#bible criticism

[squarecloud73]

*I worship you Tumblr please don’t remove it

Let's take off the jealousy, erase the rotten beneath, so we can polish this story, so pretty and clean.

[antifainternational]

[katerinaaqu]

People who criticize others for disliking the changes of Greek mythology when gods are twisted to look like some sort or final villain boss fight video game I honestly wanna see how the reactions would be if someone created a biblical musical where the Pharaoh of Egypt takes revenge against God of Israelites for killing the first born of Egypt by smiting him with his own sword or justice and claim he does it for his people while God begs for mercy.

Food for thought

[rowanisawriter]

[semyazzayee]

Still disappointed that no one commented anything about a toxic yuri thing with Lilith and Eve instead of all the being the same person theory lately talked like these two together having a underlayer sapphic thing going on would be sooooo good.

If they met and were under other circumstances they would definitely have something together regardless of Adam (and Lucifer) but the opportunity of meeting never came and I wished so much that it could...

[This is more something of my own hell idea thing but I still feel like it fits for the rewrites others do to Hazbin. Lilith and her rebellion against the man figure and heaven rules and Eve's obedience to the man being created directly inferior (Rib thing) and other little things do very well to draw parallels and contrasts between their stories when still having similarities.

-Also Lilith SHOULD be called the Representative of heresy in Hazbin. She and Eve both committed it in their canon's and Lilith its said she inspires rebellion with her songs]

[srs If they can put Michael x Lucifer HCs when Miguel doesn't seem to be canon in Hazbin I beg for a bit of Eve x Lilith content I NEED LESBIANISM]

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

“it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing.”

Genuinely, I’m pretty sure this exact problem is about to rear it’s ugly head into the plot so hard. Once it becomes obvious enough next season, I think this is about to become the biggest gripe people have with the show.

I don’t subscribe to the “Chloé was rewritten by TA out of spite” theories—however—it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

This is quickly having a domino effect on the plot, where storylines are being re-sculpted left and right to somehow tie-up the arc of the previous 5 seasons, whilst still maintaining pre-reveal status quo for the seasons still to come. The most glaring problem with this is, of course, that they had to royally shoot Marinette in the foot to make that work.

I don’t want to put my tin-foil hat on too much, but Adrinette getting together sans reveal is just a symptom of the show continuing past it’s original intended “end of life”. We were likely supposed to get exactly what is holding Adrinette back from being interesting right now—the reveal—in the original midseason finale of season 5 instead of Kwami’s Choice.

What’s an even more cynical thought—if season 5 was the end of the show like intended at one point, there is ZERO chance that Marinette would have even NEEDED to lie to Adrien about his father. *THAT’S* what frustrates me most about the season 5 finale. Not that it’s shocking, not that it subverts expectations, that it’s so glaringly obvious the main character is making a decision simply because the plot for future seasons implodes on itself if she thinks logically for 1.2 seconds. It’s not interesting. It’s only there because they wrote themselves into a corner they never intended to be in 5 years ago.

And as the seasons tick on and on, the cycle is just going to continue to chase itself in circles under the guise of “drama” and “plot”, but in reality the episodic nature of the show means that none of the plot lines will ever conclude in a satisfying way

(Post that inspired this ask)

it is almost **impossible** that season 5 didn’t, at the very least, have the bones of the plot laid out *when it was still intended as the final season,* and then those bones were **heavily** rearranged when contracts were signed for Miraculous Ladybug to continue production beyond that point.

Now that is a theory I can get behind and will even admit to subscribing to. Season five absolutely feels like it was written to be the final season and we know that it was, originally, supposed to be the final season. It's not a conspiracy theory to say, "I think that they may have committed to elements of season five before they got a sixth season and that ended up making season five into a bit of a mess."

I'd be fascinated to know the behind-the-scenes timing of things and what was written before the season-six greenlight and what they were allowed to change after season six became a thing. Things like scripts, lore bibles, and plot lines get signed off on by a lot of people! It's entirely possible that the writers' hands were tied on certain elements of season five. If the leaked, season-five Bible is to be believed, it says that it was signed off by TF1 & Disney and has a date of 1/29/21, about three months before season six was officially announced, implying that major elements of season five may have been set in stone all the way back in early 2021:

[Image description: footer for the leaked Bible reading "Ladybug - Bible FINAL VERSION updated season 5 - approved by TF1 & Disney 1/29/21 - CONFIDENTIAL]

This may mean that the writers literally weren't allowed to make major changes to season five because they'd already gone through the approval process for the overall plot. It's also possible that they could have redone things, they just didn't have time based on production timelines or maybe they did have time and just couldn't think up a new version of season five in the time they had. There's no way to be sure with the limited information we have. Maybe season five is exactly what they wanted it to be!

