“In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
According to Judeo-Christian literature, anyway.
Also, many cultures throughout history have believed in female gods. We even have the word “godess.”
The mother image is more consistent with the notion of creation at its most basic level: Birth.
It has even been suggested that the emphasis that Roman Catholics place on the Virgin Mary is due to a need to acknowledge the feminine nature of divinity.
In fact there is a whole bible that has been written that tries not to use he or she (admirable I think, since I am of the opinion that the language of this religion is inherehently misogynistic). Some religious folks object to this version.
Cite.
The problem is that (with the putative exceptions of God and angels) our language has evolved with the assumption that sentient beings who will communicate back with you are human beings, of either male or female gender.
The teaching of the Church from time immemorial has been that God is “without body, parts, or passions” – being neither male nor female but a divine entity that transcends gender. Nonetheless, we are faced with what pronouns and what anthropomorphizations to use about Him (see, I did it!) in order to speak of Him (and again!) in terms that make sense in speaking of God as a Person, not as “the Ultimate Ground of All Being” or “the Divine Creative Spirit” or other abstractions.
So we default to the following: Jesus, unquestionably a male human being (even if you consider Him legendary, there’s no serious suggestion that He was female), is conceived of as the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, in human form. And He chooses as His preferred metaphor in speaking of the First Person the term “Father” – to be construed, in Jesus’s use, as a loving-though-strict paternal figure, not a distant High and Holy King but very near and very real, possessed of personal love for each individual.
It’s metaphor. But it’s necessary metaphor to avoid losing the quite real sense of Personhood in the use of technically accurate but flavorless abstractions.
Re: El Shaddai – My impression is always that that term carries a connotation of strength and self-sufficiency. So Shodan’s derivation from “one who is self-sufficient” is probably accurate if my impression actually ties to the ancient reality, though I see in the particular form a possibility of the use of “shad”=chest in the sense of a strongly-chested one, as though God, being a strong warrior, had well-defined pecs. (Sounds slightly blasphemous, but we’re talking of contextual metaphor here, so envisioning Him as strong and mighty in the sense of a brawny warrior is not out of place – He-God? ;))
Sorry, I meant to include one other thought. I hope someone with a more scholarly background will speak to this, but this is my stab at it:
At the time that the idea of a single supreme God-wth-a-capital-G was introduced, it was pretty revolutionary. People were accustomed to worshipping different gods for different purposes, and it was widely accepted that certain gods help more power in different physical regions or roles. Jahweh was initially discussed as a supreme being, but not as a singular one. God was simply the most powerful, most butt-kicking, and the one whose power was not tied to a specific place or talent. He was everywhere, and he could do anything. But still, God was one among many lesser gods of both genders.
That idea evolved to be today’s standard, that all other gods-wth-little-g’s were false, and there has only ever been one True God. It took a while to get there, and the naming conventions stuck through the ages.
I thought the Septuagint was written in Greek …
Beadalin, what you describe is henotheism – the idea that while there may be more than one god, this one God is mine, and “my God’s bigger than your God, so nyaah, nyaah!” 
There seems to be some serious evidence of an early stage in Hebrew thought where this was indeed the case, though by the time most of the Scriptures were put in the form we know them, they’d progressed to monotheism.
Fr. d’Oxy, you have a point, but even on this board hos theos panmegistos would have called for a translation – clearly, what Shodan is saying is that among possible choices used by the Seventy, they selected the one rendered in English as…
To dispel some of my ignorance doesn’t the creation story in genesis use a feminine plural (Elohim IIRC) that is generally dismissed as grammatical convention of the time? I’m curious as to the evidence that it was grammatical conventin to do this. I think that it is a vaguely relevant question to the thread.
Also doesn’t Mormon doctrine include a more corporeal deity than most of Christianity? If that is the case I’d certainly like to hear some Mormon opinions on the thread’s topic.
I generally call God “Him” out of habit/custom from it being ingrained in the religion of my upbringing, Christianity, but in actual fact I see God as neutral.
Sometimes I used “He or She.”
I could use “It” - but then it sounds like the representation of God in South Park, as a midget one-legged green alien monster thing (which may be more accurate a representation that white-man-with-beard, who knows?)
