Biblical women and feminist spirituality

My sister sent this to me, and I LOVED it. It is a history channel special called "Banned from the Bible" and it tells stories that were, you guessed it, banned from the bible. I watched the whole thing, but this was my favorite. It was about a woman named Thecla, who chose to follow Paul's teachings about celibacy. Which, in my opinion, given the historical context, was a feminist way of achieving autonomy over ones body.

The story is that this guy wants to marry her and she says no, and is sentenced to death. I am assuming that there were probably arranged marriages....and clearly there were FORCED marraiges, whether prearranged or otherwise. Thecla refused to marry someone, and subsequently have sex with someone she didn't want to have sex with, otherwise known as rape. Thecla refused to be raped, and asserted her right to live an independent and autonomous life. (On a side note, do you think Thecla did this for spiritual reasons? Or perhaps for political ones? I think it could swing either way. Perhaps Paul's teachings were simply convenient for her. I wouldn't want to be forced into marriage with some creep-o either!) Okay, so then because she refuses, they sentence her to death and throw her into a den of lions. Then, the female lions, instead of attacking her as planned, lay at her feet and protect her. Oh --Well hello ecofeminism! Nice to meet you.

So she is saved by the She-Lions which is awesome, and she is on her merry way with Paul, and then ANOTHER dude wants to marry her, she refuses, and is sentenced to death. Again. This time they are going to burn her at the stake. God sends rain to squelch the flames and she is saved. God clearly has this girls back! So the people are pissed and decide to throw her into a shark tank. (P.S. this is all VERY Dr. Evil, ya know? Like, stop missing around and plotting these elaborate schemes, and just kill her already! You don't need freaking sharks with freaking laser beams attached to their freaking heads.) Thecla had asked Paul a while back to baptize her and he told her no. I know, RUDE. So, knowing she is about to die....this badass bitch baptizes HERSELF. That is some radical feminism right there. And God approves because then he sends lightening bolts to kill the sharks. Brilliant.



First, I have my doubts about whether the bible really is the inspired word of God. In fact...I'm going to just come out and say it: I have A LOT of doubts about it. I have been told by numerous spiritual leaders that you can't "pick and choose" what you want to believe out of the bible, because everything in it is 100% true and are God's breathed words written down via men, and that you either believe ALL of it, or NONE of it. (Which, regardless of how I feel about the subject itself, I refuse to play into this bogus, binary, dichotomous "all or none"/"black or white" bullshit that people try to pull in order to make a point) It was still written by a bunch of dudes, and the it contains a lot of violence, sexism, and horrible things that I just don't believe God would ever promote -- which is one of the reasons I LOVE this story. Even though PAUL, one of God's main guys, refused to baptize Thecla (in essence he caved to the social standards of the times) God still clearly approved on Thecla being baptized, but also approved that she did it to herself! Showing me that a lot of these guys who participated in writing the bible, while they may have been spiritually enlightened in some regard, were still susceptible to falling short of perfection, and following societal norms and the status quo. If this is true, than isn't it possible that the bible's words aren't EXACT truths, FROM God? That perhaps man made a few mistakes? I think that is a pretty valid concern. In fact, I REALLY hope that I am right about men making mistakes...because it would make the bible and religion make a lot more sense to me.

Now clearly, this story could be totally fabricated and made up (Although I think the History Channel is a pretty decent source)...but I suppose the stories from the bible could be too, right? My point is that this is a RAD story, and that I often think about if I believe what the bible says...