to man so that Scripture doesn’t contradict itself?
But then it opens up a whole host of other questions. We have other Scriptures about man being in the image of God and if it’s only man, how does that work out in other Scriptures that mention man being in the image of God? We have to exclude women from the verses of what the punishment should be for killing a man? It does no dishonor to God to curse a woman because she doesn’t bear His image? How is woman different from the beasts if the only explanation given in the Bible is that man is made in the image of God?
3) What is the meaning of image in 1 Cor? Is it talking about THE image referred to in Gn 1 or the image that man bears in his temporal role as head of woman like God is head of the man? After all the passage does start with who is the head of who several verses previous. In the following verses Paul lists some truths from Gn 1 that seem to be a reminder of why woman is man’s glory and says nothing of the verse about being made in God’s image. Why would he not mention that verse to drive home the point that she is not made in the image of God if he was trying to make it a reason for not covering? He took the time to explain why she is his glory being made from and for him after all.
Due to all of the above questions, it logically follows that there is no proof one way or the other in this particular verse about whether woman is or is not in the image of God. But if you personally believe she is not, you will have to have an answer to the above questions and probably a whole host of other ones that crop up from those if you want to go down that path.
Paul “Well, in a sense, that’s not contradictory to my statements. I have stated that man is created in God’s image, and woman is not, HOWEVER, because woman shares many properties with man, woman at least will show some of the same divine properties.”
Can you give an example a few properties that she shares with man?
Does man get these properties from from being made in the image?
How does she have a share in them if she doesn’t also bear that image?
Paul “However, being created in the image of God FIRST originates with man/male, and I think ONLY man/male reflects the image of God to the fullest.
That’s also why man/male bears the title and honor to be created in the image of God, and woman not.”
I think man reflects most fully the image of God by the authority given to him (indicated by being created first) but since the attributes of God aren’t limited to His authority or the male body that Christ has in his humanity (the flesh of which was given Him by and only by a woman), I think women also reflect many of the attributes of God more fully than man in some ways. I think the image of God in the soul is like the sun and the individual rays shine more or less brightly through the differences between the sexes like the sun’s rays through the trees will highlight different areas of the forest. (If I may get a little poetical to more clearly demonstrate a point.)
I think the man bears the title of head because of reflecting more fully the image of God as to being first and having authority and not because the woman doesn’t bear the image at all.
BillyS “Though some women have beards….”
Hilarious!
@LC Due to all of the above questions, it logically follows that there is no proof one way or the other in this particular verse about whether woman is or is not in the image of God.
Putting forward questions in NO way does logically prove anything. Ever. I challenged you to keep posts short, and just focus on pinpointing an error in my logic. Adding many additional questions does not add anything, only makes your comment harder to follow.
Now let’s review the following mutually exclusive statements, both are true
W2a man should not cover because he is the image and glory of God
W2b woman should cover because she is the glory of man
How you can go from stating this is an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head
I never stated that, most certainly not as an explanation. If you change statements you do not disprove anything what I have stated.
if you ignore that he [the apostle Paul?] is listing reasons for not covering/covering but is rather giving a statement about women and whether or not they are in the image of God.
I did not ignore anything the apostle Paul wrote, but for the logical argument I’ve used only limited parts of his information. I did not distort any of his statements however.
Let’s break it down into something simpler. Do you agree with my statements M1, W1, M2, and W3? A simple yes or no is sufficient. (I think you do, because you wrote “so far so good”)
Do you agree that the statement ‘M1 “because” M2’ conforms to the text (even though it leaves out the second part – but that doesn’t make it less true)? Yes or no.
Do you agree that either (my!) W2a or W2b is true? Yes or no.
Do you agree we can ask the reason why women should not cover herself? Yes or no.
Do you agree that if both man and woman are the image and glory of God, it does not explain why men should not cover, while women should? Yes or no.
Correction:
Do you agree we can ask the reason why women should cover herself? Yes or no.
Paul “Putting forward questions in NO way does logically prove anything. Ever.”
It proves that the statement doesn’t definitively say if the woman is in the image or not so it can’t be used as a proof text that makes a point one way or the other. If it’s open to multiple interpretations in which some have more or less merit, then it’s not definitive proof.
Paul “L.C. How you can go from stating this is an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head.
I never stated that, most certainly not as an explanation.
If you change statements you do not disprove anything what I have stated.”
You said it here
“This is not a mere repetition of M1, but an explanation WHY a man should NOT cover his head, while a woman should.
Paul “L.C.if you ignore that he [the apostle Paul?] is listing reasons for not covering/covering but is rather giving a statement about women and whether or not they are in the image of God.
I did not ignore anything the apostle Paul wrote, but for the logical argument I’ve used only limited parts of his information. I did not distort any of his statements however.”
Look. What is the point Paul is trying to get across in vs 7. Does he set out give reasons for covering or not covering? ….or does the verse set out to say men are the image of God and women are not?
You can’t get an answer to the latter if Paul isn’t setting out to make that point and it doesn’t definitely say one way or the other.
Paul “Let’s break it down into something simpler. Do you agree with my statements M1, W1, M2, and W3? A simple yes or no is sufficient. (I think you do, because you wrote “so far so good”)”
Yes
“Do you agree that the statement ‘M1 “because” M2’ conforms to the text (even though it leaves out the second part – but that doesn’t make it less true)? Yes or no”
Yes.
“Do you agree that either (my!) W2a or W2b is true? Yes or no.”
No.
“Do you agree we can ask the reason why women should not cover herself? Yes or no.”
No
“Do you agree that if both man and woman are the image and glory of God, it does not explain why men should not cover, while women should? Yes or no.”
