I think those "controls" existed well before the bible. The bible was certainly used to cement those controls in time. However; before the counsel of nicea there were competing documents and much of what was added or deleted was to compete with the earlier competing books. Religious leaders scrambled to put the canon together in hopes of staying in power. Constantines conversion was certainly a measure of control.

Yeah, partially women, partially men.

Lord, yes, lol!

Although it was an oral tradition, long before written down. Major parts of both written and oral traditions were altered many times over MANY centuries, even to a couple three, four thousand years.

However, I'd point to the Catholic church as to the most hateful toward women. That's something worth learning about, educating your children about. So we attempt to keep it from reoccurring.... Yes?

Not so much as control over women, but to glorify Jewish / Christian men over all others. Later, Constantine consolidated his favored Abrahamic writings to facilitate control of his minions.

I think that was just a reflection of the culture it was written in. Women were largely property already.

Absolutely! Not only over women, but over people who they believed inferior, justifying slavery!

For sure, why do you think they don't acknowledge the gospel of Mary? gnostics were declared heritic..

Not originally, but things were added and reworded over time which served, not so much to exert control over women but to create a "moral" justification for that control.

Of course.

The bible, I suspect, didn't have a specific 'purpose' - but was a book written by 'authoratitive men' in a time when society was patriarchal and controlling ... and as a result the bible is patriarchal and controlling.

Not just to control women, but to turn them into property. Another aspect was to keep men from stealing the property (women) of other men.

yes, a big part, also to control everyone else as well,

I believe thats true in part, It also supports a broder social order, that control of women is only a part of..

More so to substantiate the exertion of control. For instance if I restrain someone it can be done with or without permission. But if both the oppressed and the oppressor share a belief in a god, the level of violence necessary to accomplish the oppression might decrease. So if one can convince someone else that God told him to lock her in the basement then her possibility of submission is increase.
Self evident and creepy.

Makes a great doorstop

In a part yes, Hell the whole thing is so the church could control all people. It does push more control on females then men.

To control everyone but those in power. Are women lesser than men biblically speaking? Yes

The Bible is many works by many authors across a wide timespan, so it's difficult to attribute a single purpose to it. I think power is part of the motivation, but there were genuine believers as well. The culture of the time certainly reinforced gender inequity, but that already existed in Hebrew society without biblical mandates. It seems more likely that the authors brought their cultural perspectives to their writings, and then later writers did the same, building off earlier writings, and the collection codified that imbalance as God's word for millennia.

I think most religion and religious customs are reflections of men’s fear of or (direct or indirect) hatred for women. Most of the religions install men as the leaders...and have beliefs and customs that revolve around the subjugation of women.

I think it was written to control humanity. Women got the shorter stick though, like we always have. Thank goodness we women live in this part of the timeline.

The bible is simply an ax to grind. I do not however find it extremely misogynistic.

I think that is hard to know. Was it just a manifestation of a belief system. You also have a section effect. The stories of the Bible were Independent books at first, then collected together. The might have selected the books that seemed to be having the social effects the leaders at the time wanted. For example, as I understand it, e emperor Constantine wanted the idea that Jesus was the soon if God in the Nicene Creed, so there would be a precedent for God on Earth, which we was angling for. Not sure how they knew that, but assuming it was true, they would gave had to get stories that pointed that way.

No. The original Judeo-Christian were expressed through priests and priestesses. The only explaination that ever made sense to me was that it is/was purposefully designed to take the religious experience away from the individual...and force them to be force-fed religious enlightenment through a religious leader.

Well, DUH. And anyone else they could bamboozle.