I have no desire to cause offense or rub people up the wrong way but I realise that the following piece of video art (at the end) may well do just that. It is an attempt to express and answer, respond to this, one of many sections of the Bible, that I have found troublesome.

In Corinthians 11:3-10, we are talked through some of the expectations of woman, in reference to man. The place of woman and the duty of woman. I have been told before that I couldn't possibly understand the Bible and it's meaning because I don't have faith, so therefore don't have a spiritual context within which to understand it. But in my mind, that's a bit like saying to someone who votes Labour that their criticisms of the Tory party are not valid because they are not Tories and don't have a Tory outlook on life. To me, this section quite clearly states that there is a natural order and hierarchy, which goes from God, to Christ, to man then under man we have woman. Yes, woman has a role, in the Bible but it is a prescribed role and one where she has less freedom and autonomy then a man.

Basically, my gripe is this; belief in God and who Jesus Christ was, the effect he had on the people, on the world aside, the New Testament was written by contemporary Christians in the aftermath of Jesus's appearance on earth. It was written by ordinary men with ordinary preoccupations, political leanings and ideas on society.

There is an awful lot of the Bible that could be read as an attempt at effecting a form of social control through a dogma that was supposedly the word of God. Now I, as a heathen, am not in a position to argue whether indeed these words are indeed the words of God funnelled through special men onto page but it's worth looking at the alternative potential that they were not. That men in power were behind the writing of these scriptures and the aim was to force people to stick to rules that they (for their own reasons) would prefer them to stick to. In the example of Corinthians 11:3-10, this could be read as an attempt to tell women, categorically, that it is their duty to defer to not only their husbands but generally to the men in their lives. That they should accept this as their place and duty towards God. What a great way to stop women complaining and pushing for equality and at the same time settle the men worried about have to give up on some of their entitlement and privilege. I think the word I'm looking for is propaganda but that would be incredibly offensive to reduce such an important religious text, such as the Bible, to the greatest work of propaganda ever written. But I have to say, this is how I feel. This is what it reads as (figuratively speaking) to me...

Sometimes art expresses difficult ideas better, more coherently, less abrasively...not quite sure my video art fits in with that but here it is anyway...