So many are the misrepresentations of the Bible and Christianity in Riane Eisler’s book, The Chalice and the Blade, that it would take a volume of equal length to refute each item she mentions. Before focusing attention on chapter nine, a brief review of the remainder of her book is offered.
All who follow the New Testament must be offended by statements like these: “Ideologically, our world is in the throes of major regression to the woman-hating dogmas of both Christian and Islamic fundamentalism” (153). Could this renowned researcher cite even one New Testament Scripture that supports her baseless assertion that Christians are “women-haters”? Indeed, there may be more women who are Christians than men; how can she accuse women of being “women-haters”?
In the same paragraph she decries hard-core pornography. Who, besides Christians (apparently lascivious women-haters), does she think has been protesting such for years? Those who hold to Christian beliefs have picketed stores, opposed library boards, and spoken before city councils; how many feminists have done so?
Not only does she praise Karl Marx (a popular pastime for professors on college campuses) and his socialist ideas such as the graduated income tax (163), she has the nerve to compare Jerry Falwell to the Ayatollah Khomeini (167). The reason she is so incensed is that Falwell upholds the Biblical values that call abortion and homosexuality the sins that they are. [She doesn’t criticize him for his opposition to pornography–or give him any credit for it, either.]
The book degenerates speedily from this point, and the author blames the Bible for “. . .book burnings and people burnings. . .” and “. . .the centuries long bloodbath of the Crusades” (181). Christians do not deny that these past atrocities were done in the name of Christ, but those who did so were wrong. Where is the New Testament passage that authorizes such behavior?
Jesus
With such anti-Biblical sentiments, the reader expects to see Jesus likewise vilified, but the author likes Him because she thinks Jesus elevated women and taught feminine values (123). Although she is not sure that Jesus even existed, she thinks that the greatest argument for Him is His feminist thought and actions (122).
But is she willing to accept the entire New Testament? Do fish ride bicycles? Pointing out that Matthew-John were written years after Jesus’ death and “undoubtedly heavily edited,” she concludes: “They are probably still a more accurate reflection of Jesus’ teaching than other portions, such as Acts or Corinthians” (121). [Sounds like James Woodroof, doesn’t it?]
Ironically, after bad-mouthing Acts and Corinthians, Eisler proudly lists Dorcas as a Christian leader in Acts 9:36 (122) and highlights “the conversion of the businesswoman Lydia” (123); she further notes the “church in the household of Chloe” (123) in 1 Corinthians 1:11. In other words, Acts and 1 Corinthians would probably have no value at all–were it not for the fact that they mention women in a favorable light.
So how does she explain both favorable and unfavorable treatment of women in the New Testament? “And in the end the church fathers left us a New Testament in which this perception is often smothered by the superimposition of the completely contradictory dogmas required to justify the Church’s later androcratic structure and goals” (124). What that means basically is that church leaders in the second century (and following) tampered with the Holy Scriptures to make them fit their own ideology. What a ludicrous hypothesis!
If their goal was to make women look subservient, they did a lousy job of it. First of all, the “church fathers” did not change the Scriptures at all. To have successfully done so would certainly be a reflection on God’s omnipotence. He inspired every word to be written (Matt. 4:4; 2 Tim. 3:16-17), but then He was too weak to preserve its character and integrity. Who can believe it?
A second point to consider is that this alleged tampering is an assertion, which is not based on evidence. Who can prove that such a conspiracy existed? A third consideration is that the people knew the Scriptures so well that there would have been a hue and a cry raised had someone tried to rewrite them.
But if this outrageous hypothesis were possible, and the Scriptures were changed, they certainly did a poor job on their new version. These men knew the New Testament much better than Ms. Eisler knows Judges 19-21, and they would have been much more careful to edit out those portions she takes such great delight in. The entire New Testament could be reconstructed just from the numerous quotations made in the writings of the “church fathers,” so highly did they respect the text. Had these “conspirators” desired to make women into second-class citizens, they would have expunged every vestige of those passages which demonstrate equality and care (Gal. 3:28, Eph. 5:25).
Furthermore, the church fathers did make departures from New Testament teaching. They developed a hierarchy that eventually resulted in the Roman Catholic Church, which the New Testament makes no provision for and does not authorize. Yet God’s teachings on organization remain intact. They did not go back and change the New Testament to justify their false ideas. In fact, men have been departing from the teachings of New Testament doctrine for almost 2,000 years, but the Word of God still stands. [It has even withstood poor and misleading translations, such as the NIV.]
In order to bolster her theory of Bible-tampering, the author appeals to the gnostic gospels, which were written by heretics and have never been considered valid. Eisler likes them because the heretics allowed women to preach and pray publicly, in direct violation of 1 Timothy 2:11-14.
But Ms. Eisler has a solution to the 1 Timothy 2 passage (and one must wonder how long it will be until some of our liberal brethren begin to espouse this same claptrap). She quotes from Elaine Page “unbiased,” feminist [?] author) who wrote a book entitled The Gnostic Gospels:
Despite the previous public activity of Christian women, by the year 200, the majority of Christian communities endorsed as canonical the pseudo-Pauline letter of Timothy, which stresses (and exaggerates) the antifeminist element in Paul’s views (130).
The Pulpit Commentary says of 1 and 2 Timothy, as well as Titus (in which Paul commands the older women to teach the younger women to be “keepers at home”–2:5): “. . .they have never been doubted by any Church writers, but have held their place in all of the Canons of East and West” (23:3:i).
So, is Pagels’ statement based on any kind of scholarship? No. It’s based upon one criterion alone: feminists don’t like it because they think that, if they cannot preach publicly, they are spiritually inferior. They do not and never have recognized the difference between role and worth. Though they can be of service to the Lord in numerous other ways, nothing will suffice for them except to have the leadership role God has denied them. Surely, however, this “conspiracy theory” is the most fantastic scheme ever developed to try to establish the feminist view.
It should not go unnoticed in a study of 1 Timothy 2:11-14 that Paul appeals to Genesis 2 and 3 as the reasons why women are denied the leadership role (Adam was formed first, and the woman, being deceived, fell into the transgression). Therefore, feminists must relegate Genesis to “myth” status in addition to making 1 Timothy a “pseudo-Pauline” letter.
Pagels even goes so far as to link the New Testament with the Gospel of Thomas (a non-canonical “book” consisting mostly of fantastic stories about Jesus’ childhood), which records Peter as saying: “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus promises to make her a male so that she can enter the kingdom of heaven (130). No wonder these books were not accepted as inspired of God when they contain such absurdities!
The scholarly (?) foundation upon which books like The Chalice and the Blade rest is so much sand. Riane Eisler has not proven anything except that she is familiar with feminist writers and their research and knows how to cite their works. She quite obviously is guided by her own prejudiced presuppositions regarding the Bible, science, and feminism. [This series of articles was originally published from February 28 to March 21, 1993 in the Columbia City Crusader.]