Bettany Hughes Again

[poliphilo]

Looking for further evidence to off-set Bettany Hughes' case for priestesses in the early Church, I came across this article in the magazine Touchstone. It says what I was hoping to say- only with the benefit of first hand knowledge and research (it's also very well written).  Some of the points it covers are ones I looked at yesterday, others are new. By the time Fr (?) Reardon is finished the so-called evidence has crumbled into dust and been dumped in the bin. That Hughes is still relying on it a decade later says little for her scholarship. 

Let me be clear; I'm all for priestesses. I think the feminization of the church is- and would be- a thoroughly good thing. But let it be done as a new thing. Let's not claim we're harking back to primitive practice, because that claim has no merit and to go on making it is disingenuous. 

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Yes, as the cartoon characters say, "Them's fightin' words!"

I'm starting to see Murray, Graves, Gardner, et al, as having articulated a myth that needed to be heard at that particular time. It provided a spiritual basis for emergent feminism in much the same way that the equally specious interpretation of The Corpus Hermeticum supplied a spiritual basis for the Renaissance.