How can God be an overwhelmingly male persona without true balance? You can make all sorts of sophisticated arguments about the “all encompassing holistic duality of God’s sexuality”, but in the end it’s all after the fact deconstructionist handwaving. Historically, the Judeo-Christan God is a unquestionably a man-God, and definitely has a big, swinging God penis.
Seems disjoint somehow. What happened to Mrs. God? Why did she get left behind? Did it happen in the early Judiac interpretation of God’s nature to differentiate their beliefs from those of polytheistic oppressors?
Well, not so. Historically, at least post-Jesus, there’s unquestionably a long tradition of using male imagery to describe God, and Christians (by which I mean all Christians, not just the evangelical sort) believe that God became incarnate in a man’s body, but there’s also a tradition of using female imagery to describe God (Julian of Norwich comes to mind), and Christians (or at least Catholics) believe that (aside from the Incarnation) God is beyond gender, since he/she/it encompasses all.
The fact that we often (too often) think of God as exclusively male says more about the paucity of our language and our imagination than it says about God.
Well, you might dismiss it as “Hand-waving”, but to my spiritual perception, there is no “Mom-God” because God, just as He is, is all things. Even referring to Him in the masculine is just a way to get a convenient handle on things. God, to my way of understanding, does not live within the constraints of gender, time, place, etc. I refer to God as “Him”, because to say “It” seems disrespectful to me. YMMV.
Well, if God is “all things”, doesn’t that make the claim that God created man in his own image meaningless? That means I am everything, and I know I’m not.
Not at all. It’s over-simplifying things to an extreme degree to think that to believe that God created man in his own image means that man looks like God. The phrase refers to God’s intent to create a being with free will and an intellect and a soul and so on. And it doesn’t imply at all that God created man to be the equal of God, or to be “everything.”
Well, here’s the quote from Genesis 1 (King James Version):
Where does it say anything about free will, intellect or soul? It doesn’t. Now, you can spin it to mean whatever you’d like, and I’m fine with that, but the OP is obviously dealing with a more literalist approach.
Judaism believes G-d to be a non-physical being, with neither distinctly male nor distinctly female traits. All traits that can be found in either human sex have some expression in G-d.
The male pronoun is generally used for G-d, because there is no neuter pronoun (“it”) in the Hebrew language. Even inanimate objects are assigned a gender. But this is merely a grammatical issue, not an issue of G-d’s nature.
It follows naturally from the belief that G-d is a non-physical being. If one believes that, then it must mean that “in G-d’s form” refers to spiritual rather than physical attributes.
Conceptually this plays well, but if this truly reflects the soul of the Jewish consideration of G-d, why does Orthodox Judiasm manfiest itself in real world terms as a highly patriarchal culture with quite strict male-female role separation. One would think Orthodox Jewish women would have been able to carve out a better deal if G-d was a truly “non-physical being, with neither distinctly male nor distinctly female traits”.
I’m sure lots of Orthodox Jewish women don’t think they’re getting a bad deal at all S (And yeah, I bet many do.)
Judaism has several Feminine Aspects of the Divine- the Shekinah, the Queen Shabbat, Lady Wisdom in Proverbs, one of the meanings of El Shaddai is G-d Full-Breasted. And in Christianity, there is the Holy Spirit. Primarily tho in Judaic & Christian Scripture- who is Mrs God? We are! Israel is the Wife of HaShem, the Church is the Bride of Christ. Which is one reason why Goddess-worship was forbidden- it’s essentially Nature/Self-worship.
Putting aside for the moment any questions (and there are many) about the quality of the translation in the King James Bible, where in that quote does it say anything about man looking like God?
Even (especially then, since there was no concept of the Incarnation) in pre-Christian times, God was not thought to be a physical being. So man being created in God’s image must mean something else. It follows, then, that the image of God present in man must be non-physical attributes. And they can only be things in the spiritual (soul, whatever word you want to use) nature of man.
Because we believe that everything physical is a reflection of underlying spiritual realities. As such, there are not only innate physical differences between men and women, but innate spiritual ones as well, each perfectly suited to his or her own task in the perfection of the world.
On the contrary - it is due to the fact that they see G-d in such terms that makes them see their roles as not inferior, but equal - they just represent different aspects of the G-dliness inherent in humanity, not “lesser” or “fewer” of them.
Separate-but-equal may not be valid in the eyes of American law, but it is true in Jewish doctrine.
Women get a good deal in Judaism. Women get an especially good deal in Judaism if you compare it with other religions that started at the same time as Judaism. Even in the times of the bible, there are women prophets, and even women judges and generals. Women, both single and married, had the right to own property and enter into contracts. Women can’t be forced to marry against their will, the woman has the right to demand sex from her husband and not the other way around, men aren’t allowed to beat their wives. Judaism says that women are naturally more intuitive and intelligent than men, and that they’re naturally holier.
So, I don’t agree with you that Jewish women got a “bad deal”. They’re not seen as identical to men, but they are seen as complementary. Both men and women have special traits and strengths that the other sex doesn’t, and Judaism teaches that both men and women need each other. But they’re both equal before God.
Uhmmm, well, that’s what image means, y’know. From Merriam-Webster on-line:
Notice the example they use.
I’m quite skeptical of that claim. I’m afraid I’ll need a cite from you.
Also, if you don’t like King James, pick another translation. All of the over at BibleGateway.com look pretty similar to me, at least as far as this passage goes.
