Well since, “he” is (in Western culture) constantly referred to as “he” (or often “He”), he’s obviously got a gender. So I’m with BlackKnight here: that is, anyone called “he” has a gender; but the question of sex comes down to anatomy so I think the penis question is open to debate.
I’ve been told that the original Old Testament pronoun for God (Aramaic, I suppose), is in fact a genderless “it” but has been translated as “he” by later cultures. Anyone here speak Aramaic?
kalashnikov: “Does [God] seem male because it is instinctive for humans (like other primates) to look up to an alpha male?”
Putting aside the primate analogy–which tends to drive me apeshit–is God an “alpha male”? In the Old Testament I suppose he is: if you’re willing to define “alpha male” as a guy who thunders a lot, makes a lot of unilateral decisions without any coherent rationale, and demands total obedience from everyone else. But Jesus Christ, IMO, is hardly alpha material: weeping, bleeding, explaining stuff and sacrificing himself all the time. I’d say he comes across as androgynous and even feminine according to the conventional stereotypes.
Ok–so what if they didn’t? Didn’t God create Adam in his own image? And what if his own image didn’t have a belly-button? But we do!? What does that mean!?
The God of the Jews and therefore Christians is male, because these religions are paternalist. So we look to our Father and up to the sky, rather than to our Mother and to the earth,Mother Nature Judaic-Christian mythology does its best to rid us of any feelings for our maternalistic side. This is begun in the Adam and Eve story. But even before that in Genesis 1:28-30 God says:
So Mother Nature is in our control and not to be thought of as a goddess.
I just thought of something. In Christianity you are to look to God and shun material things. I wonder if that is complete coincidence?
Well here’s my reasoning. If God had a gender, I would just assume he was male, and not really the type to…um…get busy very often. Now, even if he is God, it seems to me that he would eventually get sexually frustrated. So what better way to get rid of that, than to have a penis which he could use to jerk-off from time to time? Seems perfectly possible to me…but then again, thats not saying much the way my twisted mind works…
The original OT is in Hebrew (although Aramaic is a pretty similar language), and I and many others on this board are quite familiar with that language (and some of us, myself included, could do Aramaic as well).
One of the fundamental tenets of Judaism is that G-d has no physical component. Hence, no penis. The references in the OT to “the hand of G-d”, “the back (not backside, you wise guys) of G-d”, etc. are (according to Jewish tradition) intended to convey certain concepts (e.g., G-d’s exercise of power, G-d’s mysterious ways) in terms that human beings can identify with.
G-d is, therefore, neither male nor female. However, there is no neutral pronoun (“it”) in the Hebrew language, even inanimate objects are assigned a gender according to certain ruules of grammar. The noun for G-d is, by the grammatical rules, male, and therefore in pronoun form, the word “he” is used.
When this got translated into languages that do have gender-neutral terms, the distinction was lost. So it’s not quite a mistranslation so much as a misunderstanding.
cmkeller, given that G-d is burdened with no physical component, what is the Jewish interpretation of the Biblical assertion that He created man in His own image?
My own take has always been that this is a poetic way of saying that, like G-d, we humans have a spiritual component that is aware of its own spiritual nature.
In his spiritual image, having the ability to make free-will choices (and possessed of the optimum physical characteristics to execute them). As opposed to all other creatures, who are basically (according to the Jewish religion) soulless automatons under G-d’s control.
Sections of the Zohar, one of the major texts in kabbalah, went into some detail about describing God’s body. And by some passages, there is indeed a penis; sexual imagery is used to describe He and the Shekhinah (the feminine divine side, or the spirit of Israel, or of the Earth, depending on which interpretive ax to grind commentators have) in the process of creation. Also, general dimensions are given to describe His body, the parts of His beard (this at some length, dual meaning intended), etc. The dimensions are, as would be expected, pretty Godly huge; Eden would have been a smear on the sole of His foot, but clearly He can shrink. (It gets chilly down in the Kingdom.)
Such language is usually caveated right in the same sources as being purely metaphorical and symbolic, though, which is a rather nice feature of that tradition.
[/quote]
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
KJV Genesis 6: 1-4
[/quote]
This passage would seem to suggest that the sons of God as differentiated from the duaghters of men (and presumably the sons of men) were possessed of gender and able to produce offspring with humans. Whilst this certainly does not preclude God from having no gender it does appear to support gender in other beings with undefined physical components.
That would’ve ended it. Sperm aren’t viable at the temperature inside the body.
Right?
Hell, I don’t know.
Anyway, I like mine right where they are, swinging in the breeze. Thank you very much .
Peace,
mangeorge
Yeah, but God could have designed sperm so that they would be viable at body temperature. As it is, the sperm aren’t viable at body temperature, so the testicles have to hang outside the body, which makes them very vulnerable to injury, so guys have a very strong and distinctive sensation associated with injury to the testicles, which makes them very protective of that particularly vulnerable region of their bodies…
Man, if that ain’t a kludge, I don’t know what is. Just make the damn things work at body temperature, and put them up inside the pelvis where they’ll be nice and safe.
What, you’ve never been kicked down there? Or nudged? Os sat down a little too fast? Man, just how old are you, anyway?
<< G-d is, therefore, neither male nor female. However, there is no neutral pronoun (“it”) in the Hebrew language, even inanimate objects are assigned a gender according to certain ruules of grammar. The noun for G-d is, by the grammatical rules, male, and therefore in pronoun form, the word “he” is used >>
Agreeing with CMKeller, that the word for God and the Names of God are treated in ancient Hebrew as masculine, and the masculine pronoun is used… but, I think it’s important to add that certain aspects of God are described using feminine nouns – notably, the imminent, indwelling divine presence (Heb: Shekhinah) is a feminine.
In addition to the hand, finger, face, and back of God, Exodus 24 describes the elders sitting “at the feet” of God.
The Zohar, as mentioned above, does use body parts in describing characteristics of God. They justify this on the grounds that man is created in God’s image, and thus they describe ten body parts (including both male and female genitals, right and left arms and legs, head, etc). The description is not meant literally, however, it is meant to describe aspects of God (right hand is power, for instance.)
The real question: when God puts on a hat, which baseball team logo is on it?
