New Testament Perspective on Gender

In our last post, in connection with taking strongholds, I wrote about uncleanness in connection with menstruation. This might certainly have given the impression that I was singling out the feminine gender for particular condemnation or disqualification. That is the last thing from the truth, and the last thing from my intention.

According to the Apostle Paul’s understanding, in Christ “there is … neither male nor female,” Galatians 3:28

Paul’s understanding was better than that of the translators of The Old Testament, and even the understanding of the Jerusalem leadership of his day.

Menstruation or “The Manner of Women,” as they used to say, was God’s idea, and as such must be included in all that He intended to reveal concerning the invisible things about Himself, built into the “created things,” Romans 1:20.

This is foundational to my concern about what the religious experts have done where truth revealed through women is concerned.

Women in relationship to men, represent all of us in relationship to Christ. This is not only Bible, but it is also what The Bible says the old creation is all about: Romans 1:18-32!

In trivializing women, religion also trivializes the “new birth”!  It makes the “new birth” just another idea or way of thinking.  Actually it makes it into a kind of Gnostic brainstorm! Life in Christ is not just another good idea. It is Actually Christ in us, His life in us, deposited there by a divine act of love.

This means that the “birds and the bees,” the “facts of life” are important, not only in understanding the generation of new life in the old creation, but the generation or failure of generation of new life in the new creation as well.

Where the “facts of life” are concerned as they are passed on from mother to daughter, one of the first things that daughters are told is about menstruation. As I understand it, a young woman who discovers this on her own, by her own experience can be just a little shaken up that something may be terribly wrong with her. I know if it happened to me, and I had no idea what was happening, I would be very scared!

In short, it’s important that she come to an understanding of what this is all about. It’s part of the early life cycle. It is also part of the early death cycle. This is basic information essential for her understanding, and for our understanding.

It is this basic information that the religious experts are in denial about, as witness the translation of Isaiah 64: 6,

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

The translators, virtually all of them in every version choose “filthy” rather than “menstruous” to translate “ed” in the original, (Strong’s #5708).  It seems life is bad for business, and this is about how life is, and isn’t.

In Isaiah 64:6, God chose a word that had “periodic” at the root of its meaning, and I believe an important, and distinguishing part of its meaning. “Filthy” – KJV or “polluted,” so far from including the periodic aspect of the meaning, are an affront to God’s intention in choosing the word that He chose. In addition, being in denial concerning “menstruation” is an affront to women, who were greatly inconvenienced by God in order to communicate something to us all.

Even the Masoretic Text is in denial about the possibility of male menstruation. Isaiah 64:6 applies to the righteousness of both men and woman.

To the best of my knowledge, the Douay Version, (a Catholic version) of the Septuagint is the only accurate translation of this verse into English.

One of the invisible things of Himself or the possibility of relationship with Himself that God has built into the created things is menstruation. This has been a rather serious, and direct inconvenience to over 50% of humanity, and an indirect inconvenience to the other 50%. In His original written Word, The Lord has used this revelation of divine truth to say something to us about the generation of new life, or the failure of the generation of new life. This “uncleanness/filthiness/pollutedness, has application beyond the “manner of women.” Isaiah is speaking for all of us, when he says that “… all our righteousness is as menstruous rags;..”

Menstruous rags represent the best our righteousness can do where covering up the periodic failure to generate new life in us is concerned. That’s just way too big a point to be lost or ripped off by Male Chauvinist translators. That is more the product of religious denial, than the faith once delivered to the saints.

Some years ago now, I asked Gleason Archer, (One of the foremost linguists of his day) about this while attending one of his presentations at Yale. He agreed that, in some cases, “the translators are more religious than God.”)

Women in relationship to men, represent all of us in relationship to Christ. This is not only Bible, but it is also what The Bible says the old creation is all about: Romans 1:18-32!

This is foundational to my concern about what “religious experts” have done, and continue to do where truth revealed through women is concerned.

Love!