Yes
Paul “Correction:
Do you agree we can ask the reason why women should cover herself? Yes or no.”
Yes.
Paul and L.C.,
I have given up on following your arguments here. I highly recommend that you read Basic tags for wordpress comments and, even though it makes commenting more cumbersome, use that info on HTML tags.
Here you state that “woman is made in the image of God”. You then quickly contradict yourself by saying “she is not made in the image of God”, because ‘she shares many aspects of that image, but not certainly not all.’ In other words, women are not made in the image of God because women do not have all the aspects of God that men have.
I presume you would agree that men do not have all of the aspects of God. For example, men are not all-knowing or all-powerful. Using the same logic for men that you used for women, we deduce that men are “not made in the image of God”, because, although men share many aspects of God, they certainly do not share all of them.
Now we know this is not true, because of this scripture:
So we are back to the question: What constitutes the image of God? I would argue that it is a person who closely resembles God, not someone who is a clone or identical copy of God. Can both men and women resemble God? Yes, absolutely.
I recognize that the above allows the possibility that the “image of God” for men more closely resembles God than does the “image of God” for women. However, this does not negate the argument that women are also made in the “image of God”.
OR
Thanks for the link. That’s certainly helpful even if more cumbersome.
Speaking prophetically about the Messiah, Isaiah says:
Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Jesus was beaten, had his beard ripped out, was spat upon, mocked, crowned with thorns, stripped of his clothing, and crucified, for our sins.
So yes, God has a beard.
Am I the only one who has read the whole Bible? Sometimes I feel like it.
False teachers can say all sorts of crap, in this age, because nobody knows the word of God anymore.
Most translations even use the word ‘beard’:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%2050:6
So a simple word search could have found it for you:
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=Beard&qs_version=ESV
With easy online tools, y’all can look like you know the Bible too!
L.C.,
Would I be correct in assuming that you believe that there is more than one specific thing that gets referred to as “the image of God” in the Bible?
So that what is called “the image of God” in one place, may not be the same thing that is called “the image of God” in some other book of the Bible?
Because if so, that introduces a whole new level of uncertainty in pinning your beliefs down.
@OR I recognize that the above allows the possibility that the “image of God” for men more closely resembles God than does the “image of God” for women.
Leaving indeed aside the exact meaning of image of God, I could more or less agree, but for…
However, this does not negate the argument that women are also made in the “image of God”.
exegetically I think (but we discuss it in here) women are not called to be created in the image of God. And I think it is significant. How significant, I do not have a definite opinion on yet.
@LC
You agree to all my (corrected) points, except one. Let’s review:
Either W2a or W2b is true:
W2a. woman is the image and glory of God
W2b. woman is NOT the image and glory of God
As you can see, W2b is only the negation of W2a:
W2b = NOT W2a
“Either W2a or W2b is true” translates logically to
W2a OR W2b
We rewrite
W2a OR NOT W2a
And according to the Law of the Excluded Middle, that is true.
Can you now agree?
Sharkly
Yep. Christ was born a male and most likely had a beard during his time on earth. ….and possibly in his resurrected body as well. There is more to the Godhead than Christ’s male body and facial hair.
Sharkly
There is one image of God that resides in the souls of both men and women.
That image has different expressions in each of the two sexes.
The male sex in his title as head (due to being created first) has a certain primacy and is what informs us of his temporal role.
His temporal role is one of authority over his wife and children like Christ has authority over his bride the Church and it’s members.
By the male’s larger size, strength, and role in the reproductive process, nature gives us visible confirmation that he has been made in a way that makes him suitable to carry out his role.
When Paul mentions image in 1 Cor, he is referring to the particular aspect of the image of God that the man carries most prominently as to his role as head. He is God’s glory due to being created first.
Woman is man’s glory and that should be covered in worship so God’s glory takes a place of prominence in worship.
The woman’s covering shouldn’t be thought of as though we are covering her whole person so as to erase her completely from worship. She still bears God’s image and is there to worship as his creation. The veil is simply symbolic of her temporal role as man’s glory as his help-meet because that which belongs to man should be less prominent before God.
I meant to note that a few verses previous to vs 7 Paul lists who is head of who. This further confirms that he was not talking about only men bearing the image of God but rather that his role as head is a role of primacy in the temporal order and worship.
Paul
No.
Because neither one is true as to 1 Cor vs. 7.
Rather than
It’s
W2a woman is the image of God but the glory of man
W2b woman is NOT the image of God but the glory of man
The first is true.
Paul refrains from mentioning image on the woman’s side because it’s not a factor in why she should cover but is a factor as to why man should not.
It doesn’t make sense to say that Paul refrained from mentioning image on the woman’s side even though it’s a factor in why she should cover and only mention glory.
Ephesians 5:33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Why would a husband never be told to reverence his wife ? I believe that the image of God is due reverence. And men being the image of God are due reverence from their wives.
Ephesians 5 teaches us that the husband images Christ, while the wife images the church.
Clearly the one imaging Christ is the one in the image of God. The one imaging the church is clearly not imaging God in that regard.
Ephesians 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
As I read through the voluminous postings above, It strikes me that those who want to force women into the image of God, and thereby blasphemously effeminize God, always make an excuse to get around every scriptural point brought up to the contrary. Many of the excuses involve twisting generally recognized usage of language, to make exceptions and uncertainties, where they aren’t seen by, and don’t need to exist for, those willing to just believe what was written clearly enough. After nearly 50 years of having been taught women are in the image of God, I have not seen the slightest trace of that in the Bible. From Genesis 1 and throughout the Bible it is repeatedly made beyond clear that men are in the image of God. 1 Corinthians 11 makes it clear to anybody, without a blinding bias, that only men are in the image of God. Ephesians 5 gives a clear example of man imaging God while woman images the God following church, she does not image God in the apostle’s inspired example.
