The Gender of God in the Bible, Ancient Judaism, and the Early Church

[hedrick]

How can any gender statement about God be literal!? Literal gender is based on biology that he doesn't have.

 

[ewq1938]

How can any gender statement about God be literal!? Literal gender is based on biology that he doesn't have.

He has a gender. He is presented as an older male in every instance he is found. His son is presented similarly after the ascension.

 

[farout]

I believe he means that if theres no discussion then his posts become lectures, i.e. one way communications.

Thank you for hopefully bringing his meaning to a better light.

 

[farout]

He has a gender. He is presented as an older male in every instance he is found. His son is presented similarly after the ascension.

Because in every place Yahweh uses in the Old and New Testaments it is ALWAYS used in a male gender.

 

[com7fy8]

God's female quality is found in wisdom.

In Christ dwells the fullness of wisdom. Wisdom is a woman in proverbs.

Ah-hah But ones argue that this is metaphorical. But . . .

We are being changed into the image of Jesus and in Jesus "there is neither male nor female", our Apostle Paul does say, in Galatians 3:28.

The terms "male" and "female" have to do mainly with which reproductive organs a person has > how one is specialized for conceiving children; but in order to reproduce godly children, much more is needed in order for their mother and father to bring them up holy in God's love. Plus, what's physical on our bodies has nothing, really, to do with our identity in God's sight. So, I find it interesting how ones can be so tied-up with what is only "male" or "female" and which have nothing to do with your true identity and bringing up children who know how to please God and relate in His love.

And Paul and Silvanus and Timothy said how they related with the Thessalonians >

"But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children." (1 Thessalonians 2:7)

And we have >

"as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, (1 Thessalonians 2:11)

Here, we are not talking only about male and female, but how a mother and a father relate with their children - - - how they relate in family loving. And I see how Paul and Silvanus and Timothy knew that in love we have the best of both being a mother and a father. I consider that they had mature ladies who were their role models for how to cherish and bring up God's children, while also being how a father cares for his children. God's one love has the best of both

And the best has nothing to do with which sexual structures are on a person's body, nor does anyone's true identity have anything to do with this. But how we are in God's love is what names us in His sight.

being gentle, cherishing, exhorting, comforting, charging . . . all in God's one love

 

[Deadworm]

Refutations of my critics here will be postponed until I expand further on just how comprehensive feminine God and Christ imagery in the Bible.

5. For now, I'll set aside the many more feminine images of God in the OT and change the focus to Jesus. Does Jesus encourage us to shift back and forth between male and female images of God? The answer is yes as evidenced by a unique distinctive of the parable tradition, sexually parallel stories, one of which features a man and the other of which features a woman. For example, in 2 parables about hidden growth (Luke 13:18-20), one features a man illegally sowing mustard seed in his garden and the other features a woman illegally mixing yeast within 3 measures of flour. The meaning of both significantly overlaps, but a man represents God in the first and a woman represents God in the second. Or consider the 2 sexually parallel stories about seeking the lost in Luke 15:1-10. In the first a male shepherd searches for a lost sheep; in the second a woman searches for a lost coin. Again, God is represented by a man in the first parable and by a woman in the second. Similar sexually parallel parables of Jesus can be found in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Such parallel gender images for God are unprecedented in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature in late antiquity and express a unique sensitivity to women's need for feminine ultimate symbols of power.

Beyond this, Jesus likens Himself to a mother hen cradling her chicks under her wings (Luke 13:34-45) and views Himself as the mouthpiece of Lady Wisdom (Aramaic: Hochmah; Greek: Sophia--Luke 11:49). I have already demonstrated Matthew's elevation of Jesus to Wisdom Herself. No wonder 2nd century Christian women can have visions of Jesus as a woman! Gospel Sophia Christology leads to the earliest reference to "the Trinity" in Theophilus of Antioch, who substitutes Lady Wisdom for the Holy Spirit.

 

[ewq1938]

This is nonsense. The parables are not "sexual" nor is wisdom a female. This is full on ignorant heresy.

Refutations of my critics here will be postponed until I expand further on just how comprehensive feminine God and Christ imagery in the Bible.

