i hope and pray you find your way back to God
i will if i can ever talk myself out of recognizing the misogyny in the bible
The only misogyny in the bible is women serving their husbands but like... Christ told everyone to be servants to each-other. It's not strictly a woman thing
misogynistic bible verses from the God who is all-loving and above time and who's word and character never changes and says that all the word is good for teaching:
deuteronomy 22:28-29 law from God requiring women to marry their rapist if buys her from her father "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."
1 timothy 2:11-15 "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing"
exodus 20:17 God lists a wife as a possession of a husband “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
deuteronomy 20:14 God tells the israelites to take women as plunder and "use" them however they want "As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies."
1 corinthians 14:34-35 God says through paul that women are not allowed to speak in church and should ask their questions to their husband when they go home "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."
1 corinthians 11:3 God says through paul that the hierarchy goes God > Christ > man > woman "But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."
ephesians 5:22-23 i think is the verse you're referencing. while the bible does say to mutually submit to each other, it tells women to submit to their husbands as the church does to Christ (aka completely and unquestioningly), as man is the head of woman as Christ is the head of the church. Christ is above the church, man is above woman. "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."
i could go on.
i shall go on
titus 2:4-5 "urge the younger women to... be busy at home... to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God"
genesis 2:18-24 details why woman was made, specifically out of man and to be his helper, we exist to help and be men's companions. God could not find a suitable "helper" for adam among the animals, so "Then the Lord God made woman from the rub he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.'"
deuteronomy 22:23-24 says a woman should be killed if she was raped and didn't scream for help (even though most women do not fight back during rape, a totally normal and involuntary response.) the man is to be killed not because he raped a woman, but because he violated a man's wife. the crime isn't against the woman, it is against her husband, it's a property crime. "if a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife."
of the 66 books of the bible, 2 are named after women. ruth was sold like property with her dead husband's estate and "redeemed" by marrying a man. esther was kidnapped and forced into the king's harem to be prostituted and raped (his previous wife was deposed for not "showing her beauty" to the king's drunken friends, and he then sends out messages to all parts of the kingdom telling men to rule over their wives) and esther's story is about she marries the king and talks him out of murdering all the jews, but the book is mostly about mordecai, her male cousin.
2 samuel 11-12 details king david having sex with (raping? unclear if she could've refused since he was the king, but i suspect rape because she was otherwise a committed wife) bathsheba, having her husband killed, and marrying her because she got pregnant. her son is solomon, who becomes king and infamously has over 1,000 wives and "concubines", who he must have raped too. God isn't shown to approve of any of this other than honoring them, having Jesus be descended from them patrilinealy, and having their stories be like 30% of the entire OT, and God has a history of using the underdog, but it is illustrative of how women were (and are, as bathsheba is often portrayed as a 'seductress) seen by "God's people"
after allowing satan to murder job's sons and daughters, God replaced his sons and gives him new daughters described as the most beautiful in the land (job 42: 15). his daughters are seen as disposable and now more worthy to Job because of their appearance.
judges 19-21 details a levite man and a woman only described as "his concubine." a mob came up to where they were staying and demanded the man be brought out so they could have sex with him. the man they were staying with said not to do something so vile, and gave over the concubine instead telling them to do what they wish, which they brutally gangraped and beat her in the street until she was catatonic. the next day, the man dismembered "his concubine" and sent her body parts to the tribes of israel. this concludes in a war, and the benjamites not "being provided with" wives from the war, so they kidnap, rape, and enslave women of another tribe for themselves, as instructed by the israelites, "God's people".
in genesis 19, 2 angels appear to lot, and men come up to him wanting to have sex with them. lot tells them not to do this wicked thing (same wording as in judges, above) and he offers them to rape his virgin daughters instead. lot is never punished for this and is instead later described as righteous in the NT, but his wife is killed for looking back as God destroyed her city.
