so now I must start to list what I'm doing:
- I have completed polishing my paper from the God and Gender Colloquium, it was due in December, so is only a few days overdue, and the other participants have not submitted theirs yet as far as I know, so I'll link to my draft and invite comments and criticism: The image of the invisible God: (an)iconic knowing, God
and gender - I doubt it counts for the "IBSW Month" but I am finishing two sets of course notes (well one is a revision but the other is new)
- I am planning and hope to finalise a proposal for SBL International
- I want to finalise a book proposal for Not Just a Father
[to Del.icio.us]
Before training as a pastor, Hannah was a leader in another profession. There, her talents, ideas and guidance were welcomed. Now she is a pastor, and in the one place where "who you are" should not matter - "in Christ" - she finds that being a woman matters more than the qualities she can offer. She finds the ministry to which God called her an uphill struggle, because of the attitudes of others.
People say that this issue, of the roles of women and men in church, will "take a generation or two" (just as slavery did). They may well be right.
However, when would you date the beginnings of a movement to allow women free and full exercise of any ministry in the church to which God calls them? Among British Baptists the issue was a live one in the early 60s. We are more than a generation on from there. From when would you date the beginnings of a movement to ensure that our image of God is not distorted through exclusive or excessive use of male imagery and language? I know it was a live issue when I began a PhD on The Image of God and Parental Images in 1977. At 30 years that makes about "a generation".
But Hannah's experience shows, like that of the (all too few) other women who have followed God's call to ministry in Evangelical contexts, that the issues are far from resolved. Our colloquium on God and Gender (at Carey in Auckland from 12-13th July) and the public evening dialogue that accompanies it still have a role to play. Most of the draft papers for the colloquium were in on time, I hope to finish my draft today... If you live near Auckland do come to Carey Baptist College at 7pm on 12th to listen and share in this dialogue on women, men, God, and the Church.
[to Del.icio.us]
The image of the invisible God: (an)iconic knowing, God and gender
Will comprise two main sections, the first:Aniconic knowing: God beyond gender
Beginning from evidence that the Christian theologians of the formative period (the “fathers of the church”) understood that God was beyond gender categories. Will then argue that the gods of polytheism are commonly gendered, and that this is almost inevitable, because these gods are often imaged in human form, and anthropomorphic images can - indeed almost must - suggest gender. By contrast the Hebrew Bible insisted that God is aniconic (not to be imaged – unimaginable?) and therefore resisted any simple gendering of God.Iconic knowing: Jesus and the Father
However, the New Testament presents Jesus (a male human) as “the image of the invisible God” and he talked of God as “Father”. This double imaging of the invisible God has resulted in a tendency to imagine God as male. I will suggest that a closer look at Jesus' use of father language shows that it does not simply gender God. Indeed such male imagining of God distorts theology, and also therefore distorts the sayings of Jesus on which it is based.At least, that's the idea. I will try to blog parts of the argument here, for comment and discussion. In the meanwhile I would appreciate any comments on the abstract! ¶ 6:12 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
The proposal rests on two false assumptions:
- that שַׁדַּי shadday is somehow etymologically or morphologically related to שָׁדַיִם shadayim (it is not notice the doubled ד d)
- that such a morphological connection of itself implies a connection of meaning, Barr laid into that one long long ago ;-)
... by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,Here the echoes of שַׁדַּי shadday "Almighty" with שָׁדַיִם shadayim "breasts" resonates strongly, and perhaps is echoed more weakly (in sense if not by sound) with the "eternal mountains" and "everlasting hills" of the next verse. The effect is perhaps to mitigate the exclusively male patriarchal feel of the blessing - especially since שָׁדַיִם shadayim is paired with that most female of words רָחַם racham "womb".by the name of the Shepherd,25 by the God of your father, who will help you,
the Rock of Israel,by the Almighty (shadday) who will bless you26 The blessings of your fatherwith blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.
So, not a "breasted god", but a God who consistently and persistently fulfils the ideas of this blessing in the gift of childbirth and motherhood. (For YHWH is persistently described as the giver of birth, even as the midwife of human life, and even or most poignantly when fertility of the womb is withheld.)
__________________________________
1. Organised by the new Centre for the Theology of Gender and hosted by Tyndale-Carey Graduate School in July. [RETURN]
Labels: bible, gender, genesis, god
¶ 7:34 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
What about the pun in the charge in the Song of Solomon - thought to be a hidden reflection of El Shaddai? The deer of the fields (aylot hasadeh) sounds like El Shadday - this would seem to indicate that the Hebrews were sensitive to 'sounds like' and might well have played charades - so the doubling of the daleth does not seems convincing - wasn't that a Masoretic marking anyway - i.e. post-consonantal text?
