school, for many years the coordinator of the theological opportunities program for women was elizabeth dodson gray. >> i think it was enormously significant because of the effect it had upon people encouraging them to think of god as male through 500 years. i don't know how much they thought of god as male before the sistine chapel. i do know that in judaism the jews were absolutely discouraged, as you know, from doing any graven image, and so they were prohibited from drawing pictures of the almighty, the creator. >> reporter: up until then, god was mostly depicted in non-naturalistic imagery, as a spirit, an abstract form, or as a dove hovering in the sky -- essentially an impersonal diving presence. michelangelo's ceiling changed all that. >> it created an image of god that was human and superhuman and so the idea, if you personify god and you think about god as a white man with long white hair and a long white beard, chances are the picture is where you got that idea. >> reporter: it was the warrior pope, julius the second who commissioned michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the sistine