Jesus may have been a hermaphrodite

Posted on by

According to Dr. Susannah Cornwall, Manchester University’s Lincoln Theological Institute.

It takes the perspective of a 21st century theologian to come up with the cockamamie idea of studying Jesus’ genitals rather than his divinity, resurrection or atoning sacrifice and then to compound the tommyrot by suggesting that, because it is impossible to prove otherwise, he may have had a duplicate set of them.

I bet Michael Ingham wishes that he had thought of it first.

From here:

Dr Susannah Cornwall claimed that it is “simply a best guess” that Jesus was male.

Her comments, which are bound to provoke fury in some quarters, were published in response to the ongoing debate about women bishops in the Church of England.

Dr Cornwall, of Manchester University’s Lincoln Theological Institute, describes herself on her blog as specialising in: “Research and writing in feminist theology, sexuality, gender, embodiment, ethics and other fun things like that.”

In her paper “Intersex & Ontology, A Response to The Church, Women Bishops and Provision”, she argues that it is not possible to know “with any certainty” that Jesus did not suffer from an intersex condition, with both male and female organs.

In an extraordinary paper she says: “It is not possible to assert with any degree of certainty that Jesus was male as we now define maleness.

h/t: mcj

8 thoughts on “Jesus may have been a hermaphrodite”

  2. So – instead of trying to construct an argument based on the bible, she writes a paper asserting that Jesus could have been a hermaphrodite (with a 1 in 1000 occurance in the general population).

    Of course, there’s also the absurdity of the perfect man being born with a birth defect.

    Reply ↓

  3. This is a wonderful example of how taxpayers dollars are funding academic scholarship. She makes her discipline completely irrelevant with such nonsense.

    Reply ↓

  4. as we now define maleness

    Some people think that Romans crucify women during the age of Jesus. This is simply not true. As a rule for the Romans, if a woman ever were crucified, it was an exception to that rule. The Romans did not even want their women unclothed in the public eye; much less would they crucify them.

    There’s the problem, revisionist history, that I can say with some certainty.

    Reply ↓

  6. Some people-probably the same ones who advocate gay marriage-have reckoned that Jesus was bisexual. However I don’t think they thought he was a hermaphrodite.

    Reply ↓

  7. What part of “circumcised on the eighth day” doesn’t she understand? Jewish law recognizes the existence of hermaphrodites.

    I believe that the “point” is a refutation of C.S. Lewis that “only a male can represent God to the Church.” There are better ways to refute that; this is some bizarre kind of begging the question.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply