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HER SHARE OF THE BLESSINGS
Ross Shepard Kraemer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
EUNUCHS FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Uta Ranke - Heinemann. New York: Doubleday 1990.
ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT
Elaine Pagels. New York: Random House, 1988.
A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE WEST, VOLUME
I. FROM ANCIENT GODDESSES TO CHRISTIAN SAINTS
Series eds. Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot. Volume ed. Pauline Schmitt Pantel. Cambridge, MA: Belknap - Harvard University Press 1992.
HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA
Maria Dzielska. Trans. F. Lyra. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
by Samuel Wagar
Levi said to Peter, "Peter, you have a constant inclination to anger and you are always ready to give way to it. And even now you are doing exactly that by questioning the woman as if you're her adversary. If the Saviour considered her to be worthy, who are you to disregard her? For he knew her completely and loved her devotedly."
Gospel of Mary 10:7 - 10 (The Complete Gospels, Annotated Scholar's Version 1992 -- Polebridge Press)
Although great changes have come in Euro - American culture over the past hundred years and it is no longer completely correct to speak of it as a Christian culture, the roots of the culture lie in Christianity and a number of the dominant cultural facts stem from the Christian religion.
It is also true that the strongest organized resistance to the changes in the culture, in particular as regards the roles and possibilities of women and men, is presently coming from conservative Christian groups. In this the fundamentalists are acting in the great tradition of their religious forbears.
These debates, about the sacredness or profane "nature" of women, about sexual expression and repression, about the role of the family, about leadership and hierarchy as they impact on male dominance, have come up before. In fact they came up very early in the development of our culture -- at the time of the organization of the orthodox Christian religion out of the swirl of religious and philosophical discussion, Mystery religions and Jewish heretical movements in the later part of the Roman Empire.
With the adoption of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in 325 CE (Common Era, same as AD) and the subsequent repression of the non...