Looking Back at the Architect

I'm about to read The Jesus Discovery; Another Look at Christ's Missing Years by Dr. A.T. Bradford.

Bradford, according to the material I've read on the internet, finds that Christ was in fact a highly regarded, carefully groomed figure within Judaism's 1st century priesthood and not the son of a poor carpenter.  All very intriguing, and yet I expect the key to what happened in those times will be found in Christ's female companionship, or as seems entirely likely, the lack thereof.

Carefully examining many religious organizations, from the Vatican to the Muslim Brotherhood, one is struck by the lack of a female presence.  And that isn't accidental.  Males with a fully engaged, educated, and most important, free, female presence in their life have little need for the tendency to consult an outside authority, which often constitutes religion.

Not that there isn't a need for culture and a normative framework.

But, I've yet to read the book.

.............. update

Hey, I'm really enjoying this book.  Am about half-way through (it's little more than a long essay) and can't believe how other scholars haven't stumbled onto the author's path.

At this point in the book the author has laid out his Golden-Boy-of-the-Jewish-Establishment theory and Jesus has now come under the influence of John-the-Baptist (his cousin--Mary's mother and John's mother, Elizabeth, were of the same family), which begs the question, what might have transpired if Jesus had had a female friend whose mind could have lead him towards a more realistic accomplishment than "God, why hast thou foresaken me?"

America's First Published Poet

Many thanks, Heather, for the inspirational bio-sketches that led me down this morning's path.  The link

I began by clicking on Anne Hutchinson and ended with insight into the female experience in earliest, historical America.

Initially, my curiosity asked: What was Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson getting at with her theological emphasis on Grace, rather than Works?  The one hint I came upon was this biographical detail: "...(she believed) that God had given her the power of clairvoyance, and that she had known in advance of the exact day of (her ship's) arrival in the colony".  

Simply put, she was applying Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 ("To everything there is a season...") to her daily life--or perhaps doing so subconsciously.  Being educated and unencumbered by dogma, she realized she could devine the meaning in events, and history more broadly, in a more crystaline manner than could her male 'superiors'.  In a virgin land where everything was beginning anew, there must have been an overwhelming, compelling need to witness.

This led to my reading about Mary Dyer, Anne's friend.  Each resisted the male oppression in 1630s New England in her own way, and each died a violent death.  One, from abandonment, one could argue, and the other from martyrdom.

And finally, the pearl found, unexpectedly: America's first published poet, Anne Dudley Bradstreet, 1612-1672, who came to the same colony as Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer (in 1630) and left, arguably, an even greater legacy, her inner-most thoughts.

Here are parts of three of her poems, each a jewel, that speak to me over nearly 400 years:

  * From "In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth"  

"....

Now say, have women worth? or have they none? 

Or had they some, but with our queen is't gone? 

Nay Masculines, you have thus taxt us long, 

But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong, 

Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason, 

Know tis a Slander now, but once was Treason."

[Note: Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603]

   * From "Another"

"...

He that can tell the stars or ocean sand,
Or all the grass that in the meads do stand,
The leaves in th' woods, the hail, or drops of rain,
Or in a corn-field number every grain,
Or every mote that in the sunshine hops,
May count my sighs, and number all my drops.
Tell him the countless steps that thou dost trace,
That once a day thy spouse thou may'st embrace;
And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth,
Thy rays afar salute her from the south.

..."

[Note: her husband, who she loved passionately, was away on government business for long stretches of time.

Also, note the emphasis on God's ability to 'tell' or count.]

  * From "The Author To Her Book"

[Note: this is the self-aware poem of an author who was published without a chance to edit.  It describes how she wishes she could improve on her "Ill-formed off-spring...".  Note the piercing, many-storied allusions.]

"...
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array 'mongst Vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,
..."

Is this genius? I think so.

Is it 'clairvoyance', akin to what Anne Hutchinson experienced?  Perhaps the answer can be read in the final lines of her "High and Mighty..." poem:

"...

No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun,
Until the heaven's great revolution:
If then new things, their old form must retain,
Eliza shall rule Albian once again."