It's hard to buy that, though, because a lot of the awkward writing makes so much more sense if there was supposed to be an identity reveal at the end of Kwami's Choice. Like why Adrien is worrying about how to tell Marinette that he's leaving, but he never once stops to think about Ladybug. If he knows they're the same person, that's suddenly perfectly understandable.

I also full agree that the lie at the end of season five feels like another stalling tactic and not a piece in a well-crafted narrative. It's really common for the writing to get stilted in TV shows and movie series that get renewed past their expiration dates because no plot can last forever. Even the best writers can't draw a concept out to the end of time and Miraculous doesn't seem have the best writers. Now that they've been greenlit for ten freaking seasons, I think we're in for a wild ride and I don't mean the fun kind. Serious identity shenanigans like the love square are not designed to last for 86+ hours. (The show has 26 20-minute episodes per season, so if you multiply that by 10, you get a little over 86 hours + specials and such.)

I just don't see how they're going to draw out the identity reveal for another five seasons without making the love square a toxic waste dump, but I also don't think that they're ever going to do an identity reveal in the mid game. They're saving that sucker for the end no matter how much it ruins the story. (Watch season six prove me wrong, lol. You never know.)

[fyreinhell]

thinking about how adam was the first human soul in Heaven bc what the fuck happened to Abel. did he go to hell (for some reason?)

like what happened there. he was the first human to ever die so like would the theories saying Eve is the first person to enter hell be therefore incorrect? Because Adam and Eve had another son to replace Abel, Seth. Eve did not die first.

idk i have gripes and confusion about that stuff.

[nando161mando]

[gingebreadbeetle]

This is just straight up a rant, so to be blunt; I am not a professional artist, I just enjoy drawing and know some of the basics. Also this is all just my opinion, so yeah, rant starts from here.

Viv’s designs of the sins that we’ve seen so far are horrible. They’re overcrowded, the colors are really basic or straining for me and it’s just … bad? It’s just bad, confusing and it feels like she looked up a wiki of (insert demon)’s animal, slapped on a Viv TM personality from the five different persona’s she has and oversaturated colored and called it a day.

Sorry if this is disjointed, I know Viv has talent as a artist and she has artistic merit, but I feel like in recent years her style and characterization has diminished ( compare pilot Adam to the show Adam example, for me the pilots design was much cooler ) and now her furry designs or biblical interpretations are just… bare bones, hollow. Like she’s read a question on a test but hasn’t engaged with it thoroughly and rushed it. C minus, Viv.

[tategaminu]

Watched a leaked Hazbin Hotel scene and a character says the world "dck" four times and "fcking" two times in 13 seconds. How a writer can find this funny goes beyond my comprehension.

[latteandjacks]

I'm honestly confused as to why so many people don't know why Emberlyn ended up going to hell like??

Lust is a sin

"BUT ADAM-" Adam was the first man in earth and heaven he had that privilege to do whatever he wanted, everyone but his girls knew he didn't deserve it but there he is. With humans they probably are given privileges as well because they're already in heaven or are heavenborns (or they simply don't fuck?)

But reading AND (if it wasn't enough) writing pornography about monsters and DEMONS? That's a pass to hell for sure. The mere fact of watching media including monsters and demons is already considered blasphemy, now add porn and it's an even BIGGER blasphemy

And even if all of that isn't enough, wanting to go to hell is ALSO a sin, because you're forsaking God (Or Heaven, we don't know if God exists EXISTS in the hellaverse) and choosing Lucifer instead

Not to count the Harassment "But Blitz was trying to k-" No man she was into that, she wanted him to kill her, she harassed him simply because she's a horny freak

And again, the cum jar is singlehandly a bigger atrocity than Lucifer's rebellion against his own father (in both the hellaverse and actual bible) that cannot be forgiven, not even by the same God that allowed every event that lead to that moment happen /hj