From the distant Usenet past, comes a classic from the rec.humor.funny newsgroup. Entitled “God doesn’t f*** with the universe.”
It, so far as I know, is the documentation for the coinage of the phrase “by the infinite dick of God.”
Apologies for bringing this brash irreverent material, into this otherwise somewhat solemn thread. Funny what 10+ year old memories get dragged up at an early hour.
-AmbushBug
Now I really wish Libertarian were here – he has the cites for this.
In languages in which nouns can have one of three genders, masculine, feminine, or neuter, of the Christian Trinity, usually God is neuter, Jesus is masculine, and the Holy Spirit is feminine. I have confirmed that in the earliest documents which came to make up the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is indeed feminine in grammatical gender, and, as others have said, God is shown as having feminine characteristics. I was looking for something else, actually, but I came across this passage in Isaiah 66:13, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” If Jesus said, “Our Father”, and even “Abba”, which translates to “Daddy”, he also said in Matthew 23:37, "“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
I’m afraid I can’t agree with any of your assertions, dalovindj. To me, the main thing calling God “Him” implies is that English really needs a decent singular, sentient, neuter pronoun. Personally, I have a pet peeve about referring to the Holy Spirit using masculine pronouns because it’s factually inaccurate, and it fuels arguments that Christianity is a sexist religion. Since I’m both a feminist and a Christian, I disagree with that.
If we’re talking about the True Nature of things, as opposed to grammar, what gender is love or wind or rain? For me to hang gender on God is as foolish as trying to nail a picture to a cloud bank.
CJ
Calling god “him” reflects nothing more than the fact that men made up the religion in their own image. Really, how are you going to explain a religion that is so terrified of menstruation that it orders women to be corralled like criminals during their period?
Now now, Claws, I don’t think this discussion is assuming that the religion was entirely made up by “personkind” (lest you be offended). And, how do I explain it? Masculocentric interpretation by the believers, which is both indisputable and irrelevent as to wether God actually referred to himself with a gender-specific pronoun through revelation or not.
It implies an inherent weakness in the Romance Languages.
In Arabic, we use “Hu” as the personal pronoun for Allah. “Hu” carries no gender and applies to nothing but Allah. To us, “Him” is an unfortunate convention of translation, so much so that we will often use Hu in it’s place.
A bit OT
Turkish Sufis will often use HU as a chant syllable, much like other folks use OM
Well that’s my take on what calling god “him” implies – a religion invented by men and based on male superiority.
In the Catholic tradition, God’s “maleness” is understood in relation to everything else’s “femaleness”–or, as Mangetout said, it’s a role-function thing.
It’s important to realize that in terms of strict definition, “sex” is a matter of biology, while “gender” is a matter of function. So, for example, many things can have a gender without having a sex, although certainly all things with a sex have a gender. So take, for example, pipe fittings at the hardware store. You’ll notice that some are designated “male” and others “female.” Why? Because one is a donor (it goes in) and the other a recipient. The designation isn’t intended to be sexual, although the metaphor should cause your inner junior-high student to get the giggles.
So, back to God: the original Genesis story portrays God as an entity that, well, goes IN to His creation, creates human life, and then pulls out. You’ll notice that while God can go walk around in Eden, he’s not really of it. God is the “male” by placing himself within creation (the “female”) and helping new life come out of it. (Yes, I realize that you can creatively play around with things such that God has female aspects–but suffice it to say that this is how the Hebrews understood things.)
The metaphor continues into the New Testament with Christ (who, remember, is God-made-man) as the “male” figure–both in body and in function–and the human race as “female.” Not to freak the men out, but YES, that includes us. The image used both by Christ and Paul is that Jesus is the bridegroom (WHY they call it a bridegroom, I dunno–he’s the groom, anyway) and the human race as the bride. Christ lives for the human race just as a man traditionally was to live for his wife, in a spirit of giving and if necessary, sacrifice. The bride, in turn, fully accepts the groom’s love and returns it in full through fidelity.
So, in short, Christ = groom, human race = bride. Groom loves bride, bride loves groom back. Everyone’s happy.
