you are not damaged goods!!!
Being Transgendered
by mariemcg 28 Replies latest jw friends
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curiouscynic
Marie-- welcome. I'm new here as well. There are definitely some really decent, genuine folks on this forum. I hope you're able to find some of the support you're looking for.
Bear with me, I'll get to a relevant point eventually... Think about when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:24 says that Jehovah placed a flaming sword blocking access to the garden. Would you imagine that the image of a flaming sword would have any impact on Adam and Eve who had never seen an implement of violence? They would have had no idea what a sword looked like or what it was used for. Placing an ACTUAL SWORD would have meant God offered Adam a blueprint for creating implements of human destruction. Since it's hard to believe that a God of love would do such a thing, that seems unlikely. Today, we obviously know what swords are and what they're used for, but the use of a flaming sword doesn't resonate with a modern audience either. I've always thought this was evidence that the scriptures, even if inspired, were written with a specific, ancient audience in mind. An audience familiar with swords, their design and purpose.
If the bible was written to be understood by an ancient audience, it certainly can't deal effectively with issues involving modern science and medicine.
Focus on scriptures that you know apply to you. Mark 12:29-31 Love your god and love your neighbor. John 13:35, By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. And don't sweat the small stuff.
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mariemcg
I have found it already a great help.... The flamimg sword - well I've never thought about it in that respect. very interesting point.
I'm from the UK and been inbetween sleep reading posts on here..
btw how can i put a pic on the photo part of my profile?
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curiouscynic
make sure you use the email address that you used when you registered on this site.
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00DAD
mariemcg: Thank you for sharing what must be a difficult thing. I cannot imagine.
My only thought is this: certainly the one that created you would not, in fact COULD NOT, reject you, for to do so would be to reject himself.
If nothing else, God's own arrogance guarantees your worth.
Daniel
PS - CC, wow, you're actually showing some empathy and compassion. I'm beginning to like you after all!
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Leolaia
It sounds like it was very tough for you. It's wonderful that you came through all that in one piece. Not getting baptized as a child (and let's face it, a teen is still a kid) is important. It can save a lot of heartache, especially if one is trying to figure out what they want to do in life, and whether one wants to be a Jehovah's Witness as an adult or not.
There is a book that is being studied in the meetings now about the book of acts- there is a bit about the Ethiopian Eunich being baptised by Philip i think then in a foot note it mentions Deut 23:1 that people like myself are not able to enter into gods kingdom and that the eunich was prob a someone looking after the treasury or of a cup bearer.. What do you think?
Hmmm. Well we don't know what the Ethiopian eunuch's situation was beyond what the text says. It is however clear that the story points to an inclusivity in Christianity that far exceeds the very exclusive situation in Judaism, where one is an Israelite by descent and those who want to become Jews, if male, must be circumcised. Eunuchs occupied an ambiguous social space, and Deuteronomy 23:1 excludes them from becoming Israelites. Trito-Isaiah holds out a hope for Gentiles and eunuchs — those excluded from Israel in the Torah — in the restoration (Isaiah 56), and I think this reflects changing social circumstances in the exilic and early post-exilic periods. Wisdom 3:14 has a similar promise: "So also the eunuch whose hand wrought no misdeed, who held no wicked thoughts against the Lord; he shall be given fidelity’s choice reward, and a more gratifying heritage in the Lord’s temple". The purpose of Acts is to show the gospel spreading out to the ends of the earth and the bringing in peoples from all nations into the Church — so the acceptance of the gospel by both Gentiles (such as Cornelius and Titus) and eunuchs represents for the author a fulfillment of the promise in Isaiah 56. Notice also that Ethiopia was the most distant land to the south within the reach of the Roman empire, so the eunuch represents the spread of the gospel not only among eunuchs but also to the geographical extremities. It is also interesting that the eunuch is depicted in the story as reading from the scroll of Isaiah, the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah 52-53, in fact, which was just a few chapters earlier than the promise to eunuchs. Since the Servant is described as bearing the iniquities of others and justifying them to God (53:11-12), and since this passage was interpreted in Second Temple Judaism as pertaining to a messianic figure who would bring about the promised restoration of Israel (cf. 4Q491c, Testament of Benjamin 3:8, Assumption of Moses 9-10), the eunuch may well have been implied as interested in the identity of the Servant on account of his role in bringing about salvation to the many, which in light of ch. 56 would have included Gentiles and eunuchs. Also interesting is the fact that Pauline Christianity abolished the requirement of circumcision for entrance into the Christian community; this opened the way for Gentile males to be full members of the congregation (for they did not need to convert to Judaism and undergo circumcision), but it also removed the issue of circumcision for eunuchs as well.
