God = He ?

[ChristineES]

Why is it that God is usually referenced as He or Him?

I find bestowing a human quality on God as a bad thing. Do you?

I don't believe that G-D is either he or she. Some of my faith have said that the "Holy Spirit" is feminine.

 

[Avi1001]

That's nonsense, of course. The linguistics are what they are. We can't ignore that just because some people want to completely conflate the legitimate linguistic issue into the also legitimate issue of dealing with the unresolved problems of patriarchal or androcentric origins in halachah or whatnot, resulting in an erroneous notion that the linguistic gender used for God in Hebrew was assigned and maintained because of some conscious desire to literalize masculinity in God.

We use terms like avinu malkenu (our father our king) because they are traditional, and poetic, and many people relate to them. And as I always say to my congregants, if you don't relate to terms like that because they are phrased in the masculine, then feel free to switch them into the feminine. There's nothing wrong with addressing God as imenu malkatenu (our mother our queen) if that works better for you.

And, I suppose if even that still results in a bee in your bonnet, then go to some experimental shul where they create their own "liturgy" or use quasi-liturgical poetry instead, like Marcia Falk's Book of Blessings.

The traditional liturgy is just that. Traditional. It represents the finest liturgical poetry of the past 2000 years. And these days, most liberal siddurim (prayerbooks) offer supplemental readings and alternative texts for people who can't be bothered or don't know how to wrestle with the traditional liturgy and adapt it for their own needs on the fly.

Honestly, I can't conceive of why you would care about what's in the traditional liturgy, anyhow. You hate anything traditional, and you don't believe in a personal God. I would've figured you would have long sinced replaced davening with reading interspersed passages from Walt Whitman and Stephen Hawking.

I am glad that Rex sees what I have to put up with in the DIR....just because I am reform and liberal.....you make fun of me.....incidentally...that's not very nice.....and as for your extremist, fundamentalist congregation.....over in the DIR......if you guys would not be so misogynistic.....it would be appreciated...!!!...you can't blame linguistics for being chauvanustic...!!!!

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

God is also referenced as a mother, as well.

You really live up to your title don't ya?

 

[sojourner]

You really live up to your title don't ya?

To the abject horror of many!

 

[Levite]

I am glad that Rex sees what I have to put up with in the DIR....just because I am reform and liberal.....you make fun of me.....incidentally...that's not very nice.....and as for your extremist congregation.....over in the DIR......if you guys would not be so misogynistic.....it would be appreciated...!!!...you can't blame linguistics for being chauvanustic...!!!!

You must have lived in a vacuum of you think I'm misogynistic. I've studied with some of the most prominent feminists in three movements. I've taught Jewish Feminist Theology as a course unit.

It's worth noting, by the way, that at least half a dozen of the non-Orthodox feminist scholars I was fortunate to study with prefer to daven the traditional liturgy, with only minor alterations for inclusive language....

Tradition does not automatically equal chauvinism. There's a lot of good feminist work being done in the big three movements, and it's just silly to pretend that's not the case just because it doesn't live up to whatever radical reconstructionism or syncretism or whatever you believe is the ideal way to deal with egalitarianism.

 

[arthra]

Well of course our language reflects our culture and if you have revelation through say Arabic, Hebew or Aramaic there are characteristic male and female forms ... What sometimes maybe overlooked is that even in this case where God is addressed in masculine terms there is also a feminine aspect of divitity..

Wikipedia has:.

The use of the word "ruach" (Hebrew: "breath," or "wind") in the phrase "ruach ha-kodesh" seems to suggest that Judaic authorities believed the Holy Spirit was a kind of communication medium like the wind. The spirit talks sometimes with a masculine and sometimes with a feminine voice; the word "ruacḥ" is both masculine and feminine.[20]

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Why is it that God is usually referenced as He or Him?

I find bestowing a human quality on God as a bad thing. Do you?

For much the same reason that it is still common and at one time basically universal to refer to "mankind", or to say something with the form "Man is/isn't X" to mean "humans", why in most languages with grammatical gender for nouns/pronouns a group of people consisting of both women and men is grammatically masculine, why the "dictionary" form of a Hebrew verb is masculine, and why cross-linguistically words that can mean "humans" also mean "men/ man". Most cultures have ranged from fairly sexist to rampant and ubiquitous misogyny. This is reflected in language. Recall also that in both Old and Middle English nouns still had grammatical gender, so the word for god had to be either masculine or feminine (that said, although grammatical gender is usually actual gender when it refers to things like animals, people, mythical figures, etc., it is not always the case, just the way that words with a grammatically plural form can sometimes be singular).

 

[outhouse]

For much the same reason that it is still common and at one time basically universal to refer to "mankind", or to say something with the form "Man is/isn't X" to mean "humans", why in most languages with grammatical gender for nouns/pronouns a group of people consisting of both women and men is grammatically masculine, why the "dictionary" form of a Hebrew verb is masculine, and why cross-linguistically words that can mean "humans" also mean "men/ man". Most cultures have ranged from fairly sexist to rampant and ubiquitous misogyny. This is reflected in language. Recall also that in both Old and Middle English nouns still had grammatical gender, so the word for god had to be either masculine or feminine (that said, although grammatical gender is usually actual gender when it refers to things like animals, people, mythical figures, etc., it is not always the case, just the way that words with a grammatically plural form can sometimes be singular).