Those who have been taught for a lifetime, that men and women are equal, or should be treated as equal, will have difficulty accepting a truth that clearly contradicts all that they have been taught.
My father used to say:
“A man convinced against his will
is of the same opinion still.”
While I was once ignorant about what the Bible actually said regarding the image of God in men, Having now studied it in Hebrew, Greek, and various English translations, it is clear that the Bible states the unpopular truth that men are created in the image of God, and that women are not, and should cover their heads when coming before God, unlike men who are God’s image and glory and would unbecomingly dishonor their head by covering it when seeking to entreat with God Himself.
I am coming to see that many may think women to be in the image of God out of ignorance, and due to false teaching. However those who study the matter become guilty before God for their stubborn unbelief, if they stick with their ungodly Feminism. Adam was made from the ruddy clay of the earth.
Romans 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. … 21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
And if it is not unrighteous to make those vessels of wrath predestined to hell, and those vessels of mercy predestined to heaven, then it surely is not unrighteous to make some of lesser and some of greater honor, and some of lesser and some of greater dishonor. Is it wicked of God to give men greater glory? Is it not God’s glory, to give it to whom He wishes? The parable of the laborer’s teaches that God is free to give as He choses, and that we as humans shouldn’t grumble at our lot in life, or in his kingdom to come.
Lamentations 3:37 Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth? 39 Why should any living mortal, or any man, offer complaint in view of his sins?
In view of our sins, and the damnation we all deserve, no mortal should complain when all have been graciously offered the blood of atonement and the bread of life, God’s salvation. Women should not complain that the Potter did not form them in His image. They should cover their heads in obedience as He tells them to do. To teach women that they are equally in the image of God only makes them unable to look up to their husbands,(you don’t look up to an equal) making them unhappy with their subservient role which then seems unjust, and it encourages them to rebel because of that false teaching of equality. In short, this false teaching has brought about much of the wickedness you see before you today, like Feminism, the divorce epidemic, the destruction of families and their unborn, to serve themselves instead of serving men or God by bearing and raising their sons and daughters.
OKRickety says: On the other hand, if we suppose women are not made in the image of God, what impact does this have to Christian life today? As I understand it, this does not change the position of women, for example, that wives are to submit to their husbands. In other words, what difference does it make?
A false foundation puts almost all humanity building upon the lies of the deceiver. Most unreached ‘bone-through-the-nose” pagan tribes now have more solid marriages than us folks in Christendom. What an absolute shame. When we call God a liar, and make women into His image, and reverence them instead of God, All hell breaks loose and God laughs as He gives us over to our folly. We need to repent of it! None of us live with our wives according to wisdom, because we are all fools who have been fooled. Even those who claim to have great marriages are far from it. Far far from it! We don’t even know how far we’ve fallen. They’re servants to their wives! Wasting their lives kissing her ass, and still courting her twenty years after she vowed herself to them, so she doesn’t run off with a dumbass Biker. What a crap sandwich! I’m sorry, Joe, your marriage sucks compared to what it could be. And your kids are not being brought up how they would be, if our society were based upon God’s truth. Our churchian churches are all just a great whore, taking Satan’s seed up the ass, willfully being sodomized and violated in every conceivable way, while dragging the name of Jesus into their every abomination. We need to repent and seek God to even begin to grasp what we’ve lost, to know the blessings that could be poured out on a land whose God is the Lord. We all need to repent of our cunt-worship and quit mocking God by degenerately saying effeminate shit about our God, even the Father! God will not be mocked. We will reap what we’re sowing. Wise up and flee from the wrath to come. Come out from among them and be ye separate! Separate yourselves unto the Lord.
I think women also reflect many of the attributes of God more fully than man in some ways.
Bullshit! That’s straight up blasphemous cunt-worship you just wrote. And I’m calling it out and denouncing that crap.
If woman is not made in the image of God, then we could say her life has less value than a mans and while we might still determine on our own that taking the life of a woman should be punishable by death, there would also be room to determine some other punishment and where would that be?
Bullshit again! She has an eternal soul, and she is living in the day of grace, and as such, it is not our place to end her life against almighty God’s will. It will be required of us, if we do. And what will you give in trade for the grace of God you have curtailed and the blood of sinless Jesus who died that she might be saved? You will forfeit your life and pray to God he forgives you, even without having struck down the image of God.
Fear God, even the Father. We all have gone off whoring after the world, and need to repent of our former cunt-worship, and effeminizing God. And go and sin no more.
Oops! Just to clarify. The last two quotes are from L.C. only the one quote is from OKRickety.
Sharkly
Because of his role as the head.
I believe that the image of God is due reverence as well. That is where the dignity of each person comes from and is the basis for love your neighbor as yourself. It’s not just a nice sentiment. It’s one of the two great commandments. We love God above all things and we love our neighbor as ourselves because God is all and is in all.
The husband as the head is due reverence from his wife.
The wife as the body is due love from her husband.
Head and body together make the whole Christ. They both bear His image (expressed in different ways) so that each in their respective roles can come together as one whole image.
If the wife is in the role of the Church, which is the body of Christ, does it make sense that she would not bear the image of God as well?
These are Christ’s own words
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are each equally God but each one has a different role.
Christ in His divine nature is equal to and one with the Father.
Christ in His human nature submitted to his Father’s will and took on the human body that died on the cross for our salvation.
