Trojan Gift Horse?

The women of RHOTB by Ty Adams – WOW!

Real Housewives of the Bible is set to release at the end of July or early August 2011.  And according to relationships “expert” and business entrepreneur Ty Adams, this spinoff of other highly successful real-TV housewives-shows, she touts her’s as the true solution to modern marital problems.  Adams told Hollie McKay of Fox411’s Pop Tarts:

“If you want to find out about love, you go to the original manufacturer, you go to the blueprint.  God himself is love and he understands relationships more than any of us and he understands how love operates more than any of us because he is love, God is not as far away from your experiences and will understand.  I think it’s an excellent opportunity for people to see how the Bible actually relates to everyday life.”
 
Those are certainly bold claims by Adams.  She was so bold in fact, that she or her staff forgot to tell Bravo TV they had already signed-off on the show’s broadcast!  To their shock and dismay Bravo flatly denied days later that anything was a “Go” and that they were still in the deliberation stages.  Since then Bravo declined to comment on the series and now state they are in no way associated with the love project.
 

Click image for closeup

As CEO/Founder of Heaven Enterprises, Ty Adams has other bold convictions to share with war-tattered couples.  “We have an obligation” she says “and a blood-bought, authoritative right to pray for you, equip you, and edify you until you come into the perfection and fullness of Christ.”  When I read that statement on her website after viewing several of the pictures of her housewives on her DVD series, and watched her promo video clip for the show, an uncomfortable puzzled-look reared itself on my face.

If you take a look at all the photos of these “biblical” women, listen to Adams’ words on her promo clip, and then step back into the true world, you should see exactly what I saw:  the RHOTB women do not reflect really at all the average American woman or wife.  Every single woman who Adams has cast could easily land a modeling career or broadcasting career with any number of media companies!  I’m sorry Ty, but your version of real housewives panders to the same pandering and “temptations” (for men or women)  you speak against and other secular housewife-shows promote and profit from.  Where is the distinction and value in your show?  On a more realistic platform, I have a good hunch that most licensed marriage therapists and their national associations would agree, the majority of suffering unhealthy, unhappy marriages are found in less opulent homes and neighborhoods around the country.  I doubt seriously that many of our distraught women in urban or rural America look like or dress like Adams’ spectacularly stunning women.  But that’s my hunch.

If Not Different Hot Women In Skimpy Outfits, Then What?

If the uniqueness and benefit of the RHOTB show is its biblical-basis, then there is a plethora to be said about the Bible.  Completely aside from the glitz and glamour of Ty Adams’ production, one must first decide which Bible to reference:  the Jewish Torah, the Catholic, the Protestant, or the 30-something non-canonical Testaments considered heretical by 4th century Graeco-Roman bishops?  Based on Ty’s business website, my educated guess is that she and her show are choosing to use the common traditional Holy Bible found in almost all evangelical fundamentalist nondenominational churches.  On this subject, if you would like an introductory look into the roots of the early 1st century Christian Jesus movement that was later hijacked by Emperor Constantine’s 4th century bishops then morphed into a Graeco-Roman version, then read closely Constantine: Christianity’s True Catalyst/Christ and then The Suffering Messiah That Wasn’t Jesus.  Both of these articles/blogs briefly educate how modern historical scientists in many various fields have shown convincing evidence that the historical Yeshua/Jesus not only had no intention of beginning a new religion — he was deeply and firmly Jewish — but had the Roman emperor Constantine not been desperately seeking unification at any cost for his crumbling empire, the new social welfare cult of Judeo-Christians would have eventually faded into another less-than-popular Messiah movement like so many others of the time and as explained in the second mentioned article.  The “Bible” Adams references is itself a highly controversial “authority“, especially during the creation of the New Testament, which happens to be heavily amputated.

18th century rendition of Virgil's poetic Trojan horse from The Aeneid

On a footnote, most Christians have no idea that of the hundreds of parables and teachings of the canonical synoptic Gospels attributed to Jesus, well over half of them are in essence the same as ancient Buddhist and Hindu teachings, and several could be termed as plagiarism.  That makes the Graeco-Roman New Testament version handed down to modern believers a copy of a copy of a copy, then changed, edited, and retranslated according to the interests of a Roman Emperor and his western Asia-Minor bishops.

What does all this have to do with Adams’ TV “reality show“?  Obviously, first it means that her proclamation of going straight to the manufacturer of love’s blueprint is misleading and controversial in the least.  Second, RHOTB is clearly a business venture first and an unlicensed marital therapy series last.  But hopefully I shouldn’t have to break that news to anyone!  Therefore, as a business endeavor I recommend to all consumers do your homework and shop around — in other words, what is this sales-pitch and what is the basis of its value?  I feel a more accurate title for the false-Bravo-turned-DVD series is Housewives Of Heaven Enterprises.

Biblical historians as well as anthropologists over the last three centuries have always revealed that the Graeco-Roman version and Medieval reversion of mainstream Christianity has been highly patriarchal and discriminating toward women.  This was promoted by Paulian theology in his epistles found in the current Protestant New Testament.  The Judean Hebrew Bible is even more patriarchal and discriminating if Adams’ RHOTB series uses it as its primary source.  These cultural-literary facts most likely contribute to so many sex-less Christian relationships and marriages.  The Old Testament and the Pauline-influenced New Testament both promote HETEROsexual-intimacy strictly within the confines of Godly marriage and procreation.  The Song of Solomon is far from a steamy erotic story of heterosexual love as most hardcore fundamental Christians claim.

There are legitimate reasons why so many Christian men and women today have no distinguishing benefits from secular men and women in the context of happy successful marriages.  For one, the Protestant Bible and the Jewish Old Testament simply do not allow for wide-open honest exploration and experimentation outside of the two spouses.  This greatly undermines the couple’s chances of deep human intimacy.  However, if struggling heterosexual women want to learn piety ala Proverbs 31, then the Bible Ty Adams promotes is perfect for you!  If the rest of the real world — including gay, lesbian, trans or intersexed communities — want much more than rambunctious audacious piety, then don’t waste valuable time and energy with Real Housewives Of The Bible.  This Hollywood-ish Trojan Horse will only disappoint or exacerbate your marital frustrations.  Ty Adams’ angle of help is skewed and off the mark.

 
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