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, this is going to be long and wordy but I’m kinda desperate. Lately I’ve been having doubts about whether Jesus actually said what’s recorded in the gospels and whether those accounts are true, and the uncertainty there scares me, especially since I know the gospel writers almost certainly had their own agendas and that’s why accounts of the same event can sound different, why the birth narrative was skipped over or not, etc. On top of that I’ve seen posts from Jewish users outlining why Judaism typically doesn’t accept Jesus as Messiah/why you can’t be Jewish if you believe that, and their arguments seem pretty sound. So it all boils down to this big scary question of “What if this whole Jesus-as-Messiah thing was just the result of projection onto some random guy who seemed to be the real deal because the writers were so desperate to be rescued from the Roman occupation?” It sucks cuz I’ve been enjoying my renewed interest in church (for the most part) and while I’ve tried my best to learn not to take the Bible literally all the time (yay for growing up in an inerrantist doctrinal tradition 🙄), I still want to take it seriously and I still want to believe in Jesus as savior/Lord/etc. I don’t want to just be like, “Yeah I don’t buy the whole Messiah thing but I can still follow his example!” I want there to be meat behind why I follow, if that makes sense. So inasmuch as this could be my OCD being bored and trying to take hold of whatever it thinks would bug me the most (wouldn’t be the first time!), I would really appreciate any advice you have. I know there may not be any certainty or reassurance to be found here, but I still want to hear from someone who’s been there before so I can chart a path forward, and I think this is an important question to wrestle with. Plus I remember from one of your posts you said you have seminary notes on this exact topic so I’m curious lol.

"Gospel Truth": how do we know what Jesus really said and did?

Hey again! Sorry for the long delay on this one but I wanted to do some research before responding! You're right that these are important questions, and you're absolutely not the only one to feel doubt and anxiety over them. You're also right that I can't offer you certainty, but I do hope you'll find encouragement here, and places to go as you continue your journey.

This got super long (as always lol), so let's start with aTL;DR:

In this post, you'll find that there's a lot that we can surmise is very probable about Jesus' life story, but that ultimately we can't know much for certain — and that's okay. In Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions), Rachel Held Evans gets to the heart of the matter:

"I don’t know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don’t know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life."

This is a time where scholarship & faith go hand-in-hand: using the minds God gifted us, we study and learn what we can; and we cultivate faith in the things we can't — a faith that doesn't deny doubt, but makes room for it, and calls us into community so that we can wrestle out meaning together.

A couple other notes before we kick off:

Please know that you don't Have To Study All The Things if you decide it's healthier for you not to go chasing those rabbit holes. You don't need to be an expert in Biblical studies to be a "good Christian" or to take scripture seriously or to get to know God deeply.

I trust you know yourself and how your OCD works better than I could. So I'm going to share the information I have, and leave it to you to determine for yourself how much information you need in order to feel reassured, without giving your mind new problems to ruminate over.

So here's a link to a Google doc that has A Lot of information — like, too much lol. But save it for after you read this post; I'm putting the most relevant & important info here! If you finish this post and feel satisfied, you never even have to look in the doc.

However deep you go, if you find yourself getting overwhelmed, know that whatever you are feeling is valid and probably pretty common, and take a break! Do a calming meditation or an activity you enjoy to help regulate your mind and body. If possible, have someone you can unpack this stuff with — or have a notebook ready to journal in. <3

Okay, all that outta the way, let's dig in!

Who wrote the Gospels?

Tradition goes that the authors of the four canonical Gospels are three of Jesus' closest disciples — Matthew, Mark, and John — plus a disciple of Paul — Luke. But academics have determine that this tradition is very improbable; it's much more likely that none of the four authors knew Jesus personally, and that the earliest of them (Mark) wasn't recorded till the 60s — decades after Jesus lived and died!

When people learn this, it often leads to something of a crisis of faith. If these writers didn't even know Jesus firsthand, where the heck did they get their information?? And come to think of it, why do their accounts differ? Is some of it made up? Is all of it made up??

The anxiety and fear that wells up is normal, and it's healthy to acknowledge that you're feeling it. But once that first shock abates, it's possible to discover a sort of freedom in the knowledge that the Gospel writers (and all the authors of the biblical texts) were human, with human biases and specific goals fitting their unique context; and that they didn't have all the answers!

