Remember Hypatia.

[LiberalAndProud]

The Vyckie Garrison video (Thanks, yortsed snacilbuper.) piqued my curiosity, so I spent some time at these sites: NoLongerQuivering and RecoveringGrace. I learned a lot about Bill Gothard. I also learned a lot about the intended role of women frighteningly prevalent in some sects of modern Christianity.

When I say to a liberal Christian, "You use the same book," that is no small condemnation. When we fail to acknowledge where the prevailing attitudes regarding women's roles come from, we do society a great diservice.

If I could change my DU handle, I would be RememberHypatia.

The last day of National Banned Books Week was waning into a listless Saturday afternoon, but I was still flush with my presentation, still fueled by the memory of a long-dead woman who had possessed my heart for the year it took me to write about her. She had lived 1,600 years before my birth, and had been murdered – by a man now deemed a Christian Saint. Brilliant and beautiful, daring and audacious, and silenced. . . brutally.

For an hour I had lectured on her life and times, and then entertained a Q&A with the audience for another hour before thanking them for turning out on this afternoon. I had signed books, I had shaken hands, and the room was growing vacant of bodies and sound.

“She should have kept her mouth shut.”
I stared hard at the well-dressed man who watched me.

- snip -

Mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, teacher, and curator of Alexandria’s Great Library. Essentially she achieved the “Renaissance man” ideal a thousand years before it was fashionable. And equipped with a sharpness of wit and tongue, she was a female Achilles when it came to debate and audacity.

My hope is that we will outgrow these dangerous ideas sometime before history repeats itself.

[mr blur]

1. Fascinating - thanks. (nt)

[beam me up scottie]

2. "She should have kept her mouth shut."

I am not a violent person but sometimes...

I will never understand how many christians (and their apologists) refuse to admit that the bible is a huge source of misogyny.

Thank you for this post, LaP.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Arguably her death marked the end of the alexandrean greek philosophical tradition.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. I would have been one of those who did not raise my hand

when asked if I had ever heard of her. More's the pity. Thanks for posting this, I am fascinated by her.

This really caught me off guard (and I should know better):

A millennia after her death, the Renaissance artist Raphael was putting the finishing touches on his “School of Athens” masterpiece when a bishop came to see the painting.

“Who’s that woman?” the bishop asked. He needn’t have pointed. There’s only one woman of note in the painted crowd of male luminaries.

“Hypatia,” Raphael replied. “One of the greatest thinkers in history.”

“Paint her out,” the bishop responded. “Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful. Otherwise the work is acceptable.”

[LiberalAndProud]

5. I understand.

I lived several decades before I learned of her. I resent that.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/womens-history/hypatia-ancient-alexandrias-great-female-scholar-10942888/?no-ist
Neither paganism nor scholarship died in Alexandria with Hypatia, but they certainly took a blow. “Almost alone, virtually the last academic, she stood for intellectual values, for rigorous mathematics, ascetic Neoplatonism, the crucial role of the mind, and the voice of temperance and moderation in civic life,” Deakin wrote. She may have been a victim of religious fanaticism, but Hypatia remains an inspiration even in modern times.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Flayed alive with abalone shells...

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Or pottery shards ... the greek term ostracon is ambiguous.

The literal meaning is oyster shell, but was used to refer to potsherds, presumably because their usual concave shape resembled an oyster shell.

[onager]

7. Statue in memory of Hypatia, New Alexandria Library

Stole this pic from the Internetz, but I have lots of pix I took when I lived in Alexandria. If I get ambitious I'll dig out some and post them.

[beam me up scottie]

8. That's breathtaking.

I would love to see more.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. The man responsible for her death was eulogized most appropriately ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022656603

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Man, that was putting it nicely.

Then again, at the time... That was pretty harsh language.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Also, the Roman Catholic Church made that scumbag a Saint.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

13. "The Vyckie Garrison video (Thanks, yortsed snacilbuper.) piqued my curiosity,"

You're welcome, I hope more people get to watch the video and also learn about Hypatia.