WriChal #7 - What if Jesus was a girl?

[Moonlit Naiad]

Did I get your attention?

Basically, all Science Fiction begins with asking the question "What if...?"

What if there was life on other planets?
What if World War Three began tomorrow?
What if Martians helped build the Pyramids?
What if there were no distinctions between the sexes?

A variation, often called Alternative Reality or Speculative Fiction focuses, typically, on a key even in history and explores what might have happened if things had gone differently.

What if the Axis had been victorious in WW2?
What if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated?
What if Asians instead of Europeans had colonized the Americas?

Now we twist this, a little, in the MSF way. Take a prominent historical or literary figure and ask "What if ______ had been born a boy (or girl) instead of a girl (or boy)?"

What if it was Adelle Hiter, instead of Adolf? Would she have succeeded in conquering/uniting Europe, or would she have forgone war entirely?
What if Lady Diana had been Lord Dian, instead?
What if the first president of the US was Georgia Washington instead?
What if it was Eve and Adam instead? Would the matriarchy that developed be much different than the patriarchy of today?
What if Mary of Tudor (Bloody Mary) had been a George, Charles, or Edward instead (is there a male version of the name "Mary?"). Would his attempts at changing England's official religion have suceeded and/or not been immediately overturned by his successor?
What if it had been The Lion, the Wizard, and the Wardrobe?
What if Frodo had been an advernturous girl hobbit? Would the 'relationship that never happened' (Frodo/Sam) have happened? Would she have been the Ringbearer, or would others have thought she couldn't've handled it?
What if Jesus was a girl? How would religion be different today?

This is more of a thought exercise than a writing exercise. Rather than a piece of prose, dwell on what might have turned out differently, either in the individual's lifetime, or as a consequence of them being born of the other sex. Then, write a few of your thoughts down, perhaps in an essay-ish or outline form.

[Mitera Nikkou]

(Dunno if I'll do this right. ^_^; )

I think she would have been portrayed as a male, anyway. Back in some of the earliest days in recorded history, the sons who were the ones of importance, the ones that would accomplish something considered significant, and ultimately inherited anything of worth (since dowries are meant to be given to the husband, and so usually were the wives). That, and Christianity was and still is a patriarchal system, where there is one God, presumed male, and thus he must have a male son. Why else would it be that way, when none of the female deities in the "pagan" religions survived during the conversions, while some of their celebrations in those religions did, in some form or another?

And outside of the bible, there really isn't much hard evidence that would be able to tell whether Jesus was really a girl or not. Also, when so many people's faith are bound to what's believed in the bible, the lie would be hidden so as to not cause total chaos when the fabrication is revealed, because a woman in the days when Jesus lived could not hope to take up such a trade as carpentry (I'm guessing). But, at best, if the powers that be (at that time) chose to portray her as the girl she was, I bet she wouldn't be able to do anything herself, and would have had to have relied on her father in heaven to do things through her rather than have any power herself. Mary would still only have the honor of bearing Jesus, a small consolation. Women weren't allowed to do much else back then, other than bearing children and keeping the house in order, as well as other chores. They tended to be particularly underappreciated back then.

I guess the better outcome of Jesus having been born a girl, then being portrayed as a male for two millenniums before being discovered as really having been a female, would be finding supposed lost scriptures with stories that bore evidence that she was a bearded lady and was easily confused for a man.

(Any good? <.<)

[Sakraida82]

Well except for the fact that you overgeneralized for certain cultures and seemed to have taken ROman history and made it seem the whole, *Which in actuality Rome was never the norm.*And you've read the Divinci Code haven't you.

I will answer the Hitler one. If Hitler had been a girl we would have never had a Hitler in the first place. The first point happens to be that the entire actions that "He' took after the 1920's were shaped by his experience in the First World War. As a soldier he happened to serve in many combat services in the most dangerous fields. THis shaped his views and severaly scarred his mind.