By 
Bob MacDonald, at
April 12, 2007 7:55 AM
My guess is that "shadday" is related to Akkadian šadu, "mountain." Note šaddu, "mountain dweller."
By Duane, at
April 12, 2007 12:03 PM
Bob, I guess in Song 2:7, as in the Genesis passage there are other textual signs that suggest the word play, in Song 2:7 the preceding echo of בִּצְבָאוֹת bisba'ot with בְּצִבְאוֹת bisib'ot seems to predispose us to hear the echo you point to. My point is that such echoes impact the effect of a word or phrase in a particular context, but do not suggest its meaning (unless the same echo is fairly frequent, perhaps).
So, Shadday does not mean "breasted god", though in this passage the echo encourages us to remember God's connection to birthing and motherhood.
I think this would be true even if we ignore the doubling of the daleth, though I do think that this Massoretic indicator is yet another factor. It is the usage of Shadday elsewhere, usually with no hint of "breasts" that means I do not see this proposal as a good one for the word/name's meaning.
By Tim, at
April 12, 2007 2:26 PM
Please correct spelling of "Masoretic" spelling in comments is a pain as I am in the habit of correcting after, when I see the words large ;-)
By Tim, at
April 12, 2007 2:28 PM
Edward T. Babinski:
I agree, "Breasted God" is too literal. But leaving out the word "God," might there still be a connection between the words for "mountains" and "breasts?" Certainly the French saw the similarity as evidenced in their language.
The Hebrew word for “mountain” is “shaddai,” and if you add one consonant on the end (the common ending for body parts that occur in pairs), you get, “shaddayim,” the Hebrew word for “breasts.” The French also have a word, “titans,” that refers to both mountains and breasts as in the “Gran Titans.”
Moreover, the Hebrews appeared to have favored women with large (dare I say "mountainous") breasts:
My breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favor.
- Song of Sol. 8:10
Laban had two daughters: and the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. And Jacob loved Rachel.
- Gen. 29:16-17
Apparently Rachel was not only beautiful but was also “well favored,” which was the same terms employed by the author of the Song of Solomon when describing “breasts... like towers.”
Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times... Why embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
- Proverbs 5:19-20
Also note what Marvin H. Pope wrote in his article, “The Bible, Euphemism and Dysphemism In” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I:
Poetic allusions to the most intimate of female charms are sometimes overlooked or studiously ignored by translators. In the Song of Songs 2:17 the lady invites her lover to be like a gazelle on “cleft mount(s)” and in 8:14 the invitation is to “spice mound(s).”
The lady of the Song speaks of her unguarded vineyard (1:6), and there is frequent reference (2:16; 4:5; 5:1; 6:2) to the garden(s) where the lover grazes, not among “lilies” (as traditionally understood), but on the lotus, an ancient and famous sexual symbol. The body part praised as a rounded crater (mixing bowl) never to lack mix (7:2) is hardly the navel but a receptacle not far below. The all-spice part(s) of the lady (4:13) are not “shoots” but a “groove” or “conduit” [the vulva].
Song of Songs 5:4 states, “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him” which is suggestive of intercourse…”Hand” appears as a euphemism in another part of the Bible which states, “You have loved their bed, You have looked on their manhood [literal Hebrew, ‘looked on their hand’].” (Isaiah 57:8, NASB) And the Dead Sea scrolls refer to a member of the Hebrew religious community at Qumran being fined for exposing his “hand.”
There is even sexual suggestiveness in the use of the word “couch” in Song of Songs 1:12-13 (which states, “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.”--RSV). The double entendre meaning of “couch” is illuminated by Rabbi Judah’s ancient remark that Jerusalem men were lewd: “One would say to his colleague, ‘On what did you dine today? On well-kneaded bread or on bread not kneaded; on white wine or dark wine; on a broad couch or a narrow couch; with a good companion or a poor companion?’” “All these queries,” Hisda explained, refer “to fornication.”
