Cochise
Priest of the cult of the Dog with the Broken Paw
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
- Messages
- 8,474
I don't understand the problem? So what if he had a wife? Gandhi and Joseph Smith had dozens.
Jesus (if he existed, which I obviously believe he did) was God in human form, supposed to have led a 'perfect' life - a 'perfect' life of the time does not exclude marriage (and presumably sex within marriage). I'm a bit of an odd sort of Christian, I've never got my head around this three in one stuff - Christ and God are to me clearly two separate entities, God and a spin-off designed to be more approachable to humankind, the 'beard in the sky' approach having failed. Which also demonstrates that God may be omnipotent but not also omniscient, at least as far as the consequences of his actions are concerned.
The fact that the Gospels all but airbrushed Mary out of existence simply suggests the writers of the gospels - some time after the events described - were already set on excluding women from the narrative - they were already engaged on setting up a male dominated power structure.
Thank God the Bible exists in many languages including our own (and in numerous mildly differing versions) - it gives us the chance to bypass any sort of privileged priesthood and try to decide for ourselves what God's actions mean. My own Church is virtually abandoned by the established clergy on cost grounds - embarrassingly for them we refused to be absorbed into a larger community from the nearest town - we meet under a lay reader now except for communion.
Jesus (if he existed, which I obviously believe he did) was God in human form, supposed to have led a 'perfect' life - a 'perfect' life of the time does not exclude marriage (and presumably sex within marriage). I'm a bit of an odd sort of Christian, I've never got my head around this three in one stuff - Christ and God are to me clearly two separate entities, God and a spin-off designed to be more approachable to humankind, the 'beard in the sky' approach having failed. Which also demonstrates that God may be omnipotent but not also omniscient, at least as far as the consequences of his actions are concerned.
The fact that the Gospels all but airbrushed Mary out of existence simply suggests the writers of the gospels - some time after the events described - were already set on excluding women from the narrative - they were already engaged on setting up a male dominated power structure.
Thank God the Bible exists in many languages including our own (and in numerous mildly differing versions) - it gives us the chance to bypass any sort of privileged priesthood and try to decide for ourselves what God's actions mean. My own Church is virtually abandoned by the established clergy on cost grounds - embarrassingly for them we refused to be absorbed into a larger community from the nearest town - we meet under a lay reader now except for communion.