Both equal in divine nature.
Different in roles on account of being Father and Son.
Husband and wife both bear the image of God in their soul.
He most prominently as head.
She most prominently as body (Church)
Both equal in human dignity.
Different in role on account of being man and woman.
For married believers, who have both accepted Christ
…..both bear the image of God
…..both have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
…..together make up the whole Christ – head and body
If God is indivisible, is it no wonder that the divorce of two believers is such a tragedy?
For anyone who can’t see the beauty in that unity and diversity, then shame on Feminism that has so hardened the heart against it in women who reject their part as the body of Christ and in men who reject women as fellow bearers of the image of God.
L.C.,
I believe that the image of God is due reverence as well. That is where the dignity of each person comes from and is the basis for love your neighbor as yourself. It’s not just a nice sentiment. It’s one of the two great commandments. We love God above all things and we love our neighbor as ourselves because God is all and is in all.
Huh? Well if God is in the trees, then I might just as well go hug a tree, as console my neighbor. I think we love our neighbor as our self, because God clearly and repeatedly told us to do it, and told us it was the second greatest commandment, and along with loving God, Constitutes the basis for the whole law. The sanctity and dignity of human life does not derive from God’s omnipresence. God is in the disgusting and undignified things too.
The wife as the body is due love from her husband.
Yeah but, if she was the image of God, the husband should reverence her also, as unto the Lord.(Ephesians 5:22-24,32-33)
Head and body together make the whole Christ. They both bear His image (expressed in different ways) so that each in their respective roles can come together as one whole image.
In the head and the body illustration Christ is only the head, and the church is the body. Just like the husband is the head, and the wife is the body in the parallel companion illustration. You are trying to stretch an illustration that only shows the man to be in the image of God to include women and the church being in the image of God also. The two may become one flesh, and in heaven the believers may be conformed to the likeness of Christ, but apart from Christ, the church is not the image of God. And apart from her husband a woman is not one with the image of God by herself.
If God is indivisible, is it no wonder that the divorce of two believers is such a tragedy?
While I believe divorce is a great tragedy and “Christian” divorce blasphemes the gospel, I do think God is divisible. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but the trinity seems to be dividing God into three sperate components.
Mark 15:34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
In the pledge of allegiance, it is our nation that is indivisible, not our God.
… men who reject women as fellow bearers of the image of God.
That’d be me, the Apostle Paul, and Whomever inspired the writing of the Bible.
I found this 3 part series just now, that seems pretty good and addresses using the original languages, versus using the Bible in English:
https://openoureyeslord.com/2013/06/18/but-the-greek-really-says-why-hebrew-and-greek-are-not-needed-in-the-pulpit-part-1/
Sharkly
That’s nice but it’s O.T. as far as talking about human being made in the image of God.
Sure. God gave us the commandment and at an elementary level we should obey because “He said so!” But He also reveals a lot about Himself not only in Scripture but also in the natural law. He gave us minds to reason and with which to know him. It would be quite difficult to have a personal relationship with a God who we don’t contemplate any further than “because He said so.” We contemplate all that’s revealed to us and if He gives a command and that command is the basis of the whole law, then we would naturally question, “Why is it the basis of the whole law?” Because God is all, meaning He alone should be worshiped, praised, be given gratitude and no idol should be set before Him. That leads us to question, “But if God is always first, foremost and above everything, why the second part of the command? How do we go about loving others, as we love ourselves, no less, and love God first? How do the two commands not cause a contradiction? In Genesis, we are told that humanity is made in the image of God. Christ said,
When we love others, who are made in the image God, it’s as if we are loving Him directly. So rather than there being some kind of contradiction or a burdensome command in which the line is difficult to walk, Christ reveals the simplicity and the light burden that He promises if we follow Him.
Sharkly
Not necessarily. Scripture tells us to reverence those in authority. We can all be made in the image of God but only some will have authority over others. The wife is told to reverence her husband because he has been given the role of head and authority in marriage. She is never told to reverence him because he is made in the image of God.
Feminists have no argument against this. Humanity being made in the image of God has no bearing on whether God gave some rule over others and that they are due reverence; so they can kick and scream all they want about image. Feminists are twisting Scripture when they try to use being made in the image of God as some excuse to do away with authority. It doesn’t do away with it. The only thing is does is take away a right to tyranny. Authority must care for those under them as fellow heirs or at the very least, fellow human beings made in the image of God but that image doesn’t lessen one iota the authority that God has given to some.
Coming to the conclusion that women aren’t made in the image God is a reactionary position that falls into the feminist’s frame that somehow everyone being made in the image of God means He hasn’t bestowed authority on some over others. Being given authority by God doesn’t need “being made in His image” as a prop to shore up that fact. Scripture is clear in who has authority over who and can stand firmly on that basis alone. I’d hold frame on that rather than getting into some pissing contest based on their twisted reading of Scripture.
Sharkly
Perhaps it does seems like a stretch to you since you take image to mean only one thing and won’t consider that although both women and men are made in the image of God, 1 Cor was referring to that specific way that the image of God is most prominently expressed by the husband in his role as head, which should not be covered in worship.
However, we spend a lot of time thinking about how men in particular image God as head in marriage and can easily see the parallels of authority, being made first, Christ was a male etc. But we do a disservice in understanding Christ as Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride if we don’t look carefully at the Scripture that talks in more detail about the nature of what Christ says of that relationship. The discourse on the Head and the many members of the body being the body of Christ and the unity or “being One” despite that gives a lot of room for thought.
