Are Women's Rights Against The Bible?

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Someone who thinks that the Bible says that men and women are equal will do the interpreting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sglyFwTjfDU[/youtube]

the real question is....Is the bible against woman's rights ....meaning is the bible in the wrong against women?

they will give it up after someone chases them around with a sharpie marker to write 666 on their forhead and they get hit by a car avoiding the sharpie marker anticrhrist and go to heaven to find everyone there with 666 drawn on their foreheads.

or better yet they go to heaven and find out God is a lesbian woman....jk

not very provable anyway with the exception of some guy researching reincarnation stories from very young children...what is your take on that???

Well the bible does have some quotes that may shed bad light on womens rights. However there is also some good ones. However at the time the bible was written woman were minorities. So people have to take that to account. The bible in no way should be used to promote sexist attitudes. It should be used to promote peace and human rights.

Where do you get the idea that women were in the minority?

The fact that many men had multiple wives and concubines would suggest a surplus of women.

Property, yes, but not a minority.

I think the Bible and other similar documents were not intended to be anti-women, they just reflect the values of that time - which were anti-woman. Women were property, had no rights at the time. The people who wrote the Bible most likely took such things for granted and the ideas that women could be in any way equal to men would have been laughable.
Has the Bible and other religious documents been used to justify oppression and discrimination against women? Absolutely and literal interpretations of two thousand year old traditions don't help the matter.

Looking strictly at the OT, a literal interpretation is entirely appropriate to get at Biblical truth that can be just as applicable today as it was then. As far as the issue relates to women, here are my thoughts:

The OT often records the facts as they were and is not intended to push any given agenda other than God's will, which as it relates to proper human behavior is recorded in the Law.

Women were often seen and treated as property, but I don't get the idea that this was a God-mandated or Bible-mandated practice. Eve was taken from Adam's rib. Whether or not you take this literally (I do), the symbolic nature of being formed from a man's rib indicates that men and women are to work together side-by-side.

Women as property is a symptom of the evil condition of human nature. Therefore, a careful reading of the Law can be shown not to promote this practice, but to regulate it in such a way that women are protected and humanely treated. One fine example is the practice of taking a virgin from a conquered nation as a wife. According to the Law, her captor/husband is to give her the same dignity as a woman from Israel. However, "if she doesn't please him," i.e. she is miserable or he changes his mind for other reasons, he can cut her loose and she can go back home to her own family. The issue gets complicated, though, assuming the marriage is consummated because now she's "used goods" and will have too much difficulty finding another husband to care for her. As long as she has a husband from Israel (in the context of a conquering nation), she will have a place of status and position much more favorable than women who don't. Being married and then thrown away like trash would condemn her to a life of servitude, and anyone can see how horrible that kind of life would be. The Law makes a provision for that by treating the divorced foreigner as though she were still married and therefore could never be made a slave. As a man, you would want to be very careful in taking a wife from a conquered race or nation because of these legal provisions and the responsibilities that come with them.

Because of human depravity, other laws concerning family issues had to be written to be sure that women were treated well. The concept of family-redeemer, for example, made sure childless widows would be cared for and their deceased husbands would still have heirs. Laws against sexual abuse (rape), as another example, put women in what would have been in those days a disturbing position of power over men (her word against his). Women meeting certain conditions could be property owners. Women (not men) were in charge of conducting religious rituals in the home while men took more of a servant's role. Women were priestesses and prophetesses. The Bible has a number of stories about men who loved their wives and treated them like queens, not property.

I could go on an on, but you get the idea. The Bible is very clear on women's rights to fair treatment in spite of cultural practices of the time. Even though a lot of that is gone today in the Western world, the Biblical truth that women be treated well is no less applicable.