At last month's SBL (Society for Biblical Literature) conference, there were actually two papers read on the figure of the Ethiopian eunuch; I didn't hear either paper, but the abstracts are online. This one sounds particularly interesting:
Reading Acts with respect to ancient constructions of masculinity is a current lacuna in Acts’ scholarship. Although masculinity studies proliferate in the field of Classics and are being increasingly generated among biblical scholars, those who interpret Acts in light of ancient masculine norms amount to a surprising few. Even more surprising is that the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8:25-40—who arguably lacks a potent symbol of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world—remains largely unexamined by those who do attend to gender in Acts. This oversight is primarily due to the widespread assumption that the eunuch, as an official to the Queen of Ethiopia, is a personage of great importance who simply reflects Luke’s larger interest in high-status individuals. Such an assumption, however, overlooks the inextricable connection between status, ethnicity, and gender, and how the eunuch’s repeated designation as “the eunuch” (vv. 27, 34, 36, 38, 39) would have affected his status in particular. This paper, then, will problematize the depiction of the eunuch as an elite, “respectable” convert to the Way by focusing on the gendered significance of his identification as (1) “the eunuch,” (2) an Ethiopian, and (3) one who serves the Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians (v. 27). Looking at these intersecting descriptors against the backdrop of ancient masculine mores reveals that the Ethiopian eunuch would appear to many of Luke’s early auditors as a gender liminal figure; a monstrous “non-man” who is neither male nor female. In the context of Acts 8, this liminality is precisely the point, for it intersects with the liminal, ambiguously gendered body of Jesus, whom Luke identifies as the suffering servant from Isaiah 53:7-8. Like the eunuch, Jesus does not easily adhere to traditional representations of masculinity and power; a point that Luke highlights with his identification of Jesus as the Isaianic figure who is slaughtered and shorn; silent and subordinate.
I think this is fascinating....to what extent could have the eunuch identified with the figure of the Suffering Servant? That the interest was not simply in the Servant's eschatological role but ... the kind of person the Servant was portrayed as being. The subordinate, oppressed social status of the eunuch would have certainly found a parallel with the Servant. "He was despised and rejected by mankind" (Isaiah 53:3), that also has a resonance with the strongly negative attitudes that many ancient people -- especially Jews -- had toward eunuchs. He was disfigured (52:14), which would have had a parallel in the case of nonconsensual forced castration/mutilation. It is certainly possible that a eunuch would have found resonance with the figure of the Suffering Servant and took comfort in the prophecy.
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Heaven
There is a book that is being studied in the meetings now about the book of acts- there is a bit about the Ethiopian Eunich being baptised by Philip i think then in a foot note it mentions Deut 23:1 that people like myself are not able to enter into gods kingdom and that the eunich was prob a someone looking after the treasury or of a cup bearer.. What do you think?
I think the Bible was written by Bronze Aged middle eastern men who had a lot of issues with women and sex. I have my issues with this so called 'word of God'. Love is not conditional; the Bible and religion are.
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mariemcg
Thanks Leoliala.
So do you think that they're putting their own ideology into peoples head then?? It looks that way i will talk to one of the elders about it and see what they come up with. It is a bit of a contradicion..
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Adiva
Hi Marie. Happy to see you here.
Just my 2 cents: When you ask the elders about it, they may try and discourage you from 'talking' on this forum . . . evil apostates and all that. Please don't let that stop you. You have a voice and you deserve to be heard.
Adiva
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watson
So do you think that they're putting their own ideology into peoples head then?? It looks that way i will talk to one of the elders about it and see what they come up with. It is a bit of a contradicion..
Could be, and...good luck with that.