Why does Christ call the Church His body? Is there no parallel in that with how Paul tells husbands to consider their wives as their very own body and with how the two become one flesh in marriage? Is there no parallel in the role of wife as Church that can teach us what the Church is and does. Marriage and the wife’s role as help meet came before the Church. The relationship of Christ and the Church can not only teach us about the body of believers but also about the individual believer’s relationship with Him.
The Church is obedient to Christ.
The wife is obedient to her husband.
The Church evangelizes and teaches the world.
The wife evangelizes and teaches her children.
The Church brings new believers to Christ.
The wife brings newborn children to her husband.
The Church offers Baptism to cleanse man of original sin.
The wife bathes her children not only physically but with the water of the word.
Christ suffered and died on the cross with a flow of blood and water from His side so we can be born again.
The wife suffers in childbirth with a flow of blood and water to bring forth new life.
Christ taught us to have humility and to serve others when he washed the feet of the apostles.
The wife should have humility and serve her husband and family.
In all these ways, the wife reflects Christ and reflects the role of the Church as the body of Christ.
My point in all this is that there is a strong parallel (hardly a stretch) in humanity being made in the image of God in the beginning, in believers having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and in the marriage supper of the lamb when the Church is finally united with the head and they will be fully one with Him. In marriage, we see the husband reflecting most prominently Christ as head but we also we the wife, as illustrated above reflecting most prominently reflecting Christ in his service, sacrifice, and humility. Because they both bear the image of God in their humanity, they both, through their specific roles as husband and wife, bear the image Christ in different ways and the two make up the whole image of Christ.
To say women are not made in the image of God, is the stretch.
Sharkly
God went to great lengths in the O.T. to drive home the point that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was one and only one God. The pagans worshiped many gods/idols. The three persons are never, ever separate from each other even when one of them is more prominently manifest to us in some way. Any time it seems that way, it is a condescension to humanity because we have a very difficult time seeing how things that appear to be different can also be the same.
When Christ cried out “Why have you forsaken me?” that doesn’t mean he wasn’t fully God or in any way separated from the the Father or the Holy Spirit in his divine nature. Out of his human nature, in which only the Son has taken on, he would naturally feel totally abandoned, alone and separate at that moment, which demonstrates to all of us the effect sin has on humanity and why we needed a savior.
It is not correct to say that just because there are three persons in one God that God is divisible. He is indivisible we humans have to accept that mystery as something we can’t fully understand. If we start saying he’s divisible, then we start going down the path of heresy and there being more than one God.
Sure. God gave us the commandment and at an elementary level we should obey because “He said so!” But He also reveals a lot about Himself not only in Scripture but also in the natural law. He gave us minds to reason and with which to know him. It would be quite difficult to have a personal relationship with a God who we don’t contemplate any further than “because He said so.”
Yeah, but, we shouldn’t put our own reasoning above what we were told.
We are to have a “childlike” faith in what God tells us.
Matthew 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19:14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Some apparently lack the metacognition to realize how much higher God’s thoughts are than our own.
Psalm 131:1 Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. 2 Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
When you begin to think for God and add to His words you had better assure that you don’t go counter to what God has said elsewhere.
When I read that men are in God’s image, I believe it. When I don’t ever read that women are in God’s image, I take note of it. When I read that men are supposed to do the opposite of women because men are the image and glory of God, but women are the glory of men, I believe it with a childlike faith. I don’t have to change it, fix it, correct God. I’m not ashamed of my Father’s word.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
For those who want to evaluate the wisdom of trying to add women into the image of God:
Matthew 11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Making women into the image of God, the greatest image one could ever be made in, makes them de facto equal with men in the greatest representation of all surpassing glory and primacy. You also never address how a woman could be in God’s image and yet not have His glory, but I suppose I’m only yet another forthcoming excuse away from hearing that one explained away also.
But wisdom is justified of her children. The wisdom of an idea can often be seen in its fruit. Some eternal wisdom cannot yet be seen in this life, but often foolishness is so foolish that it can’t even be made to function during this brief life, even with the aid of the deceiver. That is the case with women being equally in God’s image. It turns hypergamy into an insatiable force of evil. If women were unashamedly taught the truth; that they can never ever be equal to a man here on earth, no matter how smart, or strong, or tough, or courageous they are, because men alone are by the primacy bestowed by creation, in the very image, and thus also glory, of God Himself, then all women would be able to look up to their husbands. The insatiable gnawing force of hypergamy would be satiated through understanding the truth – that would set them free to render the reverence due to their husband, who alone is the image and glory of God. The “problem with no name” would be no problem, if women had the faith to believe what is taught in 1 Corinthians 11:7, and men had the faith to teach it. We have a discontent & divorce epidemic destroying families and the succeeding generation because women have been falsely taught they are equal to men. We have thrown off God and idolize women and refuse to acknowledge their baser nature, more driven by their emotions, than men who are more self-governed by reason. Equality of the sexes is an ungodly road to hell and our nation is on it, thanks to imputing the image and glory of God onto both sexes. Your religious ideas seem to all have been previously published by Elizabeth Gould Davis in ‘The First Sex’, where she argues that women are mentally and morally superior to men:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Sex
Your contention becomes her springboard into female chauvinism.
Christ suffered and died on the cross with a flow of blood and water from His side so we can be born again. The wife suffers in childbirth with a flow of blood and water to bring forth new life.
Seriously! Did you plagiarize that from her book? is your god trying to mimic women to gain moral standing?
The effort to elevate women in relation to men, is satanic and in direct opposition to God’s order. Satan discovered hypergamy long before the man-o-sphere did, and Satan has been exploiting chivalric White-Knight-ism down through time to make women malcontent and troublesome, instead of being grateful helpers to the men God made them for. Your desire to make women into the image and therefore glory of God is both cucked and evil. It bears today’s nasty fruit. We have to walk that blasphemy back. We suffer for effeminizing God. God is not mocked! We need to repent of it, Yes, turn from it, and flee from that evil.