This realization can free us to approach scripture without certain expectations (that it's all inerrant and prescriptive, etc.), and allows us to bring our doubts to the table with us. If something in the text seems questionable — particularly if it seems to promote bigotry and injustice rather than God's love — we can consider whether something in its author's cultural context might be responsible for that part of scripture.

So taking some time to learn the unique contexts of each writer can be quite enriching to how we engage the Gospels. For a chart that sums up the Gospel writers' unique contexts, audiences, and priorities, see this post.

For even more, you'll want a book that digs into that stuff — I recommend Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament (the abridged version!!). As you learn about the Gospel writers, I hope several things become evident:

First, that they weren't just making things up whole cloth, or relying on a game of "he said she said" telephone for their information! Each one drew from different primary or secondary sources, eyewitness testimonies or written texts (many of which no longer exist, but scholars have pieced together evidence of, like the famous "Q source" that both Matthew and Luke drew from).

Yes, each author does have an agenda in writing about Jesus, and in how they tell his story. But that's not a nefarious thing; it's true of any text, whether biography, poetry, novel, song — you don't take the time to write something without a purpose in mind! With variation between their specific goals, overall each Gospel writer's agenda was to persuade their audience that Jesus is worth following, and/or to offer encouragement to those who already believed.

Another thing that modern readers sometimes interpret as intentionally deceptive is that, yeah, the Gospels contain things that aren't strictly factual, and that the writers knew weren't strictly factual. This is because ancient ideas about history & biography are very different from our own. When we read a biography, we expect it to be all facts, with citations proving those facts. But the ancients were much less concerned with making sure every detail was accurate; instead, they were focused on making their specific point about whatever thing or person they were writing/reading about. So yes, they might embellish one detail or leave out another in order to fortify their desired message. They cared more about the Truth as they interpreted it than a purely factual account.

On a similar note, each Gospel writer understands Jesus and the meaning behind his story a little differently — hence why they all tell things in slightly different orders, and characterize Jesus differently, etc. This is also understandable — we all interpret stories differently; we all come to different conclusions even when we have the same or similar information. See the section in the google doc titled "each Gospel's essence" to learn more about the different ways each writer characterizes Jesus, and why they may have interpreted him the way they did.

On that topic, let's get to your question about...

Jesus — Messiah, or no?

If you read the Gospel of Matthew and take it as pure fact, you'll determine that Jesus is the Messiah his people were waiting for — that he did indeed fulfill various scriptures. But if you read Mark, you won't find that argument at all! To the author of Mark, Jesus clearly did not match the stipulations of the awaited-for Messiah — and for Mark, that's kinda the point: that Jesus is something new and surprising, unlike anything human beings expected, upturning our ideas of power and salvation.

...So how did they come to these vastly different views??

Well, Matthew was a Jew writing to persuade his fellow Jews that the Jesus movement was worth joining; to do so, he felt he had to "prove" that it fit into Jewish tradition. So he prioritizes showing how Jesus is a righteous Jew who abides by Torah, and that he is indeed the Messiah they've been waiting for.

(It's also worth noting that when Matthew writes, over and over, about Jesus "fulfilling" various bits of Hebrew scripture, that verb "fulfilling" doesn't mean what it might sound like to us — that a given text was always and only about Jesus, with the prophet having Jesus in mind when they wrote it. Rather, to Matthew "fulfilling" the text meant "filling it up" with more meaning — adding to its meaning, not replacing the old meaning. More on that, with citations, in the Google doc.)

Meanwhile, Mark's author was a Jew writing mostly to gentile members of the early Jesus movement. He knew they wouldn't care whether or not Jesus fit the Jewish expectations for a Messiah! (In fact, giving Jesus a bit more of a "Greek" flair would appeal to them more.) So Mark doesn't perform the mental and rhetorical gymnastics that Matthew does to try to make Jesus fit the Messiah requirements.

So which Gospel got it right?

For many matters of scripture, I say "it's open to interpretation!" or "Maybe both are right in different ways, conveying different truths!" But for this particular case, it is very important as Christians to accept that Jesus absolutely does not fit the Jewish requirements for their Messiah. To argue otherwise is antisemitic — it's supersessionist, meaning it claims that Christianity supersedes or replaces Judaism.

