© 2020 Olga López
© 2020 Urantia Association of Spain
Jesus of Nazareth, the Master Teacher, indisputably changed the history of our planet after his short life on Urantia. Although he did not come to change the social order of our world (he was not a revolutionary, in the sense in which this term is normally understood), his teachings, as transmitted by Christianity, have given hope and improved the lives of billions of people over the past two thousand years.
In light of the teachings of The Urantia Book, we find a Jesus closer and even more powerful than the one portrayed in the Gospels. And there is one aspect of his life that is not usually emphasized, and that is precisely his attitude toward women. It was precisely one of the aspects that posed a real challenge to the social norms and conventions of first-century Palestine.
So, in this presentation, we’ll explore this interesting aspect of the Master. First, we’ll look at how he behaved toward the women in his own family, and second, what his attitude toward women in general was.
Regarding his family, it is worth noting that Jesus provided his sisters with the same education as his brothers. And, since society didn’t allow for it, he took it upon himself to provide it:
“Ordinarily the girls of Jewish families received little education, but Jesus maintained (and his mother agreed) that girls should go to school the same as boys, and since the synagogue school would not receive them, there was nothing to do but conduct a home school especially for them.” UB 127:1.5
As we see, Jesus always had a proactive attitude. If he believed something needed to be done and society didn’t provide the necessary means, he did it himself.
His relationship with his mother, on the other hand, was exemplary. If there were problems in his dealings with his mother, it was due to Mary’s insistence on viewing her son as the Jewish Messiah, liberator of Israel. This misinterpretation of his mission on Earth caused Jesus much suffering and disappointment. Mary was quite a character!
Without abandoning the women in his family yet, I can’t forget Ruth, his younger sister, for she was an important figure in Jesus’ life. She was practically the only member of his family who remained close to him, even in times of deep estrangement, when misunderstandings and incomprehension damaged his relationship with the rest of his family. For Ruth, who was born months after her father, Joseph, had died, Jesus was a brother-father.
Also worth mentioning is the episode with Rebekah, the girl who fell in love with Jesus when he was still living in Nazareth, especially the exquisite way the Master handled the matter to dissuade Rebekah from wanting to be his partner. Rebekah was a great woman, and would undoubtedly have made a wonderful wife for Jesus, but he couldn’t leave human offspring on the planet, and at that time there were no reliable methods of contraception that could prevent an unwanted pregnancy.
There’s an episode from Jesus’ “lost years” that has always moved me particularly, and I want to mention it here because it’s related to the topic at hand.
Upon returning from a trip to Rome, prior to his time of public preaching, Jesus witnessed an incident in which a man was mistreating his wife. This incident is a clear example of the exceptional way Jesus handled an unjust situation (an assault) and turned it around and transformed it into reconciliation. But it also gives us insight into what a man-woman relationship should be and the role each plays in that partnership. I include here Jesus’ final words to the man, who was finally moved by Jesus’ words and radically changed his attitude:
“My brother, always remember that man has no rightful authority over woman unless the woman has willingly and voluntarily given him such authority. Your wife has engaged to go through life with you, to help you fight its battles, and to assume the far greater share of the burden of bearing and rearing your children; and in return for this special service it is only fair that she receive from you that special protection which man can give to woman as the partner who must carry, bear, and nurture the children. The loving care and consideration which a man is willing to bestow upon his wife and their children are the measure of that man’s attainment of the higher levels of creative and spiritual self-consciousness. Do you not know that men and women are partners with God in that they co-operate to create beings who grow up to possess themselves of the potential of immortal souls? … It is Godlike to share your life and all that relates thereto on equal terms with the mother partner who so fully shares with you that divine experience of reproducing yourselves in the lives of your children” UB 133:2.1-3
Throughout his public life, Jesus of Nazareth preached that men and women were equal in the eyes of God. Given the socioeconomic conditions of the time in which he lived, this was a revolutionary statement.
“Before the teachings of Jesus, (…) women had little or no spiritual standing in the tenets of the older religions. Afterward (…) woman stood before God, in the brotherhood of the kingdom, on an equal footing with men (…) No longer can man presume to monopolize the ministry of religious service. The Pharisee might go on thanking God that he was “not born a woman, a leper, or a gentile,” but among the followers of Jesus woman has been forever set free from all religious discriminations based on sex…” UB 194:3.14
Here, for example, is Jesus’ attitude toward divorce as it was practiced among the Jews of that time:
Jesus (…) never approved a divorce practice that gave men any advantage over women; the Master supported only those teachings that granted women equality with men. UB 167:5.4
Since men and women had equal right to enter the kingdom, he organized a body of instructors dedicated to preaching the good news among women.