An answer to prayer came through you Sharkly in your previous post. I’ve asked men and God for a response to a “The problem with no name.” You gave one, thank you, and praise God. I think the US still hasn’t responded to that yet and it’s a foundational charge of the feminists. If Archie Bunker had said that to Sally or Meathead, 2nd wave feminism may been seriously damaged.
Connecting Betty Friedan, Sharkly’s post and the Archie Bunker TV character looks ridiculous, but it’s based on my remembrance of the 70s and how the church, other than Anita Bryant, was culturally silent, about feminism. The only voice I recall was the Norman Lear character Archie Bunker, and of course, he was written to lose the argument. Maude and MTM were pretty big then also. If Christians had any fight in them or any desire to defend patriarchy, then I wasn’t aware of it, and wouldn’t be surprised they also had no argument against it, which is where Sharkly ‘s post ties in.
@LC Can you now agree? No. Because neither one is true as to 1 Cor vs. 7.
You completely fail to see the point. It is not a direct statement from 1 Cor, but rather a logical statement. I have proven either one or the other is true. Constructing other statements does not change that.
Compare with
a. a woman has a vagina
b. a woman has not a vagina
Either one or the other is true, independent of any other observation. It’s just propositional logic.
I don’t have much time right now, but intend to respond to your other comments.
Sharkly”
No we shouldn’t but you seem to want to put reasoning out the door altogether. A childlike faith is required for those things we don’t fully understand but we can’t use that as an excuse to not use our reasoning at all. You mentioned the Scripture about cutting off your hand if it causes you to sin and you have correctly reasoned that Christ didn’t mean that literally, but no where does he say he didn’t mean it literally. Same with call no man Father. Should people not call their father “father”? Of course, not. Because we have to use reasoning to come to the truth of what the Scripture is saying.
However, you are choosing to interpret the word Adam in Gn 1:27 as meaning the male (as opposed to mankind)
1) despite the fact that the word has two meanings depending on context
2) despite the fact that the context is given when it says “male and female He made them” “Them” being a keyword that Adam means mankind
3) despite the fact that you will use reasoning in other contexts of Scripture but yet insist on a “childlike” reading in this instance
4) despite that fact that the overall historical precedent and understanding of Gn 1:27 is that Adam means mankind
5) despite the fact that there are other verses that refer to man being make in God’s image which gives the basis for punishment for murder and curbing the tongue AND THOSE verses are referring to mankind and not just males. These verses strengthen the position that not only did the Jews of the O.T. believe that women were made in the image of God but also the writer’s of the N.T.
6) despite the fact that 1 Cor 11:7 has been shown in commentary after commentary from the last two hundred years (and probably beyond) that image is referring to man’s role as head and not to the whole image that both man and woman were created in.
7) despite the fact that Paul begins 1 Cor 11:7 with speaking of who is head of who to give the context in which the following verse are to be understood.
You have no other reasoning for your personal interpretation other than ….but feminism…..but plain meaning. Not convincing, honestly, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
Sharkly
I don’t recall being asked.
Man is the glory of God due to the fact that out of the two (man and woman) who are made in His image, the man by his temporal role as head more closely resembles God than the woman by her temporal role as helpmeet to the man.
Sharkly
Is it being made in the image of God that turns hypergamy into an insatiable force of evil?
It seems to me that it would be caused by our fallen nature passed on to us from Adam. While feminists would like to hold that being made in the image of God somehow does away with the God-given roles of man and woman, it doesn’t. But I already covered this in my post above. A wife owes her husband reverence because of his role as her head in marriage. “The insatiable gnawing force of hypergamy would be satiated through understanding the truth” – not just understanding but also humbly accepting the truth that the husband is the head of the wife. When that truth is rejected, it is then that hypergamy can run wild.
Sharkly
Never heard of her. The parallel of the Church/Bride/believers being born from the side of Christ is an old one and hardly the invention of feminism.
Eve came from Adam’s side.
1 Cor 11:8 “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man”
Man is born of woman.
1 Cor 11:10 “For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”
Christ was born of a woman.
Gal 4:4 But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman…..
The Church/Bride/believers came forth from the side of Christ with the flow of blood and water.
I Cor 15:45-46 “The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
This parallel was expounded on in the first centuries…
Origen of Alexandria (d. 254 AD) “Christ has flooded the universe with divine and sanctifying waves. For the thirsty He sends a spring of living water from the wound which the spear opened in His side. From the wound in Christ’s side has come forth the Church, and He has made Her His Bride.”
St. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397 AD) … This life of the world is Christ’s rib, the rib of the second Adam … Therefore we are members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones … This is Eve, the mother of all the living … therefore the mother of the living is the Church.”
St. John Chrysostom “As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.”
St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 AD) “For the Church, the Lord’s Bride, was created from His side, as Eve was created from the side of Adam.” “Adam sleeps, that Eve may be born: Christ dies, that the Church may be born.”
Quodvultdeus (d. 453 AD) “As once from the side of Adam Eve was formed, so let the Church be formed now from the side of the dying Christ, as He hangs on the Cross. Oh wonderful mystery! The Bride is born from the Bridegroom!”
I guess all those holy men were trying to effeminize God when they draw parallels of birth/givng life with the Bride/Church being born from the side of Christ. Must have all been overcome with feminism.