We might understand, as the author of Mark did, Jesus to be a messiah — which just means "anointed one" in Hebrew (the Greek counterpart is "Christ") — without making antisemitic claims that Jews "failed to recognize their own Messiah." (In fact, there are multiple messiahs in scripture, e.g. in Isaiah 45, the foreign king Cyrus is referred to as God's messiah; though later scriptures like Daniel do start talking about a specific Messiah who will usher in redemption & a new age for the Jewish people.)

We can understand why some of the biblical authors, like Matthew, interpreted Jesus as this specific Messiah as a result of their own specific context, without agreeing with their view. See this post about “Anti-Jewish Content in the New Testament: Why it’s there and what we should do about it” for more on this important topic.  (You can also find even further resources on supersessionism in this post.)

...Okay, so we've looked at the authors of the Gospels a good bit. We've learned that their idea of a "biography" is very different from ours — that they didn't consider it bad to rearrange, leave out, or embellish accounts — but what does that leave us with when it comes to knowing who Jesus "really" was?

What can we know for sure about Jesus?

Let's look at the facts. The first one is: we don't have any. Not any 100% certain ones, anyway. The guy lived before audio recorders and cameras; we're relying on written and oral accounts, which can be fabricated.

However, there are points about the Jesus story that are regarded as almost certainly historical by the vast majority of historians today, so let's look at those first:

Jesus almost 100% certainly existed. There is enough historical evidence (both inside and outside the Bible) to confirm this — even non-Christian historians almost unanimously agree that there was a historical Jesus. (Phew, am I right?)

Almost all historians also agree that several parts of Jesus' story almost definitely happened: that he was baptized in the Jordan; that he traveled around teaching and offering miracles (whether or not they agree he actually had the power to perform real miracles, of course); and that he was arrested and crucified by the occupying Roman Empire.

Some of these almost-irrefutable claims lend plausibility to others: if he traveled around teaching, what was he teaching? Why not the sermons, the parables recorded in the Gospels? And if he was crucified — the death of a criminal, an insurrectionist — what did he do to get himself crucified? He must have done something to cause Rome to see him as a threat to their Empire — why not some of the sayings and actions that are recorded in the Gospels, like his claim to be "Son of God" (a title used for Caesar); his protest march into Jerusalem satirizing Caesar; and his disruption at the Temple?

The attempt to determine which parts of scripture are "authentic," i.e. things that really happened / things Jesus really said," is often called "The Quest for the Historical Jesus."

Over the decades, scholars interested in this pursuit have developed various "criteria of authenticity," which they use to try to determine how probable any given bit of the Gospels is. In the google doc, I summarize the history of this "quest" and describe some of the most popular criteria. But what's important to understand is that these criteria have major limitations — they're often applied somewhat arbitrarily, for one thing, and ultimately they can't "prove" for sure whether something in the text is definitely historical or definitely not. So honestly, this is not a field of study that I recommend everyone go immerse themselves in! When I do, I have fun for a while, then kinda end up more overwhelmed by how much we can't know.

Still, sometimes these criteria of authenticity do yield some interesting points. For instance, the "Criteria of Embarrassment" (yes, that's what it's called lol) asserts that anything in the text that would have been embarrassing to its author is more likely to be historical fact — because why would the author have made something up that puts them in an unflattering light, or might be used to argue against their message?

For example, a lot of Gospel stories depict Jesus' disciples being kinda clueless, or saying petty things, or failing miserably (e.g. the denial of Peter). Why would the Gospel authors have wanted to make these earliest believers, who are meant to be role models for their audience, look so bad? This criterion says that wouldn't — that they must include those stories because they really happened, rather than being things the author made up to make their point.

Or take the Criterion of Multiple Attestation, which determines how many sources include a certain saying or event. The more sources contain a specific story, the more plausibly "authentic" that story is, since it means that different unconnected communities knew that story. Logical enough.

So yes, there are ways to consider the historicity of the Gospels — but not definitively. So the question becomes: is the historical knowledge we do have enough for me to feel some level of, I don't know, peace? stability in my faith?

And, at the end of the day, how important to me is it that every single thing the Gospels say is completely factual?

