Matt Higgins (businessman)

Transcription

Hello, I'll just give you a little tip: Don't even try to decipher what's on my apron. I haven't succeeded at it either. I will put images to my words, I will illustrate the words of my speech, which means, the only place you should look, the most important space, is here on the wall. The wonderful TED organizers have whitewashed the wall specially, so that we can illustrate our speeches here. As a child I always imagined I'd like to be a Christmas elf. Then at our first communion, the priest told us that Santa Claus didn't really exist. Now, the only options I had left was to be a cool bride to Chief Winnetou, Tarzan or Jesus. (Music starts playing) I decided on the carpenter of Galilee. Jesus was the hero of my childhood. He prophesied a realm of God, in which everyone was equal. This was a revolutionary thought in that patriarchal time. And therefore not only men followed him as disciples, but also a lot of women. They supported this revolutionary movement and finally established the first Christian communities. Over the centuries, however, many of those women disappeared from the writings, and, thus, also from our historical knowledge. Consequently, the Jesuanic Kingdom of God became a church of men. If we read the Bible today, we get the impression that Jesus only spoke to men. Women actually don't appear as recipients of his doctrines. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, it says, [in the German Bible], "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." [Slide: And where are the daughters?] That is what the Bible and the yellow press have in common. When it comes to the plural, women are simply not mentioned. Now, this does not absolutely reflect my own thoughts. I'd just like to say that it should really be, "Take the Euro away from all Greeks, both male and female." And where are the female Africans, the female welfare benefit scroungers? Well, a female Pope is another story, but I'll come to that later. 2000 years ago it was not much different. So, when Jesus speaks to his disciples, we have to imagine female disciples for ourselves. The most important among them is Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene first appears in the Gospel of St Luke, with the irritating adjunct that Jesus exorcised seven demons out of her. In the realm of the Catholic Church, they later became the 7 deadly sins which are there: [Slide: The 7 deadly sins are named.] Yes, Jesus absolved Mary Magdalene from all of them. If we look at this scenario, this dark scenario, in a more modern light, we could say, "Wow, Mary Magdalene is the most reformed character in the Gospels, free of all hindrances of the human ego." The Buddhists would say, "Her seven chakras are open." Mary Magdalene's prominence really surfaced under the Cross. Here, she is even addressed by name among a group of women. How is that possible? Well, because all the men had run away. Since for male, and female, sympathizers it had been a great risk, then, to remain with the condemned man. The threat of crucifixion existed for them too. Therefore, Mary Magdalene took a great personal risk in remaining with Jesus. Peter denied Jesus three times. The women, and especially Mary Magdalene, stayed with him to the very end. The death of their prophet had created a severe crisis for the Jesus movement. It probably would have been crushed. Only the Resurrection provided occasion to establish a world religion. But an event of such a dimension requires important witnesses, both male and female. In the Gospels of Luke, Matthew and Mark, there are three women who go to the grave of Jesus the day after the Sabbath. In the Gospel according to John, Mary Magdalene goes there alone. The Gospels are not based on historical facts; they are symbolic narratives, mythological images. Mary Magdalene looks into the grave and sees, instead of the dead body, two angels. For me, the angels indicate that Mary Magdalene enters a more subtle sphere; she enters another level of appreciation. But she does not obtain any information of the whereabouts of Jesus' dead body. This means she has to leave the place of death for now, in order to take another step in her enlightenment. A man approaches her in front of the grave. She asks him where he's put Jesus' body. And only when Jesus calls Mary by name, does she recognize him. I've always wondered, what did Mary see in that moment? Did she see an actual body? Did she see a vision or a resurrected body? And with what? With her eyes, or her mind? Was it an illusion, was it clairvoyance? All these questions are not answered by the canonical gospels. In John, however, it is said that Jesus charged Mary Magdalene with passing on the message of his resurrection. And therefore, Mary Magdalene became the first female apostle of Christianity and that, of course, was a challenge to the early Church Fathers. Now, there was no way to banish or withhold Mary Magdalene from the Easter happenings, her historic character had become much too significant for that. So, the Church Fathers have interpreted the Easter happenings in a way that depreciates the important significance of woman. How did they do that? The Resurrection was subjectively compared with Original Sin and it went: Since Eve, the first woman, brought death and sin upon the world, it had to be a woman who witnessed the Resurrection. Subjectively, Mary Magdalene had now been brought so close to Eve that she was only one step away from becoming an archetypal sinner herself. She became the red-haired, repentant sinner. And it came about like this: In 591, Pope Gregory the Great declares in a sermon that Mary of Bethany -- the one that listens to Jesus' words in St Luke's Gospel, anoints his feet in St John's Gospel -- Mary of Bethany is the same person as the notorious female sinner in the Gospel according to Luke. He put these two women on a par with Mary Magdalene, that is to say, three biblical women blend into one generic figure, and he portrays Mary Magdalene as a repentant sinner who anointed Jesus' feet with the oil she had previously used for caring for her lustful body. Mary Magdalene becomes the propaganda figure of the Church, the pin-up girl of sacred art. Only in 1969, is Mary Magdalene rehabilitated. The image of the sinner, however, remains attached to her today. Someone seen as a repentant sinner for 13 centuries in the world's cultures has a hard time regaining her place as a female apostle. By the way, Mary Magdalene is not the only female apostle to have undergone a transformation. The female apostle Junia even underwent a change of sex. In ancient Greek copies of the transcripts of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul mentions two famous apostles, Andronicus and Junia, a couple who went about as apostles. If, however, you look up the relevant passage in the Bible today, in the German ecumenical Bible