Three Biblical Females and Their Antitheses

 

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Eve, Wisdom, and the Blessed Virgin of Fatima and Guadalupe―what do they have in common?

Growing up as a Catholic, I resented the protocols suggesting that women were second-class citizens. We had to wear something on our heads; why? We couldn’t go past the altar rail, and we couldn’t be priests. We were never told to read the Bible, so I had no idea where those ideas came from other than blaming God for being biased.

I converted to born-again in college. During my first two decades as a Pentecostal, I believed the Bible was infallible, so nothing changed. I still couldn’t understand how women could be saved, filled with the Spirit, and called into ministry, yet be the submissive, second-string gender. I couldn’t fully buy into the feminist academic apologetic like, “that isn’t what the Greek really says,” or “someone was writing in Paul’s name.” New Testament writings about women seemed clear to me.

The answer to my frustration has been laid out in other posts. The really short answer is to perceive the screen of culture in the inspired, but not inerrant, writings of both testaments. The human world is wired to be patriarchal, but God is not. We are more Christlike and are better witnesses for Him when we drop cultural limitations and hierarchies and just keep the Golden Rule.

Women in the Bible are mostly catalysts. God uses them to make things happen (David and Bathsheba) or to fix events that have gone awry (Paul being lowered down the wall in a basket to save his life). They are also symbols and icons. For example, Israel is portrayed as a lover, young bride, a faithless wife, or a widow in the Hebrew Bible.

My focus in this post is the pairing of three women or female icons in the Bible with an opposite presentation. The three that have caught my attention begin with Eve and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Eve and Mary

Until the advent of anthropology, which finally explained the gradual development of hominids, people had no way to understand the relationship of God to men and women other than the “inerrant” scriptures. Tertullian made full use of Genesis 2-4 in his diatribe against Eve:

And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son of God had to die.[i]

How often I heard sermons on Eve by pastors who were as ignorant of science as the men of the first century AD: “Eve added to the Word;” “Women were called to be an ezer, a helper;” “Men have an extra fiber in the brain, and women have an extra fiber in the heart;” “Women are too emotional to lead;” “Mankind will always be punished for the sin of Eve;” “Women were created second because it wasn’t good for man to be alone.” These claims are entirely supported by passages in both Testaments.

Of course, other passages refute a strict reading of the above, but we humans will cherry-pick which passages to emphasize based on our training and experiences. Decades of theological debate have not fully resolved the issue of a woman’s place in the home, society, and church, and many scholarly books have been written to convince us that Paul didn’t mean any of that.

My goal here is to point out a very simple fact: all those men who pointed to Eve as the gateway of suffering, however diplomatically they may have worded it, have completely ignored the fact that another woman, whose actual historical existence is much more secure, brought relief for sin, evil, and suffering into the world.

Eve was a pure virgin when approached by the reptilian entity that caused her to question God’s commandment and promises. So was Mary when the angel of the Lord revealed that she would bring the King―the Jewish Messiah―the “Son of the Highest,” into the world, and his kingdom rule would never end. (Luke 1:32)

Mary never doubted this word, never added to it, never misunderstood. She knew that a virgin birth would be misunderstood in a culture in which an adulterous woman could be stoned. Yet, she fully trusted in the message of the angel and the God who sent it. Why do we still obsess about Eve, who was not the first sinner on the Earth, and not extol Mary, who risked stoning or harsh societal judgment to obey God’s will?

The voices of wisdom and folly calling to mankind

20 Wisdom calls aloud outside;
She raises her voice in the open squares.
21 She cries out in the chief concourses,
At the openings of the gates in the city
She speaks her words:
22 “How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge.
23 Turn at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you. (Prov. 1:20-23, NKJV)

 1 My son, keep my words,
And treasure my commands within you.
2 Keep my commands and live,
And my law as the apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers;
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
And call understanding your nearest kin,
5 That they may keep you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words.

6 For at the window of my house
I looked through my lattice,
7 And saw among the simple,
I perceived among the youths,
A young man devoid of understanding,
8 Passing along the street near her corner;
And he took the path to her house
9 In the twilight, in the evening,
In the black and dark night.
27 Her house is the way to hell,
Descending to the chambers of death. (Prov. 7:1-9, 27, NKJV)

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Fatima, and the Sun-Clothed Woman of Rev. 12

Throughout my Christian journey from Catholic infant baptism to my age of 81, I’ve asked a lot of questions about God and theology and gotten a lot of answers. At this point, I’m an opinionated old bat who rails confidently against the flawed way Christians behave and think. However, there is one answer I don’t claim to have. The apparitions of Mary have totally flummoxed me. I consider them to be the most intractable paranormal mystery of all time on planet Earth.

It should be simple. Heaven honors the sweet mother of Jesus by allowing devotion to her in return for her unique ability to call the faithful to repentance and prayer. If that’s all it was, I would be on board.

The problem is that in most of her appearances, “Mary” makes it all about her. She literally usurps Christ’s kingship and redemptive sacrifice. She takes on titles of ancient goddesses like the Queen of the Angels. In Mexico City in 1517, she claimed to be the Mother of God, the same title claimed by the goddess whose ancient temple stood on the hill where Mary appeared. Of course, the native converts eventually conflated the two personalities.

At Fatima, Mary demanded regular devotions in her honor. She claimed that her followers would change the world by praying her rosary. She wanted the church to dedicate the nation of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, suggesting that she is perfect and sinless. The repercussions of disobeying would be dire―Russia’s errors would fill the world.

She backs up her claims with extraordinary, mind-boggling miracles. Her image appears on a garment, the sun dances, a rainstorm soaks a huge crowd of onlookers, but suddenly they are all perfectly dry. She is a great prognosticator. All of her predictions come true. My problem is that I can’t see where it says in the Bible that Mary, the mother of Jesus, would be a goddess.

OK, there’s Revelation 12:1-6:

1Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

3And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

The Catholic Church claims that the above passage refers to Mary. I can totally understand why. The male child taken up to heaven is obviously Jesus. The easy identity of the sun-clothed woman is Mary. The reference to the sun, moon, and the crown of 12 stars is a mandate of cosmic power. Any specific human so described would be a god or goddess. This “woman” is opposed by none other than Satan himself.

She is given eagle wings so she could fly into the wilderness. The dragon tries to destroy her there, but she is protected. Verse 17 nails the identity of the woman: “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Her offspring is the church, the Body of Christ, from the first convert to Christianity to the last. In my humble opinion, the Sun-clothed Woman is the antithesis of the fake Mary of the apparitions.

Here’s what troubles me about Fatima and all the other requests for supreme titles, basilicas, Mary medals that protect the wearer, and rosaries that bring peace to the world. Paul wrote,

"As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:9)

It’s not that Mary is appearing here and there, calling for prayer, repentance, devotion to her Son. And of course, why appear and not offer healing miracles? It bothers me the extremity of her rise to power. She is usurping the need for a sacrificing Savior, and who would want to do that if not the devil?

It also occurs to me that when Mary of Fatima called for repentance, or else!, she didn’t specify which sins, making her warning of no effect. She could have called out the global depravities that actually led to war…devotion to an authoritarian, antichrist cult leader who preached violence and hate, the nationalistic ambition to dominate other countries, corporate greed that erased morality, the isolation and pride that cause one group to think they are a superior race, and the fulminating hatred of one ethnic group for another.

Female figures and their antis…offer us lessons to ponder deeply.

[i] Tertullian, “Chapter 1. Introduction. Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women, in Memory of the Introduction of Sin into the World Through a Woman,” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0402.htm.