A female Hitler would have never served in the German army and as a female Austrian woman interested in art, might have been a better artist. We'd probably never hear about an Adelle Hitler except in a few Vienna circles as an "OK" artist in the early 20th century.

And that's the way it would be if we reversed it. OOH I WANNA TAKE ANOTHER ONE LET ME TAKE ANOTHER ONE!!!!

In all rectitude there would have been no America at all. Georgia Washington still lived in an extremelly masculine society, and living with her older brother she would have been tutored rather well. Now probably rather tomboyish, Washington would have never ended up as a servaier (SP) and would have never joined up with the militia as a young woman to fight. Now with her spirit she would have become a very large proponent of freedom and probably would be with Abigail Adams on the top of the list of well spoken women. But the revolution itself would have failed due to the next male in line to succeed would have been General Gates. Or maybe we would see Georgia Washington marrying and having a daughter who caught the eye of a young Colonel who never turned on his country because he finally got the generalship he wanted. So we might have Georgia Washington as the mother in law to a President Benedict Arnold.

Personally I don't want to touch the religious ones, simply due to the lack of fact. Like Adam and Eve or Eve and Adam. Technically if you read Jewish Law, Eve isn't even the first woman. So that would prove a mute point anyways. But eventually it all tones down to what people write. Remember that everything in the Bible is in figurtive language. It's written to explain to very simple people the glory of their SUpreme being. It's not literal. (*Waits for some people to stone me.*) So remember that the writers could put who was first whoever they wanted. So an Eve and Adam begotten of her could have happened itself. It would never be revealed, and whose to say what is what. It'd be all guessing in the end anyways.

Now that I've hogged three of the topics, I am gonna go.

[scarplo]

Eve and Adam...

Barring a change in biological functions, that'd be a tricky one to build up at all... animals smell blood and recognize danger, and things like powdered milk only became an option in the last century. Adam could've been the one to bite the apple and say those famous lines "Whoa... you've got to try this..."

Given that childbearing and periods and... well, all the stuff that has become fodder for jokes recently were curses lain upon the woman for tempting the man... and, over the course of the millenia, the stated cause for female circumcision, repeated abuses, the general msyogyny of the clergy, and the rationale (coupled with Greek and Roman views of woman) behind the idea of a woman being mentally a child...

I think it would be worse. Remember what got a person leadership before we came up with things like voting; you had a sword arm and an angry look. You conquered and killed. And if someone tried to negotiate their way out of your conquering, you killed, then conquered.

Historically, the presence of women on the field was religated to largely menial tasks; if they were allowed in at all, they were almost never more than bits of oil for logistics, harlots for the fighting men, and mothers come to claim their sons corpses.

The best rationale I've ever seen for that development is a pretty simple one... everyone hunts and gathers in a hunter-gatherer society. But only the men have the option of leaving the loud, fussy, and alltogether useless infants behind. Men can't give milk, after all. Some women had to stay behind. Forward to a landed society. Who but the decendants of the best hunters would be the warrior caste?

Now, while slave armies have existed, they have always had this tendancy to either lose, badly, or revolt. If the idea propagates that one side is to blame for everything bad in the world (and it did for that damn apple) then that side gets a lot of grief, and probably won't be trusted with anything more complicated than whatever they HAVE to know. If you train that grief covered, guilt worn populace to weild a weapon, and die and fight for your beliefs, there's gonna be a LOT of defections.

This, itself almost ensures a society's downfall. But very little in history ever disappears entirely. What would almost certainly happen is a rebellion exploding into a civil war. No matter who won that one, the result would most likely be akin to the reconquest of Spain by the Catholics; the loser is reviled, and the winner is a friggin' demon. Not only would the loser be beneath the winner's contempt, but they would exist for nothing less than the direct and immediate gain of the victorious (and thereby, rightious.)

Given that the book of Genesis was written well after the Isrealites returned to their home, and everyone else had gone to war a LOT by then, the construction of an all woman fighting force would've been difficult, to say the least.