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The Ethel M Wood Lecture 2015: The scandal of a male bible

3,012 views · Published 17 April 2015 · 53:53 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: King's College London · 2015 · Education

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Professor David J.A. Clines
Hosted jointly by the Department of Theology & Religious Studies King's College London and Heythrop College London on 24th February 2015. 

The Bible is a male book, written by men, to be read by men. That means that it is permeated by characteristically male values and ideals, some overt, others rarely noticed. Among these values are: the glorification of strength; the valorization of strength in action, which is violence; the approval of killing; the quest for honour; the tendency to misogyny. These embedded values continue to influence Bible readers, often subconsciously. They are most potent when they affect the language of religion, and shape the picture of the Bible’s deity, the God of Christian and Jewish believers. The scandal is twofold: it is that the Bible is deeply compromised by its ubiquitous adherence to specifically male values, and that its masculinity is hardly ever noticed or mentioned, even in our much more egalitarian world.

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