Alice C. Linsley
To understand the biblical view of blood and gender distinctions we must recognize that the priesthood is first found among one group: the early Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste (4200-2000 BC). The social structure of the Hebrew is not patriarchal. I have written about that in my book The First Lords of the Earth: An Anthropological Study.
The Hebrew social structure does not have the 6 features required to be classified as patriarchal. For example, in the Hebrew system of cognatic descent, Hebrew mothers were acknowledged as ancestors. Hebrew women exercised considerable influence within their social circles, and they owned property and could inherit property. Solomon bowed before Bathsheba, the queen mother, and had her sit on a throne at his right side (1 Kg. 2:19). Hebrew women served as clan chiefs, prophets, and judges. Some temple-dedicated Hebrew women had vital ministries to women who came to the temples for ritual cleansing and healing.
The typical Feminist narrative runs: "Israel was a patriarchal society. Legal codes conceive of men as the sole legal actors. Women are regarded as men's possessions on a par with oxen, asses, and slaves. Women are sexually abused and valued mainly for the reproduction of offspring. Even the sign of the covenant is an expression is male circumcision."
Legal codes provided for women, especially widows. Women were able to inherit property and temple women were independently wealthy. Circumcision was a custom among priests and women were not priests.
Blood is the complex and somewhat mysterious transport system that allows communication and coordination between different parts of the human body. It nourishes organs and muscles. Without it, life as we know it could not exist. It is natural to associate blood with the beginning of life and the renewal of life. For Saint Paul the Blood of Jesus speaks of the fullness of life in God. The blood of sacrificed animals prefigured the Blood of Jesus but could never serve as a substitute. In Chapter 156 from the Book of the Dead (translated by R. Faulkner), the blood of the divine one provides protection.
The typical Feminist narrative runs: "Israel was a patriarchal society. Legal codes conceive of men as the sole legal actors. Women are regarded as men's possessions on a par with oxen, asses, and slaves. Women are sexually abused and valued mainly for the reproduction of offspring. Even the sign of the covenant is an expression is male circumcision."
Legal codes provided for women, especially widows. Women were able to inherit property and temple women were independently wealthy. Circumcision was a custom among priests and women were not priests.
A proper understanding of the priesthood clarifies why women were never priests. The blood work of women pertains to childbirth, the giving of life. Hebrew women spilled blood in the birthing of their children, and this blood was regarded as having power and presence. Men were not permitted in the birthing chambers. Likewise, Hebrew women were not permitted in the place of animal sacrifice. None ever served as priests, though they were the wives and daughters of Hebrew ruler-priests.
Not a single woman is described as a priest in the Bible because that would have been unthinkable to the Hebrew. The idea of women sacrificing animals in the sacred space reserved for men would have been regarded as an affront to the Creator. He created women to bring forth life, not to take it.
The distinction between the blood work of females and the blood work of males ultimately is about the distinction between life and death. This is why the Hebrew were commanded never to boil a baby goat it its mother’s milk. The mother's milk speaks of life. Killing the new life in the substance of life blurs the distinction between life and death.
Ignoring the origins of the priesthood weakens the traditionalist defense of the male priesthood. Traditionalists tend to go back only to the first and second centuries of Christianity, overlooking thousands of years of salvation history and significant anthropological and archaeological information.
Anthropological studies have shown that the origins of the priesthood predate Abraham by at least 2200 years. The oldest known order of priests to worship one supreme Creator were the Horite priests of Nekhen along the Nile (3600 B.C.). The ruler-priest Melchizedek was not the first of his kind. Hebrew priests were a caste, and as such practiced endogamy, that is, they married only within their priestly lines. Archaeological discoveries reveal that there was an order of priests dedicated to the Creator and his Son (HR) as early as 3200 B.C. The Horite Hebrew ancestors of Abraham were devotees of HR (Horus in Greek). That is why even today Jews refer to their ancestors as the "Horim".
The Hebrew ruler-priests held a binary worldview (versus a dualistic worldview). They were great observers of the patterns in nature and noted certain fixed binary sets: male-female, day-night and east-west. These priests kept records of celestial events and natural phenomena because they believed that God has made his divine nature and eternal power known in the order of creation (Romans 1:20). When we ignore or confuse such binary distinctions we have a distorted view of the fullness of Christ.
