[awareness]

Thanks John for opening up and sharing. I've prolly been your worst critic.

But actually I think I've stated that I support you and Jane's mission.

As I'm reading Bushnell it's become obvious that she was part of the women's rights movement of the early 20th c., and was pushing for women's rights in society at large.

That movement, that began in the 19th c., took on a life of it's own, and yes society since has come a long way at making women equal.

Except those that are seeking to live by the Bible, they haven't caught up with modernity yet.

And that's where Jane comes in. Her targeted audience are those Christians, the ones seeking to live out the teachings and attitudes toward women, found in translations of the Bible that have come down to us today.

Another important work in this regard, from the 19th c. is "The Women's Bible," by Elizabeth Cady Stanton<-click This was a seminal work for the women's rights movement, but traditionalist objected to it.

So, methinks there needs to be more than just non male biased translators to contend with. There's also tradition, that has come down from the early church fathers, both from the early proto-orthodox and the orthodoxy proper.

I see Bushnell mentions Irenaeus and Tertullian, and quotes their despicable statements about and toward women in her book.

Some time ago, a decade or two ago, when looking into this matter of the church fathers and women, I collected a list of quotes by the church fathers about women. I now present this list of quotes to contend that it's not just biased translations that have to be dealt with, but also tradition.

Originally Posted by Church Fathers

• Clement of Alexandria (Theologian and Greek Father, C2nd): “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman…the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame”
  
• Origen (Theologian and Greek Father, C2nd-3rd) “Men should not sit and listen to a woman… even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since it came from the mouth of a woman.”
  
• Tertullian (the Father of Latin Christianity, 155-245): ”And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert— that is, death— even the Son of God had to die. And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins?”
  
• Chrysostom (Archbishop of Constantinople and Doctor of the Church, C4th) “God maintained the order of each sex by dividing the business of life into two parts, and assigned the more necessary and beneficial aspects to the man and the less important, inferior matter to the woman.”
  
• Jerome (Priest, Theologian, Doctor of the Church and Latin Father, C4th-5th): “Woman is the root of all evil.”
  
• Augustine (Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church and Latin Father, 354-430): “I don’t see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?”
  “. . . the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.” On the Trinity Book 12 7.10
  
• Martin Luther (German priest, theologian and Protestant Reformer, C16th) : “The woman certainly differs from the man, for she is weaker in body and intellect. Nevertheless Eve was an excellent creature and equal to Adam in so far as the divine image: that is, righteousness, wisdom and eternal salvation, is concerned. Still, she was only a woman. As the sun is much more glorious than the moon (though also the moon is glorious), so the woman was inferior to the man both in honour and dignity, though she, too, was a very excellent work of God.” From Luther’s Commentary on Genesis.
  
• John Calvin (French theologian, pastor and Protestant Reformer, 1509-1564), of the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to women rather than to men: “I consider this was done by way of reproach, because they [the men] had been so tardy and sluggish to believe. And indeed, they deserve not only to have women for their teachers, but even oxen and asses. . . Yet it pleased the Lord, by means of those weak and contemptible vessels, to give display of his power.” From Calvin’s Commentary on the Gospel of John.
  On this account, all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior in consequence to the superiority of the male sex. From Calvin’s Commentary on 1 Corinthians (Chapter 11)
  
• John Knox (Scottish clergyman and Protestant Reformer, C16th: “[Women are] weake, fraile, impatient, feeble and foolish.”
  He also said women were “unconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment” and “woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man.” From his The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.