JUDITH OF NAZARETH?

So what happens next after The DaVinci Code and all of its historical hysterical falsehoods begins to fade? Why, issue a new version of the bible, that's what. A new edition of the Gospels is being released that shows Christ as a women and God as a female. But let not your heart be troubled, in all other aspects, the classic texts of the Gospels "remain unchanged." Whew!

The publisher, LBI Institute, has released this new Bible entitled: "Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." The book is available in bookstores and online.

"This long-awaited revised text of the Gospels makes the moral message of Christ more accessible to many, and more illuminating to all," says Billie Shakespeare, V.P. for the publisher. "It is empowering. We published this new Bible to acknowledge the rise of women in society."

This new Bible includes: The Parable of the Prodigal Daughter, The Lady's Prayer, and other revised favorite passages.

Just last week I was blasted on an online forum for pointing out just this sort of thing. On a Catholic chat and bulletin board the subject of Wisdom as "she" (the Greek for Wisdom is "Sophia") came up and a link to an article on the subject was posted. I do not deny, nor did I deny, that Wisdom has been referred to as a she for centuries. Indeed, it is referred to as a she several times in both the Old and New Testaments, and I have done so myself. The Book of Wisdom is one of my favorite books in the Bible. What I objected too, however, was the author of the article and those like her who use any mention of a female in Scripture to promote a radical feminist revisionist agenda. This author, Joyce Rupp, and others like her use Sophia as an excuse to promote the idea of an overbearing patriarchal nature to the early Church Fathers, as some sort of sinister plot to reduce the standing of women. They create prayers to Sophia, meditations for Sophia, and tell us how to "get in touch with Sophia." I simply pointed out that a lot of her writings were in this vein. The reaction by some caught me completely off guard. I received replies in the forum that were full of vitriol, but the visceral hateful emails were even more amazing. Obviously, the feminists in the Church are more prevalent than even I had suspected.

But the above article exceeds even my own imagination of how far they'd go. Amazing, and more than a little scary.