Paul
If the verse in debate is 1 Cor, then why make what you term a “logical statement” that is not a direct statement from 1 Cor. Also. you limit the statements to just two when there are other possibilities.
You have proven nothing. You leave out the possibility that both are made in the image of God but one is glory of God and the other is the glory of man.
The only concession I can give you with your reading is if the meaning of image in 1 Cor is referring to man’s particular expression of the image of God that they are both made in (via Gn 1:27), in which he is the head of woman. On that basis only, which IS the actual historical interpretation, one could say.
Woman is the image (as head) and glory of God
Woman is not the image (as head) and glory of God
The 2nd would be true and doesn’t contradict Gn 1:27.
L.C.,
… not just understanding but also humbly accepting the truth that the husband is the head of the wife. When that truth is rejected, it is then that hypergamy can run wild.
I totally disagree. If she understands that “her equal, in the image of God” has been made her head, her hypergamy makes her resent him for not truly being her superior, yet being over her. She only wants to be ruled over by somebody well superior, due to hypergamy. She will not be happy having an equal or lesser being promoted over her, even if it is God Himself who did it. And she’ll resent God for putting the “equal” over the top of her also. However if she truly understands that she is the lesser vessel, and that all men share in God’s image, if she understands that she and her husband are not even near to being equal in image or glory, only then can she accept that she is married sufficiently above her own status, and that monkey branching will gain her little in comparison to what she already has secured in finding a man in the image and glory of God. While hypergamy will still exist, just like how men will always want to have as much as they can have in a marriage partner, it won’t be the ubiquitous short-fused timebomb unleashing dissatisfaction in married women as soon as the honeymoon is over, leading rapidly to dead-bedroom and disrespect and eventually divorce once the man has been fully used to meet her immediate goals.
Man is the glory of God due to the fact that out of the two (man and woman) who are made in His image, the man by his temporal role as head more closely resembles God than the woman …
So she should reverence him and be in complete subjection to him, and call him “lord”, because he while “equal” is according to old bylaws designated temporary committee chairperson of a committee of two? Wow! You must really have a low opinion of the gift that is the glory of God, that has been bestowed on men, if that is the extent of it. Since you want to reason(justify) your own beliefs. You claim the temporal role of Adam as head is then the glory of God. That is silly. Adam we are told, was made in the image of God. And Adam was made before Eve ever was. So Adam was in the image of God before he ever had his headship role in relation to Eve who didn’t yet exist. Being made in an image, and being delegated a role are two different things and happened at different times.
despite the fact that you will use reasoning in other contexts of Scripture but yet insist on a “childlike” reading in this instance
I can’t force you to see the truth I, others, and the early church have seen. You “reason” your way away from it at every opportunity. Just as I found the truth upon reading the Genesis passage, and now find that truth to be far more reasonable than how I was taught it before.
Up above I linked to a series of three articles I found quite helpful regarding resorting to the original languages for those less studied, as opposed to trusting the best translations which were done by panels of the best experts in the world at properly understanding those languages. The author’s conclusion is basically that unless you have a PHD in the language you are best off trusting that it has been translated properly by the panels of PHD’s that agreed upon their final product which is quite accurate. He means to convince you that when the translators of the Bible said a word like “him” they were referring to one male, not all mankind. But you make yourself out to be wiser than them all and assume they are mistaken while you are correct.
For Example:
Shema confession in its entirety from Deut 6:4, including the meaning of “one” (echad) as unity, not singularity
So, according to this Biblical languages professor, God is one, speaks of the unity of God, not singularity.
Genesis 1:27 (KJV) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27 (YLT) And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.
So twice in a row we are told that “Adam” was made in God’s image. Then thirdly we are told that , zachar (male) and nekevah (female) created He them, not using the word Adam,and omitting any mention of God’s image in relation to the pair. As Paul the commenter above has noted, the verse is a summary of two separate creations, that of Adam, and that of Eve, separately detailed further in Genesis 2. Also, If I am correct, the original Hebrew/Aramaic did not include punctuation. So the phrase about the both of them being created by God, might possibly be treated as a separate sentence. Some say the section is poetical, and I see a distinct poetic contrast between Adam being said twice to be created in the image of God, and the female having just been said to be created by God.
1 Corinthians 11:4 (KJV) Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. 6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. 7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.
The man, Adam, was the son of God(Luke 3:38) The Bible makes a point of saying that the man was of God. Ray often mentions that God breathed His Spirit into the man, a part of Himself. While the woman, the Bible tells us, although created by God, is of the man, she was made from a bit of the man.
1 Corinthians 11:7 (ERV) But a man should not cover his head, because he is made like God and is God’s glory. But woman is man’s glory.
1 Corinthians 11:7 (WE) A man does not need to cover his head because he was made like God is. Man is God’s glory. Woman is man’s glory.
I just don’t see how you can talk about “reason” and then ignore the reason a man is to not come before God with his head covered, which is because He is both in God’s image and is God’s glory. While the woman is only to come before God with her head covered because She is not in the image of God or man who share the same image, but she is instead, just the glory of the man. I contend that you are remaining willfully ignorant of a verse that even the modern translators couldn’t construe as allowing women into the image of God. I think you’re subconsciously trying to abdicate the greater responsibility that comes with solely bearing the image of God in this world, and before your wife. You’re in effect saying, Ain’t no big thang! Everybody’s got that. Why’d the Apostle even bother to mention it?
L.C.,
Since you’ve begun quoting Church fathers:
Tertullian says:
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son of God had to die.
From another source:
“You are the Devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first foresaker of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam.”
