According to conservative theories woman was derived from man as told in the story of Adam and Eve where Eve is created from Adam’s rib. I concluded in my previous post “Creation” that the story of Adam and Eve is not a creation story but a story told to depict the nature of sin. If this is so, than God created male and female both in His image and likeness as Genesis states:
26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
The term here for man is used as a generic term for man – as in mankind or humanity. God creates man and woman in His own image and likeness – to be like Him – and blesses both of them. That would put man and woman as equals, both being the blessed creation of God.
How long has the true role of women been buried? What if we knew that Jesus had women disciples? How would this have affected the role of women from his time to now – knowing that Jesus himself picked women to teach his God-given spiritual teachings?
Well, with the accidental discovery of ancient gospels in 1896, we do know this. Unfortunately, due to a series of events, the first translation of these documents wasn’t around until 1955 and was still being finalized through 1983 in which we finally have the outcome of one of the three gospels – The Gospel of Mary.
Who was this Mary? Mary Magdalene whom the Bible illustrates as a prostitute. However in reading this gospel it is evident that she was one of Jesus’ disciples and one of his most spiritually advanced disciples whom he possibly favored over the others due to the spiritual advancement of her thought.
Imagine how different history would have been if we had known that a woman was one of Jesus’ best students. This only begins to show us women’s true role and significance in the world.
As women begin to understand their spiritual place in the world, their divinely ordained being, they can understand that there can be no imposition placed on them. They are entirely free to achieve, accomplish, and posses the kingdom of God. The knowledge of this has cured women of “women’s diseases”. And as we rise to the true concept of woman, man can also find freedom from this. The power is not taken from man and given to woman or vice versa. But each has their own individual, unique role to fill. Each sex is complete and perfect including both the masculine and feminine qualities in their being. Women include strength, dominion, and conviction just as man includes beauty, purity, and intuition. Neither has to take the qualities from the other because we all include them completely. By the realization of this both man and woman can naturally fulfill their roles without any impositions.
In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy gives the definition of man – meaning the generic term for mankind, including women. Even though this definition speaks about all humanity, I have altered the pronoun for clarity in understanding the true identity of woman.
Question.--What is woman?
Answer.--Woman is not matter; she is not made up of
brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The
Scriptures inform us that woman is made in
the image and likeness of God. Matter is
not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so
unlike Spirit. Woman is spiritual and perfect; and be-
cause she is spiritual and perfect, she must be so under-
stood in Christian Science. Woman is idea, the image, of
Love; she is not physique. She is the compound idea of
God, including all right ideas; the generic term for
all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious
identity of being as found in Science, in which woman is
the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal;
that which has no separate mind from God; that which
has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which
possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of her
own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to her Maker.
And God said: Let us make woman in our image, after
our likeness; and let her have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth.
Woman is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The
real woman cannot depart from holiness, nor
can God, by whom woman is evolved, engender
the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not
God's woman. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals.
They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil,
which declares that woman begins in dust [or from the rib of Adam]
or as a material embryo. In divine Science, God and the real
woman are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.
Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed.
Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life
and intelligence are in matter, and that this matter is woman.
God is the Principle of woman, and woman is the idea of God.
Hence woman is not mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear,
and immortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only
and eternal verities of woman. Mortals are not fallen chil-
dren of God. They never had a perfect state of being,
which may subsequently be regained. They were, from
the beginning of mortal history, "conceived in sin and
brought forth in iniquity." Mortality is finally swallowed
up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must dis-
appear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal
woman.
Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual
status of woman, which is outside of all material selfhood.
Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal
woman: "As for woman, her days are as grass: as
a flower of the field, so she flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
know it no more."
When speaking of God's children, not the children of
men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;"
that is, Truth and Love reign in the real woman, showing
that woman in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus
beheld in Science the perfect woman, who appeared to him
where sinning [or less than man] mortal woman appears to
mortals. In this perfect woman the Saviour saw God's own
likeness, and this correct view of woman healed the sick.
Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal,
and that woman is pure and holy. Woman is not a material
habitation for Soul; she is herself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit,
is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.
Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal
senses, woman appears to be matter and mind united; but
Christian Science reveals woman as the idea of God, and
declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring illusions.
Divine Science shows it to be impossible that a material body,
though interwoven with matter's highest stratum, misnamed
mind, should be woman,--the genuine and perfect woman,
the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
Were it otherwise, woman would be annihilated.
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