Because the Jews didn’t have them priestesses].
That’s largely true, but, it goes far deeper. The reason the Jews didn’t have them was because Mosaic Judaism was in accord with righteousness and the created order of God’s universe. In the Jewish understanding, “priesthood” was a dimension of fatherhood; and fatherhood included the headship of the family - the father being the head of the family, whereas the mother is the heart of the family. In this, it is helpful to realize that the Levites held the priesthood only as a punishment after the rebellion of the Golden Calf at Sinai. Before this time, the priest of a family, tribe, or clan was the presiding father or patriarch of that family, tribe, or clan (e.g. Abraham, Jacob, etc.). In the New Covenant, this original order was restored; and thus non-Levitical “
presbuteroi” (“presbyters”/“elders”) - i.e., older and responsible men in the Christian community -were invested with the Christian priesthood - the fatherhood of the community. So, as with Israel of old, women cannot be Christian ministerial priests because they cannot be fathers.
It should also be noted that the reason there were priestesses in other (pagan) religions was because these other religions were not in accord with the created universe of God’s creation or geared toward the unity of a family. Rather, female priestesses were always essentially temple prostitutes who personified a certain goddess (a goddess being the personification of some created element of the universe), and these pagan religions practice ritual sex, in which the priestess served to “sexually arouse” the gods or to have sex with a male priest or ruler, who personified a male god. Needless to say, this was not very “family friendly.” There were no G-rated pagan temples.
All the priests were males. Note that Paul, in his letter to the Romans (16:1,2) says:
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant at the church of Cenchrae; that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well.”
Phoebe was a servant in Greece. Women would have been more accepted in a religious capacity outside of Israel.
Sorry, Tricia, but that is silly revisionism.*The same Paul who wrote Romans 16 also wrote 1 Tim. 2:11-12 and 1 Cor. 14:33-35, where Paul clearly says that it is the rule in “ALL the churches of the holy ones” for women to keep silent to receive instruction from their husbands. This would include the city-church of Cenchrae, where Phoebe is called a “servant.” Here, a little geography helps as well: if you look at an ancient map of Greece, Cenchrae was a suburb of Corinth, and thus part of the same, greater metropolitan church that Paul is directly addressing in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35.
Thus, Phoebe could not possibly have been a “servant” in the sense of an ordained minister; rather, as any Greek speaker knows, the term “
diakonon” (“deacon”) had both a ministerial and a generic meaning for ancient Christians. Paul is using it in the latter sense in Romans 16. He is merely saying that Phoebe is a “servant” (that is, active member) of the local church in Cenchrae. This could mean that she acted in the capacity of the female “deacons” mentioned in 1 Tim 3:11, (who, as the Didache tells us, were not ordained ministers, but merely assisted the presbyters and ordained male deacons when they Baptized women, etc.) or, more likely, Phoebe was some rich Greco-Roman woman who supported the church financially, as did St. Lydia (see Acts 16:14ff). St. Priscilla or Prisca (see Romans 16:3) and many other such women. This is evidence by the fact that Paul calls Phoebe his “benefactor” in Romans 16:2. IOW, she probably owned the house-church where the Christians in Cenchrae met; and the fact that she was traveling to Rome (so as to bear Paul’s epistle to the Roman church) shows that she (perhaps with a pagan husband) was some kind of business proprietors who traveled from city-to-city, as did Lydia (a dealer in purple cloth) and Priscilla and Aquila (who ran a tent-making business). All this is abundantly clear for anyone who reads Romans 16 honestly and without a modern, feminist agenda. I again give you 1 Tim. 2:11-12. It was clearly forbidden by the Apostles for a woman to hold any kind of authoritative ministry in the Church.
They were sociologically similar (patriarchal) but religiously dissimilar. While other ancient cultures were pagan, the Jews followed Mosaic law.
This is largely true. The Celts were also quasi-matriarchal at times. But, all this is beside the point. The point is that true inspired religion was essentially different from pagan religion because true inspired religion was ordered toward the mysterious and eternal Fatherhood of God (see Eph. 3:14-15), and thus had male priests to image this Divine Fatherhood, whereas pagan religion worshipped forces of the created universe (as if they were gods), and thus had priestly ministers who imaged the qualities of these created forces, which were seen as either male (a god) or female (a goddess). The true God of Israel could not be imaged as a female, i.e., a receptive nurturer of life, since He is the initiating Creator of all, and thus a clear Progenitor and Originator of life - a role held in human and created biology by men, not by women. To depict God or His priest in a female capacity is essentially to say that God is “receptive” and “incubative” rather than a Progenitor, and thus part of Creation, rather than its supernatural Originator. This is the deepest problem with a proposed female priesthood for Christianity.
continued. . .