The Hebrew priests regarded blood as the substance of life. This why the first man is called Adam in the Bible. Adam is a reference to blood. Ha-dam means "the Blood" and specified human beings among archaic peoples. Leviticus 17:11: “The life is in the Blood.”
There is an etymological connection between the words Adam, Edom and the Hausa word Odum. These words pertain to red, the color of blood. Edom was the home of an especially prestigious line of ruler-priests. Some were identified as having a red skin tone. These Horite Hebrew rulers are listed in Genesis 36. Jesus is a descendant of these Hebrew rulers.
Anthropological studies have shown that the origins of the priesthood predate Abraham by at least 2200 years. The oldest known order of priests to worship one supreme Creator were the Horite priests of Nekhen along the Nile (3600 B.C.). The ruler-priest Melchizedek was not the first of his kind. Hebrew priests were a caste, and as such practiced endogamy, that is, they married only within their priestly lines. Archaeological discoveries reveal that there was an order of priests dedicated to the Creator and his Son (HR) as early as 3200 B.C. The Horite Hebrew ancestors of Abraham were devotees of HR (Horus in Greek). That is why even today Jews refer to their ancestors as the "Horim".
The Hebrew ruler-priests held a binary worldview (versus a dualistic worldview). They were great observers of the patterns in nature and noted certain fixed binary sets: male-female, day-night and east-west. These priests kept records of celestial events and natural phenomena because they believed that God has made his divine nature and eternal power known in the order of creation (Romans 1:20). When we ignore or confuse such binary distinctions we have a distorted view of the fullness of Christ.
The Hebrew priests regarded blood as the substance of life. This why the first man is called Adam in the Bible. Adam is a reference to blood. Ha-dam means "the Blood" and specified human beings among archaic peoples. Leviticus 17:11: “The life is in the Blood.”
There is an etymological connection between the words Adam, Edom and the Hausa word Odum. These words pertain to red, the color of blood. Edom was the home of an especially prestigious line of ruler-priests. Some were identified as having a red skin tone. These Horite Hebrew rulers are listed in Genesis 36. Jesus is a descendant of these Hebrew rulers.
Blood is the complex and somewhat mysterious transport system that allows communication and coordination between different parts of the human body. It nourishes organs and muscles. Without it, life as we know it could not exist. It is natural to associate blood with the beginning of life and the renewal of life. For Saint Paul the Blood of Jesus speaks of the fullness of life in God. The blood of sacrificed animals prefigured the Blood of Jesus but could never serve as a substitute. In Chapter 156 from the Book of the Dead (translated by R. Faulkner), the blood of the divine one provides protection.
The Blood of Christ
For St. Paul, the benefits of the “blood of Jesus” are manifested as the pleroma, or the fullness of all things in heaven and on earth, both invisible and visible. Jesus' blood has universal power and presence. The Gnostics used the term to describe the metaphysical unity of all things. Paul uses the term to speak about how all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in bodily form (Col. 2:9).
Paul refers to the blood of Jesus no less than twelve times in his writings. Because God makes peace with us through the blood of the cross, he urges “Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together” (Eph. 4:3).
This idea that men and women have distinct blood work is a foreign concept to moderns. Today women fight in combat, hunt and abort their unborn. However, in the ancient world men and women had distinct roles when it came to blood work. These roles were not to be confused. Nor was it proper for the blood shed by males and females to be present in the same place. That is why women were not permitted at the altar of blood sacrifice and men were not permitted inside birthing chambers.
Abraham's Hebrew people made a distinction also between the blood work of men in killing and the blood work of women in birthing. The two bloods represent the binary set of life and death. The blood shed in war, hunting and animal sacrifice fell to warriors, hunters and priests. The blood shed in first intercourse, the monthly cycle and in childbirth fell to wives and midwives. The two bloods were never to mix or even to be present in the same space. Women did not participate in war, the hunt, and in ritual sacrifices, and they were isolated during menses.
