God the Dad, where’s the Mom?

James_Lai

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Aramaic has very few translation problems. It is unique in it's form and style and is almost in the form of poetry.

I don’t know if there were translation or transmission problems, but we don’t know the exact words of Jesus, they haven’t survived. I’m not so sure Jesus called God the Father
 
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James_Lai

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God, the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, are affirmed in the masculine. As Creator, He created male and female in his creation ( Genesis 1:26-27. The Lord Jesus Christ clearly affirms the 3 Persons of God as masculine in John 14 & John 15.

It is within creation that life is continued from the feminine in humanity ( for ex. Proverbs 9). It is the Mother of God we honor as the birth giver of our Lord but that is from God deeming her worthy to give birth to His only begotten Son and His Spirit ( Luke 1:26-35). It is the ever Virgin Mary the Lord on the cross told his apostle ( & really all of us) to behold as our mother ( John 19:25-27). She holds the highest honor in creation but she is still created ( Revelation 12). Still,
she was created and we worship the Creator not the creation.


The book of Enoch was held as scripture by many early Christians & parts of it remained regarded as truths. A major example is the Trinity in chapter 48 which clearly conforms to Daniel 7:9-10. The persons of God are in the masculine.

see: First Enoch - Chapter XLVIII / Chapter 48 - Book of 1 Enoch, Parallel 1912 Charles & 1883 Laurence, Pseudepigrapha Online Parallel Bible Study

Much of the gobbledygook in this thread is just that.

God is also the Mother, to call It only the Father is to strip It of Its full divinity. God has both the Feminine and Masculine side. It is a She and a He at the same time fully and all-inclusively.
 
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ViaCrucis

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God is actually also the Mother. We shouldn’t rob God of Its full divinity by exclusively masculinizing It. God is all-inclusive.

God the Father is just as maternal as He is paternal.

We are not robbing God of anything, we are confessing God as God has revealed Himself. "God" outside of the context of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who comes and reveals Himself in Jesus is never God at all--just an idea about God. Ideas about God are not God, only God in the Revelation of Himself is God. And that Revelation is Jesus of Nazareth.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ViaCrucis

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I don’t know if there were translation or transmission problems, but we don’t know the exact words of Jesus, they haven’t survived. I’m not so sure Jesus called God the Father

We know what language Jesus spoke, it was Aramaic. And so, yes, Jesus spoke of His Father. In fact that Aramaic is preserved for us in the New Testament, it's when St. Paul says that by our adoption as children we have received the Spirit of His Son, and cries out from us, "Abba, Father". "Abba" is Aramaic for "father". Paul uses the Aramaic and the Greek together here.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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SkyWriting

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I don’t know if there were translation or transmission problems, but we don’t know the exact words of Jesus, they haven’t survived. I’m not so sure Jesus called God the Father
As Jesus is quoted, his words have been translated back into Aramaic. When scholars do that they take on the cadance and style that is common to Aramaic. In other words, the quotes seem to have been Aramaic that has been translated, and not originally Greek or Hebrew. And Aramaic has a style like a poem or a song that is difficult to mistranslate or alter by accident.
 
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APersonWithNoName

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Hello.
I grew up an atheist, and in my language we don’t have “he/she” pronouns, everything is “it”. Even though I’ve been studying Christianity for many years, until today it’s very odd to me that there is God the Father, but there is no God the Mother. There is God the Son, even God the Ghost, but no Mother. If we have a single dad with a child, we know at least at some point a mother was involved. It’s quite strange that spiritually, femininity is excluded. We know that in life, without the feminine component there’s no continuation of life, there’s no care and no nurturing. When my drunk athletic dad was angry and severely whooping us kids with his belt, our mom would sometimes jump and cover us with her body and maybe saving our lives, who knows. It was intense. The love of a mother is how I understand what true love is. Forever etched on my heart. How can God have only the masculine side? Shouldn’t God be androgynous? A He and a She at the same time? The Mother and the Father? I read in one book on early Western Semitic beliefs that the supreme God El at one point had a wife Astarte, later edited out by the male editors of the Tanakh. Don’t you think erasing the feminine part of God is quite erroneous?

interesting you should say this. Years ago I knew this Christian man who also had a bad relationship with his dad, I think he either mentioned he relates to God as if He is a mom, or he call God mom, I can't remember.

I don't know whether what he did was a good idea, but that was just what he did.
 
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aiki

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Hello.
I grew up an atheist, and in my language we don’t have “he/she” pronouns, everything is “it”. Even though I’ve been studying Christianity for many years, until today it’s very odd to me that there is God the Father, but there is no God the Mother.

Well, the Bible is crystal clear in its rendering of God in the masculine. Jesus, for example, prayed to his "Father in Heaven" referring to Him many times as "Father," but never as "Mother." Jesus himself, God incarnate, took on the form of a man, not a woman, and his conduct comported generally with that of a man.

God the Father, the Bible indicates, is genderless, a Spirit, whom no one has seen. Insofar as gender is related to physical attributes (sexual organs, chromosomes, facial hair, muscle mass, hip size, brain size, etc.), speaking of God as male or female makes little sense.

If we have a single dad with a child, we know at least at some point a mother was involved. It’s quite strange that spiritually, femininity is excluded.

Why? Only when you expect God should conform to our human experience, to our human frame of reference, is there a problem. But God isn't in our category of being; He occupies a category all His own. To extrapolate, then, from what is the case for us as human beings to what must, or should be, the case for God is to make a serious category error in reasoning. I would make the same mistake if I tried to conform an artist to a painting he made of, say, a vase of flowers, thinking that he should be like the painting, made of oil paints, perhaps, or in essence like a flower, or vase, our bounded by four right angles, etc.

