- VATICAN - In the face of artistic images from Michelangelo to Blake,
the Pope on Thursday spoke out against "patriarchal" images of
God, declaring that the Deity is "not to be imagined as an old man
with a flowing white beard."
-
- The pontiff did not suggest how God should
be pictured, and stopped short of saying the Divine Being was female. However,
his comments immediately reopened the debate on the nature of God and whether
God can be seen as feminine.
-
- One leading theologian said that the
Pope's comments had implications on the question of the ordination of women
and married priests in the Roman Catholic Church. The subject of God's
nature is now thought likely to come up when the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Dr. George Carey, has a private audience with the Pope at the Vatican next
month.
-
- The Pope, who has increasingly revised
theological doctrine over 20 years, said that it was wrong "to imagine
the Divinity with anthropomorphic traits which reflect too much the human
world." Quoting from Homer, the pontiff said that the popular Old
Testament image of God derived not from Christianity but from the Ancient
Greek myth of Zeus, chief of the gods on Mount Olympus, who was seen as
alternately benevolent and prone to vengeance and anger. Speaking to pilgrims
at St. Peter's on the theme of "God the Father," the Pope noted
that both Judaism and Islam regarded attempts to depict God and give Him
form as "idolatrous." St. Paul had written that God was perceived
by humankind "through a glass, darkly," and would be seen "face
to face" only after death.
-
- But the Pope also observed, with apparent
approval, that there was a "long and universal tradition of religious
literature" in which God was seen as a "father figure."
This was a reflection of Jesus's status as the Son of God.
-
- Vatican officials said that the Pope
was "responding to modern feminist critiques" which wrongly dismissed
Christianity as "patriarchal." But the newspaper La Repubblica
said that the Pope's predecessor, John Paul I, had been "more courageous"
during his three-week reign in 1978, when he told astonished visitors that
God had a "feminine nature" and was "more of a mother than
a father." The present Pope had resisted the advancement of women
in the modern Church, the paper said.
-
- Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of
the Ambrosian Library in Milan and a leading biblical scholar, said that
there was no description of God in the Bible, and that Greek and Hebrew
words for God meant "spirit" or "power."
-
- "The name Jehovah, for example,
which means the origin of being, or the one from whom all existence derives,
was considered too sacred even to be uttered," Monsignor Ravasi said.
-
- Claudio Strinati, Superintendent of Fine
Arts in Rome, said that the image of a bearded, paternal God derived not
only from Zeus but also from the assumption by medieval and Renaissance
painters that the father of Jesus "must have looked something like
Him only older."
-
- Jesus had been depicted from Byzantine
times onwards as a stern, imposing man with long hair and beard, Professor
Strinati said. But he also pointed out that Caravaggio, one of the greatest
of late Renaissance painters, had been more subtle, implying the presence
of God as a universal force "through the use of light," an idea
taken up in films and other modern media.
-
- The Pope has raised eyebrows several
times in recent months by reinterpreting accepted doctrine. He noted that
there was "no evidence" that Jesus had been born at Christmas,
a symbolic date which he said was in reality a Christianization of Ancient
Roman midwinter festivals celebrating the coming rebirth of the Sun. He
also declared recently that the Virgin Mary had been the first to see the
resurrected Christ, even though St. Mark's Gospel clearly states that Mary
Magdalene was the first to arrive at the tomb.
-
- According to Carey, the Bible uses male
and female images to describe God. The Book of Genesis states that God
"created human beings in His own image," and records that Adam
and Eve "heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden
at the time of the evening breeze." In his great ceiling frescoes
in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts a long, bearded, paternal God
creating Eve from Adam's rib, and transferring spiritual and intellectual
power to man through his outstretched finger.
-
- Carey, in a recent sermon at Telford,
conceded that fatherhood is more common in biblical images of God. But
he said female images also occurred and "God transcends and includes
both categories."
-
- The Pope's comments were welcomed by
Hans Kung, a leading Roman Catholic theologian, as showing a "slow,
modest process to enlightenment." Professor Kung, a theologian at
Tubingen University in Germany and president of the new Global Ethic Foundation,
said he would have preferred it if the Pope had gone further and said that
God was mother as well as father.
-
-
-
- Comment
Jane Smith
1-15-99
-
-
- According to a caption under the picture
of the pope in the story he also is said to have suggested that Jesus may
not have been born in December.
-
- Also "Jehovah" according to
Exodus 3:14 means "I am that I am" (in other words as the author
of "Martian Genesis" put it, "God" was telling Moses
to mind his own business when he asked which God he was, and so said "I
am who I am") which MEANS Jehovah (shown right in the Bible) so that
"scholar and theologian" is WRONG.
-
- Also people are wondering what religion
was going to replace the "Pisces" Christian religion? Well...
I think Rome has been working on this, and is coming up with a unisex God
(remember unisex clothing in the 60s? Now we're gonna have a unisex God
and a reworking of the Bible).
-
- Watch things like "the fisher of
men" type phrases be ditched when describing this new "saviour"
with something like the "soul's water bearer" or something like
that. Who knows? This time the "saviour" might be a watermaid
- a female.
-
- After reading that really strange article
on the pope's announcements about God not necessarily being a man, etc....
It got me thinking that Jordan Maxwell REALLY DOES KNOW what's going on
with religion. So, I did a little research offline in my set of World
Book encyclopedias to see what the various zodiac signs symbolized.
-
- Anyhow the gist of this is that the following
astrological ages are as follows (all the way back to Leo - which is SIGNIFICANT):
-
- Pisces 2000AD - 600BC
-
- Aries 600BC - 3200BC
-
- Taurus 3200BC - 5800BC
-
- Gemini 5800BC - 8400BC
-
- Cancer 8400BC - 11,000BC
-
- Leo 11,000BC - 13,600BC
-
- Ok as we all know that Christianity is
supposed to be the religion for Pisces. Prior to that the ram (a sheep)
represents the age of Aries - hence the sacrificial lamb that the Hebrews
were required to sacrifice to "God" (or more aptly the priests).
Before that was the age of Taurus and I don't know for sure as I didn't
go research that, I do believe that Hinduism started in that time frame
hence the sacred cow. However, in the Bible there is a mention of the God
"Baal" which people worshiped and his symbol was the "Golden
Calf" (I believe). Prior to that is the age of Gemini and while I
don't know what God/s represented that period, I do know that the Sumerians
and Egyptians etc, created writing (the written form of communication).
Before that is the age of Cancer which is represented by a crab and I have
no idea what happened in that time period which is between 8400BC and 11,000BC.
-
- However.... This is the kicker for the
theory that the Sphinx may be older than 10,000 years old. I believe that
it's between 13,000 and 15,000 years old IF it's a symbol of the astrological
age in which it was built that being Leo which is symbolized by a lion
and is associated with the symbol of the kings. That may be when the pyramids
and sphinx were built - during that age and pharonic dynasties that existed
back in Moses time, might simply have been ancestors of the builders and
inherited the pyramids (maybe as some kind of sacred monuments inherited
from their "gods").
-
- Anyhow that's just my thoughts on the
teenie-tiny bit of research I was able to do on the zodiac signs offline.
Didn't research the religions though (not yet) to see when they were established
etc.... Need to find a historic timeline somewhere though so I can find
out what civilizations existed during which periods, so I can research
them and their beliefs more. No such timeline exists in the World Book
though.
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