5. For now, I'll set aside the many more feminine images of God in the OT and change the focus to Jesus. Does Jesus encourage us to shift back and forth between male and female images of God? The answer is yes as evidenced by a unique distinctive of the parable tradition, sexually parallel stories, one of which features a man and the other of which features a woman. For example, in 2 parables about hidden growth (Luke 13:18-20), one features a man illegally sowing mustard seed in his garden and the other features a woman illegally mixing yeast within 3 measures of flour. The meaning of both significantly overlaps, but a man represents God in the first and a woman represents God in the second. Or consider the 2 sexually parallel stories about seeking the lost in Luke 15:1-10. In the first a male shepherd searches for a lost sheep; in the second a woman searches for a lost coin. Again, God is represented by a man in the first parable and by a woman in the second. Similar sexually parallel parables of Jesus can be found in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Such parallel gender images for God are unprecedented in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature in late antiquity and express a unique sensitivity to women's need for feminine ultimate symbols of power.

Beyond this, Jesus likens Himself to a mother hen cradling her chicks under her wings (Luke 13:34-45) and views Himself as the mouthpiece of Lady Wisdom (Aramaic: Hochmah; Greek: Sophia--Luke 11:49). I have already demonstrated Matthew's elevation of Jesus to Wisdom Herself. No wonder 2nd century Christian women can have visions of Jesus as a woman! Gospel Sophia Christology leads to the earliest reference to "the Trinity" in Theophilus of Antioch, who substitutes Lady Wisdom for the Holy Spirit.

 

[hedrick]

This is nonsense. The parables are not "sexual" nor is wisdom a female. This is full on ignorant heresy.

In proverbs wisdom is definitely female.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

Refutations of my critics here will be postponed until I expand further on just how comprehensive feminine God and Christ imagery in the Bible.

5. For now, I'll set aside the many more feminine images of God in the OT and change the focus to Jesus. Does Jesus encourage us to shift back and forth between male and female images of God? The answer is yes as evidenced by a unique distinctive of the parable tradition, sexually parallel stories, one of which features a man and the other of which features a woman. For example, in 2 parables about hidden growth (Luke 13:18-20), one features a man illegally sowing mustard seed in his garden and the other features a woman illegally mixing yeast within 3 measures of flour. The meaning of both significantly overlaps, but a man represents God in the first and a woman represents God in the second. Or consider the 2 sexually parallel stories about seeking the lost in Luke 15:1-10. In the first a male shepherd searches for a lost sheep; in the second a woman searches for a lost coin. Again, God is represented by a man in the first parable and by a woman in the second. Similar sexually parallel parables of Jesus can be found in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Such parallel gender images for God are unprecedented in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature in late antiquity and express a unique sensitivity to women's need for feminine ultimate symbols of power.

Beyond this, Jesus likens Himself to a mother hen cradling her chicks under her wings (Luke 13:34-45) and views Himself as the mouthpiece of Lady Wisdom (Aramaic: Hochmah; Greek: Sophia--Luke 11:49). I have already demonstrated Matthew's elevation of Jesus to Wisdom Herself. No wonder 2nd century Christian women can have visions of Jesus as a woman! Gospel Sophia Christology leads to the earliest reference to "the Trinity" in Theophilus of Antioch, who substitutes Lady Wisdom for the Holy Spirit.

IF you want discussion, you had better get at it while the getting is still yet possible. I don't seem to get e-mail notifications after a while and people will generally move on to other things, it seems to me.

BTW, I concur with 1938 that what you present here is pretty much garbage. Sorry to be so blunt. Another point would be if you don't want to bother defending against criticisms seems that too makes your stuff suspect.

 

[ewq1938]

In proverbs wisdom is definitely female.

Wisdom is a form of knowledge and cannot be a female.

 

[hedrick]

Wisdom is a form of knowledge and cannot be a female.

Tell that to the author of proverbs. Wisdom is one way in which the logos is described. While I don't think God has a gender, if we're going to attribute gender to him, then the gender used by Scripture for Wisdim is part of the picture.

 

[ewq1938]

Tell that to the author of proverbs. Wisdom is one way in which the logos is described. While I don't think God has a gender, if we're going to attribute gender to him, then the gender used by Scripture for Wisdim is part of the picture.

Words don't have literal genders. That's the whole point. Wisdom being a feminine noun is completely meaningless to actual gender.

 

[hedrick]

Words don't have literal genders. That's the whole point. Wisdom being a feminine noun is completely meaningless to actual gender.

Most readers think Prov 8 goes beyond grammatical gender of an abstract thing. Clearly Wisdom is personified.

 

[ewq1938]

Most readers think Prov 8 goes beyond grammatical gender of an abstract thing.

How do you know "most readers" think that way?

Clearly Wisdom is personified.

Personification doesn't create actual genders. Only living creatures can be male or female, not concepts like wisdom or thought or anything similar. Additionally, a female was only created for this world for reproduction. There are no female angels nor is God female nor were their females before God created creatures that needed to reproduce.

