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Is it wrong that a female portray Jesus Christ?

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
He was an established Iranian Greco-Roman wrestler, and a body guard to the Mohammad Pahlavi, the last Shaw of Iran before the Islamic Revolution.
Then he has experience with royalty and that would enhance his performance as Queen Victoria. Besides, I think she was 30-0 in Greco-Roman competition.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I can understand thinking a female portraying Christ would be inappropriate for reasons of historical accuracy, but the idea that it is inherently a mockery or "cheapens divinity" strongly suggests to me an unconscious or subconscious belief that there's something inherently inferior and negative in being female.

Assuming we're not being trolled, of course.


Well, that was my reaction: I agree with you.

However, I do rather strongly object to Jesus being portrayed as female (not QUITE the same thing as a female portraying Christ...) for historical accuracy and for the whole plot thing.

Most Christians...who really do 'own' the copy-write to the idea of Jesus in the first place...do consider that the "Son of God" is part of the point....

Unless you get into the very deep doctrines of whether God Himself has a sex (or 'gender,' whatever) and if the believer is a Modalist or Trinitarian, one can get confused.

(shrug)

It's still part of the plot line.
 

Mudramoksha

Member
Mother Angelica thought so in 1993.
I think so too.


I think it was an embarrassment to America when the Pope visited Denver to see a broad portraying Christ.

I do believe that God has one and only one begotten Son. No begotten daughters of God are ever mentioned in the Good Book.

Can you imagine a woman playing Babe Ruth in a film or even Neil Armstrong?
Can you imagine a girl playing Pinocchio?
Can you imagine a boy playing Mary, the Mother of Jesus (except in Shakespeare's time)?
Can you imagine a muscle man like Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Iron Sheik playing Queen Victoria?

Can you imagine a woman playing Donald Trump?
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Then he has experience with royalty and that would enhance his performance as Queen Victoria. Besides, I think she was 30-0 in Greco-Roman competition.
90


Of course. I can see that.
 

Kangaroo Feathers

Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
Not really. This poster is referring to a time when women weren't allowed to be on the stage, period. ALL female roles were taken by men and/or boys. The audience was still aware that the character being portrayed is female. This sort of thing was done all the time; still is, AFAIK, in 'all girls' or 'all boys' schools and organizations.

Shoot, my sisters and I used to do that when we did little skits when we were kids. A similar situation is portrayed in "Little Women," where Jo wrote, produced, directed....and starred as the male romantic and action lead...in all their little plays, because, well, it was 'Little Women," not "Little Women and a Brother or Two."

This thread isn't about that; it seems to be about PORTRAYING Jesus as female, not simply having a female perform a male role so that the audience understands that the character is male.



The latter, probably.

As for me, well, just call me a stick in the mud. Never mind my personal religious beliefs...I wouldn't portray Zeus,
Hercules or Baldur as female, or Freya, Mary or Artemis as male. Just ruins the plot and turns it into an entirely different, and inaccurate, story.

Jesus as female just isn't the same character, now, is He?
I think you're making a subtle distinction OP didn't intend. I'm pretty sure he's just having a rant at the idea of a female playing the role of Jesus in any given depiction, not about portraying or depicting Jesus himself as actually female, per se.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I think you're making a subtle distinction OP didn't intend. I'm pretty sure he's just having a rant at the idea of a female playing the role of Jesus in any given depiction, not about portraying or depicting Jesus himself as actually female, per se.

The objection stated was (wait...let me check again...yep, I was right) to Jesus being portrayed AS a woman, not BY a woman. It's really very close to the beginning of the video...about 1:30 in. Whether she was RIGHT about what the portrayal was or not might be up for discussion, but that was her objection. I believe that Jonathan Bailey, the author of the OP, could confirm that, or clarify it.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
There are times when I found the idea of a pregnant woman offensive.

Mind you, those times were mostly when I was pregnant with one of my five....
I wasn't really serious. I stole that line from the movie Starship Trooper and substituted pregnant man for intelligent bug in the line.

I do not think pregnancy in man is going to be a big issue. Having helped initiate the process in the traditional way and observed it then as well as when I was growing up, I do not think I could endure it.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I wasn't really serious. I stole that line from the movie Starship Trooper and substituted pregnant man for intelligent bug in the line.