Historically, in the Church women and their newborn infants were received with great solemnity and joy. This "churching" was the Church’s way to recognize the woman and welcome the child. This was a positive statement about the blood work of childbearing. The practice was observed in the Church for centuries but disappeared in most Western churched as feminists railed against it. Today, instead of welcoming the newborn and affirming the labor of the mother, we find clergy celebrating abortion. In a speech delivered at the Episcopal Church Seminary in Massachusetts, the Dean, Katharine Ragsdale, led her audience in this chant:
“Let me hear you say it:
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”
The innovation of women priests has caused great confusion and division in the Church. This has spread throughout the whole Anglican Communion. This innovation is contrary to the received tradition whereby the blood work of women and the blood work of men is distinct and never confused (an anthropological observation). A female standing as a priest at the altar is as confusing as a male intending to represent the Virgin Mary.
Regardless of how one views the priest at altar - in persona christi, in persona ecclesiae, an icon of Christ, the divinely appointed mediator in the pattern of the Mediator, etc., this is not a matter of secondary importance. No synod or jurisdiction has authority to change the received tradition concerning Jesus Christ and his blood shed for the salvation of the world.
C.S. Lewis is correct that when it comes to the Church's received tradition, "We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us." (From Priestesses in the Church?)
Related reading: Water and Blood; Why Women Were Never Priests; God as Male Priest; The Origin of Animal Sacrifice; Circumcision and Gender Distinctions; Are Feminists Correct About the Church?; Males as Spiritual Leaders: Two Patterns; Philosophers' Corner: On Blood and the Impulse to Immortality; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: The Hebrew were a Caste
For St. Paul, the benefits of the “blood of Jesus” are manifested as the pleroma, or the fullness of all things in heaven and on earth, both invisible and visible. Jesus' blood has universal power and presence. The Gnostics used the term to describe the metaphysical unity of all things. Paul uses the term to speak about how all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in bodily form (Col. 2:9).
Paul refers to the blood of Jesus no less than twelve times in his writings. Because God makes peace with us through the blood of the cross, he urges “Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together” (Eph. 4:3).
This idea that men and women have distinct blood work is a foreign concept to moderns. Today women fight in combat, hunt and abort their unborn. However, in the ancient world men and women had distinct roles when it came to blood work. These roles were not to be confused. Nor was it proper for the blood shed by males and females to be present in the same place. That is why women were not permitted at the altar of blood sacrifice and men were not permitted inside birthing chambers.
Abraham's Hebrew people made a distinction also between the blood work of men in killing and the blood work of women in birthing. The two bloods represent the binary set of life and death. The blood shed in war, hunting and animal sacrifice fell to warriors, hunters and priests. The blood shed in first intercourse, the monthly cycle and in childbirth fell to wives and midwives. The two bloods were never to mix or even to be present in the same space. Women did not participate in war, the hunt, and in ritual sacrifices, and they were isolated during menses.
Historically, in the Church women and their newborn infants were received with great solemnity and joy. This "churching" was the Church’s way to recognize the woman and welcome the child. This was a positive statement about the blood work of childbearing. The practice was observed in the Church for centuries but disappeared in most Western churched as feminists railed against it. Today, instead of welcoming the newborn and affirming the labor of the mother, we find clergy celebrating abortion. In a speech delivered at the Episcopal Church Seminary in Massachusetts, the Dean, Katharine Ragsdale, led her audience in this chant:
“Let me hear you say it:
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”
The innovation of women priests has caused great confusion and division in the Church. This has spread throughout the whole Anglican Communion. This innovation is contrary to the received tradition whereby the blood work of women and the blood work of men is distinct and never confused (an anthropological observation). A female standing as a priest at the altar is as confusing as a male intending to represent the Virgin Mary.
Regardless of how one views the priest at altar - in persona christi, in persona ecclesiae, an icon of Christ, the divinely appointed mediator in the pattern of the Mediator, etc., this is not a matter of secondary importance. No synod or jurisdiction has authority to change the received tradition concerning Jesus Christ and his blood shed for the salvation of the world.
C.S. Lewis is correct that when it comes to the Church's received tradition, "We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us." (From Priestesses in the Church?)
Related reading: Water and Blood; Why Women Were Never Priests; God as Male Priest; The Origin of Animal Sacrifice; Circumcision and Gender Distinctions; Are Feminists Correct About the Church?; Males as Spiritual Leaders: Two Patterns; Philosophers' Corner: On Blood and the Impulse to Immortality; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: The Hebrew were a Caste
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