What good is a male God? ::
[ Warning: this post is a rant, my language and expression may not be coolly academic, but the issue is important, and my feelings are hot ;) ]

Claude Mariottini, in a post "The Jewish Goddess" drew my attention to a review in Forward by Jay Michaelson ("The Jewish Goddess, Past and Present") of two books, one that I know: William G. Dever Did God Have a Wife? Archeology And Folk Religion in Ancient Israel Eerdmans, 2005 and the other I didn't Rami Shapiro The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature Skylight Paths, 2005. Judging by the books, and the new one comes from a publisher I do not know, I assumed I'd learn little, but the topic is one I think important...

The review seems careful and fairly balanced, though it does not like the book that is new to me! But there is (at least) one statement I must challenge. If only because it is made too often as an assertion of fact, without support. It is contained in the throw away phrase "the familiar male God of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles". There ain't no such animal! Or at least there is but his name was Ba'al, or Moloch, or Mammon. The Bible regularly and strongly rants against such male fathering gods, as it does less often and strongly (read Dever for the background or see Michaelson for a biased though not unreasonable presentation) against their female counterparts, mothers and wives. But to claim that YHWH the God of the OT is male is just wrong! (The case of the "God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ" of the NT is more complex and needs at least a chapter or two to discuss).

God explicitly states in several places that human categories do NOT apply to the Godhead ("I am God and not a man" using אִישׁ 'ish the usual word for a man (sometimes a bit like the English "man" also used of a human being of unspecified sex). (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Hos 11:9 cf. Job 9:32 etc.) In the Hebrew Bible God is pictured in motherly ways about as seldom as "he" is in fatherly ones (both are rare, perhaps precisely to avoid association with pagan engendering and birthing 'gods'). Female pictures are not in general much rarer than male ones. So why does this myth persist that YHWH is seen by the Bible writers as male.

Perhaps it is because Christian (and Jewish?) tradition gradually turned God into a male?

The "Fathers of the Church" in the first millennium consistently taught that:

God is neither male nor female.[1]

and:

Sexual categories do not apply to the Godhead. [2]

[NB knee-jerk-readers may like to notice that the second quote is from Jerome that renouned and often excoriated feminist theologian!]

These sentiments are not isolated, nor mere slogans without implication, for "“the fathers" were not ashamed to speak of God as mother.

Early Christian writers picture God'’s teaching as breast-feeding. This picture was common in the Hellenistic world, and Christian theologians took up verses from the Epistles speaking of apostles' feeding their readers with the "“milk of the gospel" and extend them to God the source of this milk (i.e. 1 Pet 2:2-3; 1 Thess 2:7-8; 1 Cor 3:1-3 and Heb 5:12-13). They could even speak of "“God's breasts"!

¶ 8:37 AM [to Del.icio.us]

Tim,

This is very interesting. I have read in Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth that there is very likely male and female in heaven and that if there is, then, for sure, there will be male leadership in heaven. I always assumed that there wasn't sex in heaven but that God uses images from both genders to describe his ;-) traits.

By  Suzanne McCarthy, at May 6, 2006 3:44 PM  

Suzanne, I think Wayne Gudrem's book, is right to say that the diversity of humanity (at least by gender, see Gen 1:27) will be represented somehow in heaven. If it is precisely in our male and femaleness that humans are in the "image" of God surely these very traits will be present in heaven? The step in the argument that is plain wrong is the assumption of a male god (like Ba'al or Quetzalcoatl). The God of heaven is neither male nor female (unlike all these "gods") but both are used to describe and talk about the creator.

By  Tim, at May 7, 2006 6:36 AM  

Thanks.

By  Suzanne McCarthy, at May 7, 2006 10:35 AM  

Tim,

I think you opened a good subject for discussion. To a certain extend, I agree with you. In a few days I will address this issue. Right now I am preparing for the end of the academic year and will not have much time to blog.

Thank you for your very interesting post.

Claude Mariottini

By  Dr. Claude Mariottini, at May 10, 2006 10:43 AM  

A fellow sitting across from me at a car wash one day saw the book I was reading (something on textual criticism as I recall) and began talking about the seminary he attended on the West Coast (US). After informing me that they taught that God was a woman, he laughingly described the uproar he caused by entitling his chapel sermon "What if Satan herself were here?" :-)
-- Ishmael

By  Anonymous, at May 16, 2006 11:36 AM  

I can see how in some circles that might cause a stir, though Holywood has had a female Satan on occasion I think ;)

By  Tim, at May 18, 2006 12:40 PM  

Post a Comment