I do not think pregnancy in man is going to be a big issue. Having helped initiate the process in the traditional way and observed it then as well as when I was growing up, I do not think I could endure it.

Well, it ain't all that much fun.
the most I can say is...it's worth it.

I like my kids.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Carping about a 26 year old event now?

To be fair, most people didn't have internet access back then, and Religious Forums probably didn't exist either.

Thinking on it, there's probably lots of things I might carp about that happened decades ago, when we didn't have an internet and social media on which we could complain.

Like that time President Ford fell down the steps while he was getting off the airplane.

 

SugarOcean

¡pɹᴉǝM ʎɐʇS
To be fair, most people didn't have internet access back then, and Religious Forums probably didn't exist either.

Thinking on it, there's probably lots of things I might carp about that happened decades ago, when we didn't have an internet and social media on which we could complain.

Like that time President Ford fell down the steps while he was getting off the airplane.

I remember that.
So now that we have the net we can catch up on carping about what we weren't able to share world wide decades ago?

Don't we have a life or what? ;)
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Mother Angelica thought so in 1993.
I think so too.
In 2019, what's so special about maleness here? Do you wince when you see black Jesuses in Christian churches in Africa? Oriental Jesuses in the East?

Is the important part of Jesus an idea, which can be embodied in many ways?

Or is Jesus an historical character who must be portrayed accurately ─ not as the Nordic Jesus with long wavy light brown freshly shampoo'd hair and fine white robe fresh from the cleaners, but as the 'Mediterranean Jewish peasant' as Crossan correctly described him, who apparently had some kind of visible physical defect (Luke 4:23)?
I think it was an embarrassment to America when the Pope visited Denver to see a broad portraying Christ.
I hope you've let him know ─ I'd hate to see Francis make a fool of himself by disagreeing with you.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
To be fair, most people didn't have internet access back then, and Religious Forums probably didn't exist either.

Thinking on it, there's probably lots of things I might carp about that happened decades ago, when we didn't have an internet and social media on which we could complain.

Like that time President Ford fell down the steps while he was getting off the airplane.

That was a sad day for this country. Those camera crews should have burned the footage and it should never have been aired. It made us look so weak. I think that is where our greatness was first lost.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
In fact - his name was not Jesus (the masculine "us" ending was added much later by the Romans) His name - Jahwah - is feminine.
A lot of Hebrew male names found in the bible end in -a or -ah. Jonah is a boy's name and so is Joshua and Noah. Juno, from a Roman goddess, is a Latin female name given to girls in spite of its -o ending. We probably confuse the -us/-o, -a endings as masculine and feminine respectively due to our familiarity with various Romance or Italic languages, as Latin and Spanish. Many European languages, including English on occasions, borrow the Latin gender suffix model.
 
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Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Some of us think He was married. Maybe. Or at least, some of us wouldn't call 'BLASPHEMY!" if it turned out that He was.
A penis was given to the man during creation. When Adam knew (had sex with) his wife Eve, he had have to KNOWN her with something. I can't begin to even imagine Jesus' not having male parts. I can't imagine God's even lacking such parts. Art makes God appear to be a bearded old man. When God made a man in His own image, the whole body image must have been included even about the loins.

There are too many masculine references to God in the Bible as Lord, He and Father. I can find not even one feminine term applied to God or Jesus Christ in the Good Book.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
90


Of course. I can see that.
Now I do know that boys once played female parts in the theater as in Shakespearean times. Women were once not allowed in the theater at all. Boys have higher voices before puberty and a general softness of complexion so they could the play the parts quite well under feminine dress.

A woman or girl could probably play a boy character OK given the softness of younger boys.

It is quite awkward for a female to play a grown man due to man's deep voice, muscularity and ruggedness of complexion. It's totally disrespectful for a woman to assume to role of God's only begotten Son in a mime act or a play. A man can play the proper Jesus Christ character in drama or film if it is done reverently (seriously) and with biblical accuracy.
 
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The Reverend Bob

Fart Machine and Beastmaster
Reminder to everyone, the matter the OP is bringing up happen in 1993 during a visit by Pope John Paul II to Denver, It was World Youth Day and three young people enacted the Stations of the Cross, one was male and two were female. This traditional enactment has always been open to people of all genders. Why the OP is complaining about something that happened so long ago is beyond me. Maybe his TARDIS broke.
 
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