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No, he proclaimed the validity of the Gnostic gospels and how the hierarchy of the church was out to surpress women. I need to make a correction here, it wasn't a show about "The DaVinci Code" but about the Gospel of Judas. Sorry. I think it was on The Nat'l Geographic Channel.

CC&E

No, he proclaimed the validity of the Gnostic gospels and how the hierarchy of the church was out to surpress women.

I have read a couple of Ehrman's books (including the one this article is about - IMO, the article is a pretty poor summary, BTW) as well as other Biblical history, and while it's true the Gnostic gospels existed, I didn't get the impression that Ehrman subscribes to Gnostic beliefs.

In reference to the church being "out to suppress women", he does give evidence from writings about Jesus' ministry as well as some of Paul's writings (some of those quotes are given in the article above, and also some given in previous postings here) suggesting that the sections in which Paul exorts women to be silent were added later as a way to silence women.

The general idea is that in the Gospels and in Acts, women are treated more or less equally. In fact, in places women are allowed to speak in church so long as their heads are covered, and women are mentioned as apostles & supporters of the church. Why does Paul say in one place women can speak with their heads covered, but in another they should keep silent?

I am not more than a very amateurish Biblical scholar, but there's always seemed to be a bit of a contradiction to me.