Also note the following verses:
Let us get up early to the vineyard... There will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell and at our gates [or doors] are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
- Song of Songs 7:12-13
“Gates” or “doors” are euphemisms for the genitalia. And the two-pronged “mandrake” root is crotch-shaped. Since ancient times “mandrakes” have been related to sexual potency. Take Genesis chapter 30 in which Jacob’s barren wife tells him she has “hired him [a child] with mandrake.” Speaking of “pleasant fruits,” notice how “breasts” are described as “clusters of grapes,” and be sure to keep an eye on further appearances of “fruit” in the Song of Solomon:
Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like clusters of grapes... I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also your breasts shall be as clusters of the vine.
- Song of Songs 7:7-8
As the apple tree among the trees of the world, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
- Song of Songs 2:3
Fellatio?
The smell of your nose, like apples.
- Song of Songs 7:8
Translated literally it’s puzzling. “Noses” do not “smell like apples.” The Anchor Bible dissects the linguistics, concluding that this refers to the scent of a woman’s “vulva.” The reference to “apples” also mirrors verse 2:3 where the female “sits in the shadow” of the male’s “apple tree” and finds his “fruit” “sweet” to her “taste.” Should not her “fruit” smell equally as “sweet” to him?
Your navel [literal Hebrew, “groove” or “slit”] a rounded crater, may it never lack punch!
- Song of Songs 7:2
Cunnilingus?
Just noting all of the euphemisms makes one pause before simply tossing out any possible connection or recognition in the ancient Hebrew's mind between "breasts" and "mountains."
Edward T. Babinski
The proposal rests on two false assumptions:
- that שַׁדַּי shadday is somehow etymologically or morphologically related to שָׁדַיִם shadayim (it is not notice the doubled ד d)
- that such a morphological connection of itself implies a connection of meaning, Barr laid into that one long long ago ;-)
... by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,Here the echoes of שַׁדַּי shadday "Almighty" with שָׁדַיִם shadayim "breasts" resonates strongly, and perhaps is echoed more weakly (in sense if not by sound) with the "eternal mountains" and "everlasting hills" of the next verse. The effect is perhaps to mitigate the exclusively male patriarchal feel of the blessing - especially since שָׁדַיִם shadayim is paired with that most female of words רָחַם racham "womb".by the name of the Shepherd,25 by the God of your father, who will help you,
the Rock of Israel,by the Almighty (shadday) who will bless you26 The blessings of your fatherwith blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.
So, not a "breasted god", but a God who consistently and persistently fulfils the ideas of this blessing in the gift of childbirth and motherhood. (For YHWH is persistently described as the giver of birth, even as the midwife of human life, and even or most poignantly when fertility of the womb is withheld.)
__________________________________
1. Organised by the new Centre for the Theology of Gender and hosted by Tyndale-Carey Graduate School in July. [RETURN]
[to Del.icio.us]
For a long time I have held my peace,Stephen Cook has a couple of interesting posts responding to a paper given recently at VTS. ("The presenter was Dr. Juliana Claassens and the paper looked at the image of God in Isaiah 42.")
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labour,
I will gasp and pant.Isaiah 42:14
Stephen concludes his first post, God "Like a Woman in Labor" (Isaiah 42)
A woman's helplessness and frailty during labor is nothing less than power, the power to bring about new life--something a "powerful" male cannot do! This theological theme that vulnerability and frailty is a source of true, marvelous power is a big one throughout Isaiah 40-66. I think Juliana is really on to something here.Which captures one of the ways in which this passage fits so well with traditional Christian theology and preaching, though using an image that did not become a major part of the tradition - at least since the Middle Ages, I've argued that various sorts of mother imagery for God was more common earlier than 1450AD!
In his second post Whence Comes God's Pain in Labor (Isaiah 42)? Stephen says:
Dr. Claassens in her paper interpreted God's pain in labor as God's work of entering into the trials and trauma of the people, who have been exiled to Babylonia as prisoners of war. In my response to her paper, I suggested another possibility that to me seems more in keeping with the overall theology and thinking of 2 Isaiah.Stephen locates God's pain in this passage in the idea that "In 2 Isaiah God is seen to put aside God's right to justice, to put aside what's fair and deserved." His discussion provides a good theological entry point into the passage in Isaiah 42. It is one that fits well with the description of the "servant" at the start of the chapter.