Back to what matters: the Good News

Facts are great — God gifted us our minds, and various scripture stories show God encourages us to wrestle with the text! — but we are called to faith as well.

Furthermore, taking the Bible seriously means accepting it for what it is — a collection of ancient texts compiled by humans, even if guided by Divinity — rather than insisting it be what it is not. For the Gospels, that means accepting that they are not biography, but story, and prioritize Truth over fact.

My pastor friend Roger puts it like this:

“For me, it isn’t about deciding which things Jesus really said or didn’t say. That’s a road that goes nowhere. As a pastoral response, I take scripture at face value and work to empathize with the people in and behind the text. Through that empathy, I can find some meaning that connects with what we’re facing here and now.”

When we acknowledge that the Bible includes human interpretations of the Divine, and that we bring our own human interpretations to our reading of it, where does that leave us?

It leaves us in need of conversation, of an expansion of our perspectives by talking through scripture in community. We do that conversing with friends, or attending Bible studies at church, or reading a variety of theological texts — getting as many unique understandings of Jesus as we can, joining our ideas together to get an ever broader glimpse of the Divine.

There's a reason Jesus taught in parables: he didn't want there to be one definitive answer to matters of life and faith! He wanted to ignite conversation, to draw us into community — because it's in community that we are the image of God, the Body of Christ.

So keep on wrestling, wondering, talking it through (taking time to rest when needed — there's no rush!). We discover scripture's meaning for us in our own place and time through the wrestling, together.

[balkanradfem]

I was thinking the other day about how often biblical stories imply that any sort of species can be started with just one and one female of the species, and sells this as the correct (maybe only correct) way to start things. Like Adam and Eve, they're supposed to be the starters of humanity, one (presumably young) male and one again, presumably young woman.

It repeats again with Noah's ark, where two animals of each species are collected, one male and one female, so they could all 'start their species anew'. Noah's family also is presumed to be the regular, one male + one woman, enough to re-start the humanity.

I understand that these stories were written to establish and force the idea of nuclear family being necessary, good and the start of everything, and if you don't think further than 'oh yeah one male and one woman are capable of making a baby' and you stop thinking there, you might be sold with these stories. But if you think about it for a second further, the implications of this are absolutely atrocious.

One young male and a young woman, are never accompanied by their parents or their grandparents in the stories. They're purposely isolated from their families, or are presumed to not even have family, which means none of them has any support, anyone to go to for advice or help, nobody to rely on to do the massive amount of labour of having and raising even one child. This is already where it falls apart, two young people do not have the knowledge, experience or wisdom to raise a small child, alone. They need their mothers, they need their grandmothers, they need elders and community in order to be able to function - first of all tell me who is delivering that baby they're having? Where is her midwife? It's never mentioned how she gets through childbirth in those stories, apparently she just 'figures it out', while in reality birth is dangerous, and women need both emotional and physical support during labour. There's nobody in this story who knows how to deliver the child safely, or how to save one or both of them should the things go wrong. They both have a chance of dying and then the species is dead. This is all ignored and pretended not to be an issue.

So next in the story we're led to believe that these two young people have made a (mistake) baby and are raising it alone and this is fine. Even funnier is that they often first have a male baby, as an effort to repopulate their species, I mean yeah thats gonna do you a lot of good for sure. Two young people of the opposite sex, without any elders, community, family or support, have one significant power imbalance - the male will usually be physically more powerful, while the woman will be more intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, thoughtful, resilient, and infinitely more vulnerable during the times of labour. It has been shown again and again, that in these circumstances, males do not find it appropriate to protect and treasure the women, but they use their physical advantage to overpower and control her, and her reproductive abilities. But in the stories this is 'fine' because she should 'listen' to this dumber, bigger, less intelligent, more aggressive, more demanding, more exploitative, more dangerous, less useful creature who is completely parasitic and depending on her kindness, intelligence, ability to make food, reproductive abilities and sense of forgiveness of his crimes towards her, to survive. Women are apparently just supposed to be hosts for parasitic males, while isolated, not given a way to overpower him except poison, which is then again depicted as 'bad' because she should just resign to live in servitude to the creature if she wants to prove that she is 'good'. This is bullshit.

