Religious Knowledge Systems

I am currently taking a Jewish studies course at MCA.  We have been learning about the ancient religious texts called the Mishnah, which is loosely defined as a written interpretation or debate of scriptures from the Torah and oral religious law.  Some of the theories I have been reading about the writing of the Mishnah, point out characteristics of interpretation on the part of the rabbis or sages doing the writing.  Alexandria was the largest cosmopolitan in Egypt and had a large population of Jews that were escaping the Roman empire. It was here that many Jews became aquainted with contemporary philosophies such as Platonic seperation and privileging of mind over body.  The rabbis were not immune to the influence of these philosophers.  Therefore, when the Mishnah texts were being written, this contemporary philosophy was inhereted.  Before the Mishnah there was no mention of mind versus body in Judaism.  Now it plays a strong role in Judaism and the religions to follow.  With religion supporting this concept, oppression towards women because of their assumed connection to the negative material body continues without much debate in many spheres of thought.  This is interesting in terms of the questions regarding epistomology because of the source of the thought, and how it has been passed down to us.  It was imagined by a privileged male, reinterpreted and inserted into Judaism by privileged male rabbis and is continually sold to us by religious white privileged men.  I think this gets at some of the issues that were discussed around the field of epistomology.  How can the individuals that are perpetuating these epistomology assume that their point of view on truth and knowledge apply to those who are not able to pursue it themselves?  For those who have been told that their materiality outwieghs there mind by religious texts that were written and influenced by privileged men since circa 400 B.C.  The question then becomes how do we disrupt these epistomologies and redefine the field as Alcoff claims that we can?