We know that in life, without the feminine component there’s no continuation of life, there’s no care and no nurturing. When my drunk athletic dad was angry and severely whooping us kids with his belt, our mom would sometimes jump and cover us with her body and maybe saving our lives, who knows. It was intense.

But this is to do exactly what I described above: Extrapolate from your own human frame of reference to God. He isn't anything like the abusive man you describe. In fact, He is far more unlike us than He is like us. We share some basic characteristics with Him as creatures made in His image, but there is so much more that God is, He is so far beyond what He has revealed of Himself, that we always inevitably diminish and/or contort who and what He really is when we think of Him in terms of ourselves.

My mother was the savage one. She was...terrifying, sometimes. One moment, she would be sweet, sensitive and generous, the next, a shrieking, purple-faced horror, slapping us about in a rage. What, then, of trying to make a case for God's femininity from the basis of our personal experience of womanly conduct? We do far better to see God in the special revelation of Himself He's given us in His word.

The love of a mother is how I understand what true love is.

Then you cannot know true love, only the lesser, human love of your mother. God is True Love and He shares little in common with your Mom - or any of us. The protective, self-sacrificing care of your Mom does demonstrate something of the nature of God's love, to be sure, but as noble and wonderful as your Mom's love was/is, God's is infinitely wiser, holier, just and true. Look, then, to His love, the highest, greatest love, for an understanding of "true love," not to the inferior, contingent, sin-corrupted love that we produce.

1 John 4:9-10
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.


1 John 4:15-19
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.


Titus 3:3-7
3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.
4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,
5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.


1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
 
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Jake Arsenal

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Once, hearing David repeat, "Like as a father pitieth his children" (Psalms 103:13), Joab objected that a mother had more pity for her children than a father. David suggested that he should more carefully observe the dispositions of parents toward their children, and to do this, Joab undertook a journey. He arrived at the house of a poor old laborer who had twelve sons and who worked very hard to support his family. In the evening the old man divided the bread which he had won by his day's labor into fourteen equal pieces, for his twelve sons, his wife, and himself. On the following day Joab said to the old man: "You are old and feeble; why do you work for your young sons? Take my advice and sell one of them; and with the money you will be able to live with your family in comfort." The old man rebuked him for such advice and went on to his work; from the mother, however, he succeeded, after meeting many objections, in buying one son for one hundred pieces of gold. In the evening Joab, himself unseen, observed what passed between the father and the mother. The former, having noticed that one of the fourteen pieces of bread remained untouched, asked after his son. His wife at first gave various reasons for his absence, but her husband remained unsatisfied, and she was obliged to tell him the truth. The man took the money, and, having found Joab, demanded the return of his son. As Joab resisted, the man threatened to kill him unless he restored his son to him, which Joab gladly did, and acknowledged that David was right.
 
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Ligurian

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I don’t know if there were translation or transmission problems, but we don’t know the exact words of Jesus, they haven’t survived. I’m not so sure Jesus called God the Father

"Papayrus P104 (P. Oxy. 4404) is a second-century papyrus fragment that contains Matt. 21:34-37 on the front, and traces of verses 43 and 45 on the back."
"Papyrus P98 (P. IFAO inv. 237b [+a]) is a manuscript fragment that contains verses from the first chapter of the book of Revelation. It was copied circa A.D. 100-200, likely in Egypt.9 The manuscript was first published by Guy Wagner in 1971, who dated it to the second century. He did not recognize that it was a biblical text, however, and it wasn’t until 20 years later that Dieter Hagedorn identified it as coming from Rev. 1:13-20."
"P52 comes from a codex (ie. book form, not a scroll) and contains parts of seven lines from the John 18:31–33 on the front, and parts of seven lines from verses 37–38 on the back."
The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

The first ancient fragment links us to the Matthew 21:33 parable... the Father is the householder... οἰκοδεσπότης "master of the house"... and Iesus is the Son.

Matthew 21:34-37 [34] And when the time of the fruit drew near, He sent His servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.[35] And the husbandmen took His servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.[36] Again, He sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.[37] But last of all He sent unto them His Son, saying, They will reverence My Son. ...[43] Therefore say I unto you, The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. ...[45] And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables, they perceived that He spake of them.

Second ancient fragment from the link:

Revelation 1:13-20 [13] And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.[14] His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;[15] And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.[16] And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.[17] And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:[18] I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.[19] Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;[20] The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Third ancient fragment from the link:

John 18:31-38 [31] Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death:[32] That the saying of Iesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die.[33] Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Iesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? ...[37] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Iesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.[38] Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

Iesus says His Father's word is truth, John 17:17... so Iesus came to bear witness to the Father. John 12:49-50 says the words He spoke are really the Father's words.
 
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Ligurian

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We know what language Jesus spoke, it was Aramaic.

"But it is not true that parts of the New Testament were originally written in Aramaic, as some have claimed. No manuscript of any part of the New Testament has ever been discovered that is written in the Jewish Palestinian Aramaic dialect known to Jesus and the apostles."
Aramaic: The Bible’s third language

"The oldest and most complete Aramaic manuscript is British Library, Add. 14470, which dates to the 5th Century AD."
Greek and Aramaic Manuscripts of the New Testament | AHRC
 
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BravoM

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If anything, God is the Mother - Creator, Giver of Life, Loving, Caring, Nurturing. Not the Father for sure
No.
As the Creator, Judge, and Authority HE is only referred to in male terms. The Holy SPirit is not His wife nor female side as some have suggested.
A good single parent can exhibit qualities of the opposite but no man can every fill the female role well enough nor can a woman fill a man's role well enough.
"Divine feminine is higher than divine masculine side of God." - No, it isn't.
 
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