Janel's Place

Dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor;
So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1)

That wasn't meant to be anything other than a cool fly reference from the Bible, but maybe it is applicable to my present frame of mind.

I have a massive brain clot building about the gospel of Mary. It's just that when you sit there and calmly claim to a room full of Christians that the gospel of Mary really should have been included as one of the gospels and that Jesus may very well have been married to Mary Magdalene as that's not an unusual thing for a man to do, you are stating a few more things than that:

A. The apostles are male chauvinists and also some pretty awful liars.
B. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself manifested in the flesh, married a human being before dying for the sins of humanity, and the apostles failed to mention it.

The implications of this idea are farther reaching than that, maybe I could get out to Z if I had more time to spend on it. Can you be a Christian and believe this kind of crap? Can you? Is that the wrong question? Should I be saying "Can I?" I can't. I can't. Look, I just tried and it's not working out, try and pry my mind open farther if you want to.

Here's a piece of ammo people reference as support for this idea.
John 11:5 "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."

Doesn't that imply that the relationship was far more complicated than a simple marriage? Hmm? NO I'm not laughing, I'm saying that this concept is ridiculous and utterly incompatible with the Christian faith and I don't know why we all just SAT THERE and didn't point that out. This gender inequality accusation against the Words of God and His disciples is something I have encountered before and am therefore equally angry at myself because I don't have great answers when things like this come up. I sit quietly and strongly desire to chew people's heads off defending my God and the sense of His Words written as is but I choke on words. I suppose I fear circular reasoning and fear being cornered with an answer along the lines of "mere faith," but it is not mere faith that Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God and walked the earth performing miracles and fulfilling prophecy, and if He chose a bunch of male chauvinist liars to carry on His message you have to work DARN HARD to reconcile that in your mind, in fact a great deal harder than questioning the validity of the gospel of Mary.

What really bothered me, and I mean REALLY BOTHERED ME is that the claim in my first paragraph was made and the room full of Christians was silent. Are we that uneducated in our faith? I don't know these people, maybe they all have their own answers and simply let it go in the format of a guest lecturer that should not and need not be challenged. I wasn't in on the secret. This guy had command of some interesting historial trivia but he remains utterly clueless about Christianity and the foundations of the faith or he wouldn't pitch crap like that at a Christian fellowship. What was his point? What was the point of having him there? I don't know. It smacked me from left field, that's not what I expected, I'm really disappointed, but then again I formed my expectations on my own and can only hope and pray that this kind of poison was smiled and dismissed by all. If not there is certainly work to do. By someone. I really get ticked when people twist Christianity around. I get really ticked when Christians let them do it. I don't think it was my place to start a big argument there, I don't know what they invited him for or what they thought of what he said. Right now I know I'm ticked.

The foundation of the Christian faith is the Bible, written as is. I admit it. I'm not ashamed of it. Beat it with a theory that makes more sense. Go ahead.