It’s speculated by some Catholic theologians, the Pope among them, that this is WHY God divided the human race into two sexes. Our sexuality is meant to be a living metaphor for God’s relationship to His people. Hence, this is why marriage is given sacramental status in the Catholic tradition: the sexual encounter between man and wife is understood as an encounter with Christ himself. (Freaky, eh? God’s in the bedroom. Don’t mind Him, though, it’s not like He hasn’t seen it before.)
This is my God. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
I absolutely will not dispute the claim that Hebrew society was strongly paternalistic – though it might interest you to know that women were accorded a signficantly higher role in society among them than among most of their neighbors. And an unreasonable amount of the Christian image of God derives either from them or from Paul, who is notably mysogynistic.
However, “your take,” IMO, is simply founded on the apparent personality characteristic that you have a strong prejudice against anything invented by males. You’re more than welcome to argue against any social institution that perpetuates a masculine dominance (including in the thread Diogenes started about “male headship in marriage” in traditional Christian marriages – and, given your strong antipathy to male dominance as expressed in other threads, I’d be very interested in your take on what I described as how my wife and I conduct our marriage).
However, people don’t “invent religions” – at least not successful ones – for the most part. They evolve from a human need to find meaning in existence, and their experiences which they understand as encounters with the Divine, however described. Neopagans for the most part seem to see a masculine a and feminine Presence, the God and Goddess, or a polytheism including one’s own tutelary deity. But for us monotheists, there is one God, who is neither male nor female, but who is most effectively conceived as the ideal of what a Father is supposed to be.
I will grant that much of Judaism and Christianity have been framed in terms of male dominance, that being a historical fact. It does not therefore imply that they invented the God whom they worship, only conceptualized that God in male-dominance terms.
I hope I’m saying this in terms that, while in part personal, are not insulting to you. My point in saying it is to get you past the dominant-masculine conceptualization that has historically characterized what was IMHO never intended to be a vehicle for male dominance, but a promise of freedom and richer life for men and women alike.
depends on language. Some languages give every noun a gender (mainly Roman languages, like French…). Dutch does it too, sometimes.
And a lot of things (mainly mechanical) are called “she” as men talk loveingly about them, and ofcourse they could never talk lovingly about a “he”. It’d tarnish their “manly” ego’s 
my humble opinion would be that a religion which has a male god would also have been “invented” (maybe instated would be a better word) by men.
Even historians’ and archeologists’ findings and language has been colourde by this: Whenever signs of a religion that has a female god as it’s God, it’s being downgraded to a “cult”. As soon as it’s a male god, it’s a religion.
the OT, women were considered less then cattle. Even in genesis, i think, it says: First God created Man, then he created woman. Now I have to add that in Dutch this was translated as: first God created Human, then he created woman. Implying that women aren’t humans.
Women are still being discriminated against, not just in Islam countries but everywhere. Granted, in some countries more than others, in some countries more OBVIOUS than others, but still.
Women are second class citizens. I wonder, what would the western world look like today if Jesus wouldve been a woman?
The Bible depicts women either as saints or as whores, there’s no inbetween stage…
Strange? Or deliberate?
Have a quick read about Rahab the prostitute for an example of someone who was both saint and whore. (The book of Joshua, chapters 2 thru 6). Or Mary Magdalen, for that matter, or Michal, David’s first wife.
Hi, Mangetout -
You are correct that there are several instances of female imagery applied to God. Also Jesus’ reference in His lament over Jerusalem
Feminine references to God, however, tend to be rarer than masculine ones, for most of the reasons already cited in this thread.
I wouldn’t think female references to God are blasphemous or anything, but attempts at “inclusive language” in addressing the Almighty often strike me as stilted and even inappropriate. Yes, certainly God is beyond sex or gender, but we are not, and I feel like I am losing contact with the specificities of Jesus’ entry into history when I pray “Our Parent who art in Heaven”. It seems to me that Jesus meant something more familiar than the rather chilly formality of the circumlocutions that are sometimes deemed necessary.
It might, however, be a useful spiritual exercise for me to think of God as female for a while during my private prayer life, and see where I wind up.
Regards,
Shodan