 

[hedrick]

How do you know "most readers" think that way?



Personification doesn't create actual genders. Only living creatures can be male or female, not concepts like wisdom or thought or anything similar. Additionally, a female was only created for this world for reproduction. There are no female angels nor is God female nor were their females before God created creatures that needed to reproduce.

While I agree that God isn't female, exactly the same kind of argument says he isn't male. The Father is the source of the Son, but he wasn't generated sexually. So calling him father is no more about gender than calling Wisdom female.

 

[ewq1938]

While I agree that God isn't female, exactly the same kind of argument says he isn't male. The Father is the source of the Son, but he wasn't generated sexually. So calling him father is no more about gender than calling Wisdom female.

It wasn't done sexually but it was done by fertilizing Mary's egg so the Father is still a Father in the literal sense. Only begotten means Jesus is the Father's only literal child. God is male in gender.

 

[Deadworm]

1. Douglas Hendrickson [hereafter DH] : "What you present here is pretty much garbage. Sorry to be so blunt. Another point would be if you don't want to bother defending against criticisms seems that too makes your stuff suspect."

So I too will be blunt. Your snarkiness makes it pleasure for me to make constructive use of you as my biblically uneducated whipping boy.

2. DH: "GOD IS MALE. TOTALLY LOVE. Toward the female, obviously."
"Both (male and female) and none," that's a good one! Wrong on all accounts...As ewq1938 points out at #21: "That's false. In every way God is described and spoken about as being male. Being a Father and a Son makes that obvious.""

Apparently you don't grasp what other posters have nicely tried to tell you, that God has no beard or male genitalia and hence is not male. Can you say "symbolic language?"

3. DH: "I think both your references are wrong - my Bible doesn't seem to read the way yours apparently does. (Even if the source is correctly identified, especially in the case of using "adam," the reference is to "a man" meaning a human (as opposed to God)."
You evidently can't read. So I'll repeat the post in question:
"The Bible specifically denies that God is literally a male: "God is not a male ("ish"), that He should lie (Numbers 11:29)." "Ish" is the Hebrew word for "male." "He (God) is not a male (Hebrew: "adam"), that He should change His mind (1 Samuel 15:29)".

I know Hebrew and you don't. My post explains that the first verse denies that God is "ish," the Hebrew word for "male," not for "human." The second verse does use "adam," which means "human" unless a male pronoun indicates its masculine usage, as it does in this verse. So the Bible denies that God is literally male. End of story. My post in question continues: "Both males and females are created in God's image (Genesis 1;27-28). So God is neither gender," but in a figurative sense both. I then proceed to explain that God does not think like a human:
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, not are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:7-8)"

4. DH: "And certainly one is not a Christian if one does not believe Jesus was (IS!) God. So "obviously Jesus was male" pretty much answers the question, and to equivocate about "Father" and try to make it into something like "Mother" is pretty questionable if not outright heretical unbelief, denying the Christ."

You are an idolater in whose mind a male God is engraved like an idol. Thus, you are blind to the whole counsel of God in Scripture, which balances male God imagery with abundant female God imagery. No Bible scholar disputes that. Neither the preexistent Christ (the Logos) nor the risen Lord have male anatomy. The divinity of Christ transcends gender categories. So the issue is the spiritual function of gender imagery used by God's Word. That is the key point you so simplistically miss! My thread explains the function of the female God imagery in detail, but again you are too biased to bother with a careful reading. So in my next planned post, I will explain the function of feminine God talk more fully. It is perfectly appropriate that Christ appears to devout 2nd century Christian women as a woman (Lady Sophia =Wisdom).

farout: "Because in every place Yahweh uses in the Old and New Testaments it is ALWAYS used in a male gender." I refute this claim in post #22. Reread it.

 

[hedrick]

It wasn't done sexually but it was done by fertilizing Mary's egg so the Father is still a Father in the literal sense. Only begotten means Jesus is the Father's only literal child. God is male in gender.

Literal how? Does God have DNA? This is getting more explicit than I'm comfortable with, but if not, then the closest modern analogy would be artificial insemination. The gender of the person doing that isn't relevant.

 

[ewq1938]

Literal how? Does God have DNA?

I don't know but He could. Whatever was done, Jesus was his literal son.

 

[hedrick]

I don't know but He could. Whatever was done, Jesus was his literal son.

I don't object to the idea that Jesus was God's son (though I think calling it "literal" is a misuse of the word), nor that God was his father. But if his origin wasn't sexual, than being Jesus' parent doesn't make him male.