Let's look at the next stage, where even more disasters await us. So they raised their child, or children, who have only had these two people to look up to, so they've likely picked up the patterns of 'male is to be served or violence happens, women need to keep their head down and obey or the violence happens', and now the children are supposed to repopulate the species. With? whom? This concept relies entirely on incest? With children who have been raised on learning the massive power imbalance? We're supposed to have sisters accept sexual slavery from their brothers at this point, if we want to have a species of humans? The bible is promoting this?

The bible at this point realizes they've fucked up and write down 'well the sons just went to the nearest village to find girlfriends' OH YOU NEED A VILLAGE NOW DON'T YOU? Now you remembered that actually no, you will now rebuild a species without just one male and one woman and in fact, villages are necessary, and your story leads straight into incest and sexual slavery of women. Presumably the women in the village have whole families and not just two people put in this unnatural position of parasitism and power imbalance. But we don't know, we're supposed to remember 'one male + one woman is correct and nothing else is okay', when the concept is fucked up from the starts and they eventually cave and introduce a village, but do it casually like it doesn't really matter and the story totally wouldn't end up in forced incestuous pregnancies and making a mess of human gene pool.

It was so important for the bible to establish, and re-establish this concept because that is the only way for males to be able to isolate, use and control young women. The concept where women don't have their own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, families, friends, and villages to protect them from abuse, that is the only scenario where one male can sit on his butt, call himself the 'provider' and then raise his voice and his hand whenever she doesn't do exactly as he says. It's disgusting, and there's nowhere else this can go except abuse. Males will never be unwilling to use their physical advantage to hurt and control women, and we've watched it for centuries, they were more willing to kill women than to accept that we have the right to vote,, the right to divorce them, the right to abort at will (they're still more willing to kill us than to accept this right). No woman is safe in an union with one male, without her family, friends, and a network of support. To live her entire life normally, she needs to rely on the knowledge, experience and wisdom of her elders, so she wouldn't have to do everything alone, and learn everything alone. Male, in return, usually learns all the tactics of manipulating and isolating a woman and will use those, so she needs to be ready and have strategies to defend herself, to be able to escape if it comes to that.

And sometimes, even when the woman has all the support in the world, the male still ends up killing her, because he gets a chance to do it, and it's always at the distraught and horror of everyone who loved her.

Thinking back, the concept of nuclear family had to be invented because males didn't feel like they were able to control the women enough. They likely needed to establish this because they noticed that women were able to go on uncontrolled, they were too 'free', too supported, too resourceful to just trap and control. They needed to convince women that the right thing to do was be alone with one male person who just happens to be stronger and that in fact, not doing so is dangerous and wrong. The concept of nuclear family put the control right in their hands where they wanted it, and it's still ongoing, and we're sick of it. It's a trap.

If you don't believe these stories have influenced our views, think about how males sometimes dream up concepts where they're the 'only male left on the planet', in company of the woman who they're interested in. They relish in these fantasies because they believe in that scenario, they're entitled to rape her. She isn't entitled to resist because then she's responsible for the downfall of humanity, for not repopulating the species, and they feel that this responsibility has to fall so heavy on the woman's shoulders that she will not possibly try to resist him. Women still do, women say right away that if they were the last one, they'd kill themselves instantly. Because we know and understand there's no repopulating the planet with just male and one female. There's just female sexual slavery and incest.

Possibly even the story of Adam and Eve is just a fantasy concept of one male who looked at a woman who was able to say no to him, and thought 'well, what if we were the only humans existing. How would she be able to refuse me then'. And he realized she couldn't. So he wrote it down and sold it as the ideal utopia created by god himself. And we've all been hearing his fetish fantasy like it's gospel. And then the rest of the story is focused on how wrong Eve is for resisting the rules of the male, and the even more powerful male god, how she'll be punished for eating a piece of fruit. We should have never fallen for it.

[givemebishies]

Eve absolutely had leg hair. She had bushy eyebrows and hairy arms and that didn’t make her any less feminine or any less of a woman. I know this for a fact she told me herself

[pinkinsect]

wait can I suggest femlock isagi. I think it's important to recognize that she would be feminine-leaning yes but in such a generic anime protagonist way and then she just. snaps

oh absolutely. here's her in her school uniform + scarf

and one of the iconic snapping panels. + girlkaiser

[the-mushroom-ring]

fym they're supposed to be the same character