Augustine says:
“. . . woman was given to man, woman who was of small intelligence and who perhaps still lives more in accordance with the promptings of the inferior flesh than by superior reason. Is this why the apostle Paul does not attribute the image of God to her?”
Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.
Your Feminist heresy is the new belief.
@LC You have proven nothing. You leave out the possibility that both are made in the image of God but one is glory of God and the other is the glory of man.
Again, you seem to have little grasp of logic. Have a look at https://www.iep.utm.edu/prop-log/.
I have made a fully logical proof. Show where the logical error is if you think it has one. You did not succeed yet.
If a woman is made in the image of God but is not the glory of God, that would be covered by W2b. Hence I did not leave out that possibility. Actually, it would be my next step in the discussion, but now you seem to cannot agree to some basic logic facts. This is not helping to find common ground.
The horse is dead guys….
Sharkly “
Even if you could somehow convince all of Christendom to change it’s overall 2000+ year understanding that humanity (not just men) are made in the image of God, I don’t really think it would have the effect you think it would have. Women still have a fallen nature (as do men, of course). If all men are equally the image of God (and women were not), they are woefully unequal as to status, looks, money, fitness, power. “That guy over there shows forth the image of God to a much higher degree than the Average Joe I’m married to. I’m going to go from “glory to glory” and grab myself a greater image of God.”
No. God didn’t just create a human male and then afterwards realize that something was lacking and set about to fix it. Heck, he already created all the creatures before him as male and female. He created Adam (the man) first because it was his intention to make humanity male and female and that the male would be the head of the woman and she his helpmeet. Adam was created with all the attributes that would make him suitable for his intended role and Eve was made the same. Because Adam was a rational creature (as opposed to the animals), He wanted him to realize his loneliness by showing him all the animals in that he would notice that lacking a rational mind, they couldn’t satisfy his need for companionship and he also would have noticed that they all had mates and he lacked one. God then (on the same day) brought forth Eve from his side; a helpmate and companion who was like him.
Adam and Eve being created at different times doesn’t mean that Adam wasn’t created with his role of headship in mind from the first. It just means that the head, by necessity would be made first.
Sharkly
Yeah. Those articles were interesting. So interesting that I contacted the guy on his blog to get his take on Gen 1:27 and 1 Cor 11:7. His conclusion is not the one you would assume he would have.
He affirms that both male and female are created in the image of God and that the “point of departure” in 1 Cor 11:7 is that woman is man’s glory.
You can pose the question to him, if you’d like to confirm his position. His response time on his blog is good. He kindly got back to me the next day.
BillyS
Yes, it is sir. For we are now back to quoting Church Fathers who seem to be saying that women are not in the image of God when the quote is pulled out of the context of the entire passage in which it is written and this was gone over back at the beginning of this debate.
Gentlemen, I have nothing more to add that I haven’t already stated multiple times.
Paul, I’ve already been over where I think your “logic” breaks down. If you disagree, you disagree.
I’ve come away with the reasons on the other side for choosing to read Gn1:27 as man as opposed to mankind as
1)…..but hypergamy
2)…..but feminism
3)…..but plain reading (out of context)
I remain unconvinced by those arguments. I trust that anyone reading along will be able to make up their own minds as to which side they fall.
L.C.,
Even if you could somehow convince all of Christendom to change it’s overall 2000+ year understanding that humanity (not just men) are made in the image of God, I don’t really think it would have the effect you think it would have.
LOL, now that is just ignoring church history.
For the first 1800 years of the church, the divorce rate never went above half of a percent. Only the hardest of hearts got divorced. From the beginning of the church it was understood that women were not the image of God, but were created to be helpers to men. Women were happier and more contented when they were treated as chattel. And if some weren’t, nobody cared, that was understood to be their fault for not choosing contentment. It took a while for the heresy of women being the image of God, to seep in, become widespread enough to change the general outlook to one of equality, and to then become pervasive enough to be made into the law of our land, and then to go so far as to have the family courts actually favor women who divorce due to “no fault” on the husband’s part. You underestimate God’s ability to heal a nation that earnestly seeks him with all their heart. You discount the power of following God’s word. You write as though you don’t think the truth can really set people free.
Adam and Eve being created at different times doesn’t mean that Adam wasn’t created with his role of headship in mind from the first.
My point was that Adam was in the image of God already before he could actually be “head” of his wife. So the image isn’t something that appears upon marriage related to his marital role.
(on the same day)
where did you get that from?
I don’t think we are told exactly how long Adam and God interacted together before God created Eve for Adam.
Swanny River,
Praise the Lord. The answer was in His word all along.
I also get what you were saying about the church remaining silent about Feminism, because they had already wrongly given women God’s image and Glory, and they were stuck letting Archie Bunker speak as their representative in delaying the advance of the resulting toxic goddess worship and disempowerment of men.
“(on the same day)
where did you get that from?
I don’t think we are told exactly how long Adam and God interacted together before God created Eve for Adam.”
The Bible
Genesis 1:26-31 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
26 And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
27 And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
29 And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat:
30 And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done.
31 And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.
2 So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
3 And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Genesis 2 goes on to explain in detail the making of Adam and Eve.
You’re right Swanny River, Archie Bunker put up a better fight than the churches ever did!
I think the failure to respond to Betty and the failure to speak biblically to her and academia’s discontent was partly due to chivalry, like Dalrock has brought to light. But I also think the discontent is tied to Eve , and is more important than the chivalry aspect of it.
Sharkly,
I looked at the video after my previous comment. I can’t believe you found that. !!!
Is that picture worth a thousand words or what? It was one against four, but Archie’s argument was the winner. Lear the liberal knew better than Wilson, and CBMW and The Gospel Coalition know now.
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