However, it seems to me that this discussion rather misses the immediate cotext of verse 14. The preceding verse presents God as a (male?) warrior:
The LORD goes forth like a soldier,and in the following God declares:
like a warrior he stirs up his fury;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.Isaiah 42:13
I will lay waste mountains and hills,The verse about pregnancy, labour and birth is thus set in a context that is surprising, at least in a world of sanitised congratulations cards and Baby's First Blog's! Fury, destruction and war seem out of place in such a world. But these images are not so strange in a delivery room. Mothers can speak for themselves, but to a husband and lover standing, almost helplessly, by these images fit the event. So, in my reading of this passage vv.13 and 15 need to be heard. The terror, cries and anguish you are seeing - says YHWH - are the birth pangs of something new, to which I am giving birth!
and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
and dry up the pools.Isaiah 42:15
Labels: god, is.42, isaiah, mother
¶ 11:50 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
Apology to atheist readers ::
A commentor below (anon) drew my attention to a really good response to Eagleton's review of Dawkins' The God Delusion. This review of a review, "The God Conundrum", reminds me of how when we debate we often descend to each other's level, but that when we discuss we can sometimes rise to each other's best.In my trite and gloating quoting of Eagleton's review I made this error. I am sorry. I should have resisted the temptation to enter such a débat de sourds (debate among the [mutually] deaf). Because, I am sure that Eagleton does not hear the real points that Dawkins makes, since he is so busy hearing Dawkins' failure to understand what "God" means.
And now I've lost the opportunity for a real conversation. :-(
Anyway Sean, the poster of The God Conundrum, writes well and clearly, and thinks clearly too. I particularly liked this paragraph:
The problematic nature of this transition — from God as ineffable, essentially static and completely harmless abstract concept, to God as a kind of being that, in some sense that is perpetually up for grabs, cares about us down here on Earth — is not just a minor bump in the otherwise smooth road to a fully plausible conception of the divine. It is the profound unsolvable dilemma of “sophisticated theology.” It’s a millenia-old problem, inherited from the very earliest attempts to reconcile two fundamentally distinct notions of monotheism: the Unmoved Mover of ancient Greek philosophy, and the personal/tribal God of Biblical Judaism. Attempts to fit this square peg into a manifestly round hole lead us smack into all of the classical theological dilemmas: “Can God microwave a burrito so hot that He Himself cannot eat it?” The reason why problems such as this are so vexing is not because our limited human capacities fail to measure up when confronted with the divine; it’s because they are legitimately unanswerable questions, arising from a set of mutually inconsistent assumptions.Naturally, since we take very different stances with respect to the existence of God, I don't always agree with Sean. Sometimes I tend to agree, but still seem to arrive at a different conclusion. (Because I am agreeing with most of the words, rather than all that was intended by them. So when Sean writes:
But the crucial point is that the emergence of One God was an essentially political transformation.I agree, except for the innocuous looking "essentially". The claim of monotheism is indeed political, as well as everything else. As a political claim it subverts the claims to divine sanction of David's descendants. Though less directly than it does those of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Basically it seems to me the claim is relational, rather than merely political. (Sean sets the "political" Hebrews against the "philosophical" Greeks. I am happy to distinguish the two approaches, but suspect that Greek thinkers also had political consequences.)
This analysis (and I quite accept Sean's neat dissecting of the problem of two inconsistent approaches) leads to this (partial) conclusion:
For the past two thousand years, theology has struggled to reconcile these two apparently-conflicting conceptions of the divine, without much success. We are left with fundamentally incoherent descriptions of what God is, which deny that he “exists” in the same sense that hummingbirds and saxophones do, but nevertheless attribute to him qualities of “love” and “creativity” that conventionally belong to conscious individual beings. One might argue that it’s simply a hard problem...The trouble is, it seems to me, that the "problem" is not merely "hard", it is impossible. Attempts to "eff the ineffable and unscrut the inscrutable" are inevitably reduced to analogy and metaphor. And once we talk that language we are again reduced to talk of hummingbirds or saxophones. That's why:
...for the most part, theologians have basically abandoned the project of “proving” God’s existence, which is probably a good move.And that in a nutshell describes the fundamental gulf between Sean and me. Sean wants to understand and reason everything. I claim that at its heart the answer to life the universe and everything is not a neat 42, but a relationship. This relationship is nowhere near as simple, or as compelling, as many religionists make out, but it is there deep in my being, in a way that no neat simple argument could ever be.
But they haven’t given up on believing in God’s existence (suitably defined), which is what drives atheists like Dawkins (and me) a little crazy. Two thousand years ago, believing in God made perfect sense; there was so much that we didn’t understand about the world, and an appeal to the divine seemed to help explain the otherwise inexplicable.
Labels: god
¶ 4:54 PM
[to Del.icio.us]