translation, you will find a male apostle Junias instead of a female apostle Junia. The oldest copies of the transcripts of the Bible were drafted in capital letters. There were neither punctuation marks nor accents. Only in the 9th century were small letters introduced also with accents. If you put an acute on the "i" in Junian, it becomes a woman's name. If, however, you put a circumflex on the "a", it becomes "Junian" and that sounds more like a man's name. And so, in the 14th century, under the pen of the Augustinian monk, Aegidius of Rome, by change of a circumflex accent, the female apostle Junia became the male apostle Junian. The French theologist carried the sex change even further. The Latin "Junian" became a Latin "Junias". Martin Luther adopted this version. The existence of the apostle Junias was legitimized from now on at the highest level. And the crazy thing is that the name Junias is not to be found in the entire ancient world, it simply does not exist. Since the 1960s, feminist theologists worldwide have been trying to render these forgotten women-turned-men visible again. In 1977, the American theologist Bernadette Brooden uncovered the change of sex. [Via Skype] Prof. Dr. Ute Eisen: "What motivated the Augustinian monk to change this woman to a man?" B. B.: "Well, that was the result of a male oriented world view. A woman can simply not be an apostle, and since no woman can be an apostle, the woman who was referred to as an apostle could not be a woman." M. v. B.: Therefore, in the German ecumenical Bible translation, Junia carves out an existence as a man still today. What kind of scripture is the Bible anyway? For centuries, the Church Fathers discussed which scriptures should go into the Bible and which shouldn't. Those scriptures that were not accepted, are referred to as the "apocryphal gospels" nowadays. They were cast out and fell into oblivion, which is to say, the scripture is -- how can I put it -- the Bible is a scripture of the historical winners. But from our own experience we know: Everything that is thrown out, flung out, reappears eventually, ancient scriptures as much as dropped bombs. In 1896, Mary eventually reappears as a protagonist in a papyrus scripture from the 2nd century. In Cairo,€“ a German businessman buys the scripture and takes it back to Berlin. Of the original 18 pages unfortunately only 8 remain. They tell of the last instructions Jesus gave his disciples before he ascended to heaven. Dispirited, the disciples remain behind. Here, Mary Magdalene steps forward and puts heart into them. Peter asks her to confide to them Jesus' own personal doctrine which he evidently only shared with her. Mary Magdalene tells them about the ascent of the soul which has to pass many tests before becoming one with the Heavenly Father. It is a mystical text. It is about much more than just ethics, it is about enlightenment, it is about the direct experience of God. Unfortunately, there is already a sign of a conflict of the sexes in the text. Andreas attacks Mary. He could not imagine that Jesus taught Mary such things. Peter has doubts about it, too. He could not imagine that Jesus preferred Mary Magdalene over the other disciples. Only Matthew stands up for her, but, from the historical perspective, it is of little help to her. The tradition of Peter turns into state religion, the tradition of Mary disappears. Since last year, the Gospel according to Mary is on show in Berlin, in the Egyptian Museum. It had to survive two world wars. It survived water flooding into the archives. Finally, in 1955, it could be restored anew and translated. It is as if a great female apostle was returned to our consciousness. "Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. [...] for He has prepared us and made us into Men." As a child I always wondered: What does Mary see in that moment when she sees Jesus, the resurrected Jesus? I have not found an answer in the canonical scriptures. But in the Gospel according to Mary, Jesus says to his disciples, "It is the nous that sees." The "nous" is an ancient term from ancient Greek philosophy and it describes a kind of enlightenment that is truly all-embracing. The French theologist Yves-Saint Leloup who wrote a great -- how can I put it -- commentary on Mary's Gospel, describes the "nous" as the pinpoint of the soul which opens space or grants access to space that is perceived by neither the senses nor reason. It is the space of creative imagination. But, finally, at the end, an answer to the question, in regard to which you are probably sitting here, which has probably brought you here, and for which you have probably been waiting for the last 15 minutes: Was there something between the two of them? In 1945, a clay pot was found in the Egyptian city of Nag-Hammadi. And this clay pot contained the most diverse apocryphal gospels. And in one of the Gospels, the Gospel of Philip -- by the way, Dan Brown also refers to this -- we can read that the Savior loved Mary Magdalene more than the other disciples and he often kissed her on the -- and then, there is a gap in the text. Many words could fit in there: on the brow, on the mouth, on the hand. I'm really sorry. There is no final proof of there being something between them, or if they had a child together. Damn gap! But I always say: Every gap is something like a "golden gap", a space into which we can imagine what we need to imagine, what comes to us to imagine. Would you like to know what I imagine when I see this gap? Then it's this: For me, this is the holy kiss which is quoted often in the Bible. The holy kiss is an affectionate gesture with which the Master passes on his knowledge to his lady follower, making her his successor. And for those among you who are a little disappointed, I'll hang wedding bells on it. My concluding remarks: Jesus has the longest theological dialogue in the Bible with a woman, with a female Samaritan at Jacob's Well. Jesus protects women against the inhuman rules of the patriarchy, and steps in courageously for an adulteress. A woman without a name anoints his head before his Passion. It is a great prophetic act. She anoints him Messiah. Women witnessed his crucifixion and his resurrection. Women ran the first Christian communities as deacons. They were patrons, theologists, and spread Christianity beyond the Palestinian borders. Women opened up their houses for the first secret gatherings of Christian communities and they celebrated the Lord's Supper as a meal for feeding the poor. And finally, the first person to be baptized on European soil was a woman. Her name was Lydia. Today, 537 million Christians live in Europe. It is now the time for the authorities of the Catholic Church to reflect on its attitude towards us women, not just on what concerns the direction or holders of directional positions, but also on what concerns our beliefs. The time for change is here. (Applause)