“The most astonishing and the most revolutionary feature of Michael’s mission on earth was his attitude toward women. In a day and generation when a man was not supposed to salute even his own wife in a public place, Jesus dared to take women along as teachers of the gospel in connection with his third tour of Galilee. And he had the consummate courage to do this in the face of the rabbinic teaching which declared that it was “better that the words of the law should be burned than delivered to women.” ” UB 149:2.8
Jesus created a group of female disciples, and this marked a significant break with the Jewish customs of the time, which were tremendously unfair to women.
“It was most astounding in that day, when women were not even allowed on the main floor of the synagogue (being confined to the women’s gallery), to behold them being recognized as authorized teachers of the new gospel of the kingdom. The charge which Jesus gave these ten women as he set them apart for gospel teaching and ministry was the emancipation proclamation which set free all women and for all time; no more was man to look upon woman as his spiritual inferior. This was a decided shock to even the twelve apostles. Notwithstanding they had many times heard the Master say that “in the kingdom of heaven there is neither rich nor poor, free nor bond, male nor female, all are equally the sons and daughters of God,” they were literally stunned when he proposed formally to commission these ten women as religious teachers and even to permit their traveling about with them. The whole country was stirred up by this proceeding, the enemies of Jesus making great capital out of this move, but everywhere the women believers in the good news stood stanchly behind their chosen sisters and voiced no uncertain approval of this tardy acknowledgment of woman’s place in religious work.” UB 150:1.3
It’s a shame that, despite Jesus preaching that men and women had equal rights, his followers have forgotten and even distorted those ideas.
“In one generation Jesus lifted women out of the disrespectful oblivion and the slavish drudgery of the ages. And it is the one shameful thing about the religion that presumed to take Jesus’ name that it lacked the moral courage to follow this noble example in its subsequent attitude toward women.” UB 149:2.9
“Woman’s status in Palestine was much improved by Jesus’ teaching; and so it would have been throughout the world if his followers had not departed so far from that which he painstakingly taught them.” UB 167:6.4
A clear example is Paul of Tarsus, the true ideologue of Christianity, who clearly despised women. Among other things, this is what The Urantia Book says about it:
And this liberation of women, giving them due recognition, was practiced by the apostles immediately after the Master’s departure, albeit they fell back to the olden customs in subsequent generations. Throughout the early days of the Christian church women teachers and ministers were called deaconesses and were accorded general recognition. But Paul, despite the fact that he conceded all this in theory, never really incorporated it into his own attitude and personally found it difficult to carry out in practice. UB 150:1.3
“It was only natural that the cult of renunciation and humiliation should have paid attention to sexual gratification (…) But this cult led Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that his personal opinions have long influenced the teachings of a great world religion. If the advice of the tentmaker-teacher were to be literally and universally obeyed, then would the human race come to a sudden and inglorious end. Furthermore, the involvement of a religion with the ancient continence cult leads directly to a war against marriage and the home, society’s veritable foundation and the basic institution of human progress. And it is not to be wondered at that all such beliefs fostered the formation of celibate priesthoods in the many religions of various peoples.” UB 89:3.6
Thus, Christianity missed the opportunity to improve the situation of women, who over the centuries failed to shake off the stigma of sin that Eve, the first woman, had imposed on them through original sin. And although in the early days of Christianity there were deaconesses who officiated at religious services, they were marginalized and relegated to monasticism. A situation that, of course, is far removed from the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And in the rest of the world’s religions, unfortunately, the situation is no better. Women continue to be subjected in much of the world to the tyranny imposed by traditions and religions.
Truly, the world (and, of course, women) needs to know what Jesus’ attitude toward women was. An attitude that is in perfect harmony with the duality present in many orders of celestial beings, such as angels, Material Sons, and Creator Son-Divine Minister couples, to name a few.
It’s a shame that, while monotheistic religions remain so influential today, they haven’t been sufficiently concerned with combating the injustice of gender discrimination. Not only that, but they’ve actually widened the gap between men and women even further.
The early Chinese and the Greeks treated women better than did most surrounding peoples. But the Hebrews were exceedingly distrustful of them. In the Occident woman has had a difficult climb under the Pauline doctrines which became attached to Christianity, although Christianity did advance the mores by imposing more stringent sex obligations upon man. Woman’s estate is little short of hopeless under the peculiar degradation which attaches to her in Mohammedanism, and she fares even worse under the teachings of several other Oriental religions. UB 84:5.6
In my opinion, we women can expect little help from institutionalized religions. Religion as a personal experience with God, the religion of Jesus, is the only one that can transform us and, by extension, the society in which we live. This religion has two very important corollaries that must be applied to our daily lives if we are consistent with what we claim to profess:
Therefore, we, as readers committed to the fifth epochal revelation, must put our personal religion, the religion of Jesus, into practice so that our planet can emerge from the barbarism in which it finds itself, which leads men and women to continue to view each other as antagonistic. The transition to a new era depends on ending this discrimination once and for all.