1 peter 3:5-6 tells women to submit to their husbands as to God and call them their lord "They [holy women on the past] submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord."
exodus 22:16 says if a man sleeps with a woman but her father refuses the marriage, he still has to pay her father but can't marry her, because women are their fathers property and get no choice of their own.
exodus 21:10 allows a man several wives if he doesn't deprive the first of her food and clothes and marital rights, and if he doesn't she is "allowed to go free" with no payment.
joshua 15:16-17 caleb offers his daughter's hand in marriage like she's his property, a reward for whoever can capture kiriath sepher.
judges 5:30 includes "a woman or two for each man" as plunder/spoils of war, listed among colorful garments. again, women are property, objects, plunder of war for men to use as they please, and we all know this is not consensual, it's the rape and kidnapping of prisoners of war.
again, i could go on even more than this. the bible is a long, very misogynistic book.
and it's absolutely littered with women being raped, kidnapped, enslaved, treated like property. nearly all of the prominent men are rapists. amnon, david's son, raped his half-sister.
but wait, there's more
titus 1:6-9, similar to 1 timothy 2 above where paul says women are not to have any authority or speak in church or teach and must be quiet, women are not allowed to be elders in the church or have any positions. titus 1:6 and 1 timothy 3:1-3 say elders must be "faithful to their wives", doesn't even outright say women should not be in these ranks because who would even propose that!
genesis 3:16 is a classic but a good one, God punishes eve by making her husband rule over her. you'll also note that adam's punishment -- hard work to produce food, dust you are and dust you will return, etc -- is also a punishment for women, because it's not like women don't also have to work to produce food and return to dust. so eve gets the punishment of pain during childbirth and having her husband "rule over her" and adam's punishment, and adam gets a punishment he will share with women. hm.
you'll notice this "rule over you" is used right afterwards, in genesis 4:7, where God says "sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you but you must rule over it." which, to me, reads like sin and women are something equally deserving to be ruled over, controlled, dominated.
women make up less than 15% of all people mentioned in the bible, most of them being prostituted women or women who couldn't have children but needed them. 188/205 female characters have names, and almost 1,200 male characters have names.
abraham is honored as one of the most important, most righteous figures in the bible, and he gave his wife up to be raped several times saying she was his sister, and had many concubines whom he also would've raped (genesis 25:6)
in genesis 29:31-35, leah, one of jacob's several wives, has 4 sons to get him to love her (never daughters, you'll notice. daughters are not valued and rarely mentioned, and often not even named as abraham's weren't). and God makes rachel, the wife jacob loves, barren, because jacob hated his other wife, leah, who was able to have sons.
genesis 30:9-22 details jacob raping a female servant, who had a son, and rachel also had a son because God remembered her, never daughters.
genesis 31:17 jacob also had "concubines" whom he would've also raped. again, a very common theme with famous men in the bible, king solomon had 700 of these women.
genesis 35:17 is where rachel dies in childbirth, but it's ok because it's a son
leviticus 12:1-5 a woman is "unclean" for twice as long after birth if she gives birth to a daughter rather than a son. she is forbidden from touching anything sacred during this time, same if she's on her period.
leviticus 20:12 the theme of punishing women for being raped arises again, if a man rapes his daughter in law, they're both to be killed
leviticus 27:1-7 is literally God telling moses how much money people are worth, the women are always worth about half the money men are. for example, a man between 20-60 years old is worth 50 shekels of silver, a woman the same age is worth 30 shekels.
in numbers 12, miriam and aaron oppose moses for marrying a cushite woman, so God strikes miram with leprosy and forces her into confinement outside the camp for 7 days, and does not punish aaron.
numbers 27:8-11 is where God says who gets the inheritance after a man dies. first it goes to his son. if he doesn't have a son, it goes to his daughter. no daughter, it goes to his brothers. no brothers, it goes to his father's brothers. it only goes to a woman if she is his daughter and he doesn't have any sons.
numbers 30:3-6 a woman's vow is null if her father opposes it, but if he doesn't she's fully responsible. same with if she is married, her husband can nullify her vow but also holds no responsibility if he doesn't. complete control over her with none of the consequences.
deuteronomy 21:11 God tells the israelite men that if they see a beautiful woman while going to war, they can take her as captive and make her their wife (rape and sexual enslavement). if the man is not "pleased with her", he can let her go free. he is not to sell her as a slave because he has "dishonored her."
deuteronomy 21:16 adds more onto inheritance. if a man has multiple wives and doesn't love the one who had his firstborn son, he still has to give that son his inheritance when he dies, because this son is the "first sign of his father's strength". daughters and wives are to get nothing.
deuteronomy 24:1-4 if a man marries a woman who "becomes displeasing to him", he can divorce her. if she marries again, and that husband also dislikes her and divorces her, she can't remarry the first husband because she has been defiled and it would be detestable to God.
deuteronomy 27:20 Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his father's wife, for he dishonor's his fathers bed. again, the theme of crimes against women actually being crimes against the men who "own" them.
shall i go on! because there's really just so much material here.
Also no longer being a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve abandoned God. Christians don’t own the concept of there being a Deity