For me that is a wonderful example of the recent translations that ignore the cultural history and true Canaanite heritage of Israelites.

I know you know of the 800 BC painting of Yahweh that clearly shows just how male he was.

 

[Avi1001]

You must have lived in a vacuum of you think I'm misogynistic. I've studied with some of the most prominent feminists in three movements. I've taught Jewish Feminist Theology as a course unit.

It's worth noting, by the way, that at least half a dozen of the non-Orthodox feminist scholars I was fortunate to study with prefer to daven the traditional liturgy, with only minor alterations for inclusive language....

Tradition does not automatically equal chauvinism. There's a lot of good feminist work being done in the big three movements, and it's just silly to pretend that's not the case just because it doesn't live up to whatever radical reconstructionism or syncretism or whatever you believe is the ideal way to deal with egalitarianism.

Ok...how many Orthodox women Rabbis are there?

Please explain the concept of Agunot (chained women).

Are women permitted as witnesses in an Orthodox rabbinic court ?

What is the Orthodox position on homosexuality ???

What is the Orthodox position on sex outside of marriage ??

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

For me that is a wonderful example of the recent translations that ignore the cultural history and true Canaanite heritage of Israelites.

I know you know of the 800 BC painting of Yahweh that clearly shows just how male he was.

I'm confused. Are you trying to say that I suggested YHWH wasn't thought to be male? If so, I apologize. I never meant to suggest that. In fact (as I'm pretty sure you're aware) the earliest Israelites were almost certainly polytheistic, with YHWH moving from a patron deity among many worshiped to the only deity who should be worshiped to the only deity that existed. Also, my point wasn't that language required God to be masculine so much as that language reflects what is and was nearly universal sexism/misogyny. I believe this has changed drastically, and many, many, believers in the Abrahamic faiths are feminists, "enlightened", forward thinking individuals for whom "God" lacks any gender. For example, I have a first cousin once removed who recently finished a double master's in musicology and women's studies and whose doctoral work in musicology is feminist scholarship, and she is a practicing Catholic.

Alas, there remain a great many who would prefer to erase any such progress and have the world be as it was (in terms of the treatment of women, non-believers, homosexuals, heterosexuals who have sex outside of marriage and/or with a married individual, and so forth).

 

[Levite]

Ok...how many Orthodox women Rabbis are there?

Please explain the concept of Agunot (chained women).

Are women permitted as witnesses in an Orthodox rabbinic court ?

What is the Orthodox position on homosexuality ???

What is the Orthodox position on sex outside of marriage ??

The Orthodox movement is not equivalent to Tradition. It is a movement-- actually, a group of movements. For that matter, neither Conservative nor Reform are equivalent to Tradition, either. Everyone struggles with the tradition, and all halachic communities and individuals are part of Tradition.

Even in Orthodoxy, there are scholars who are pushing boundaries on all the issues you mentioned above (there are, BTW, several Orthodox female rabbis. I am privileged to have studied under one, and am collegially acquainted with a couple of others). The ways they are pushing those boundaries and making their challenges may seem slow and inefficient or unsatisfactory to you, but they are legitimate Orthodox responses that are pushing for progress. For that matter, I get impatient with them, too, but they are there, and they are Orthodox ways to rise to these challenges. Neither you nor I are Orthodox, and therefore neither of us can truly judge whether they are sufficient Orthodox responses.

 

[roger1440]

Why is it that God is usually referenced as He or Him?

I find bestowing a human quality on God as a bad thing. Do you?

Count your blessings God ain’t a woman. She would be nagging us to no end and we would never hear the end of it if we were to forget a birthday or anniversary. Not to mention, we would catch hell for leaving the toilet seat up.

 

[Avi1001]

The Orthodox movement is not equivalent to Tradition. It is a movement-- actually, a group of movements. For that matter, neither Conservative nor Reform are equivalent to Tradition, either. Everyone struggles with the tradition, and all halachic communities and individuals are part of Tradition.

Even in Orthodoxy, there are scholars who are pushing boundaries on all the issues you mentioned above (there are, BTW, several Orthodox female rabbis. I am privileged to have studied under one, and am collegially acquainted with a couple of others). The ways they are pushing those boundaries and making their challenges may seem slow and inefficient or unsatisfactory to you, but they are legitimate Orthodox responses that are pushing for progress. For that matter, I get impatient with them, too, but they are there, and they are Orthodox ways to rise to these challenges. Neither you nor I are Orthodox, and therefore neither of us can truly judge whether they are sufficient Orthodox responses.

Correct...after over 4,000 years of Judaism...there have been "a couple" female Rabbis....and that's not chauvinistic...??

And I don't blame you for not touching the other questions....you know it will reveal how fundamentalist and conservative you and your on-line congregation in the DIR are.

Anyway...it is clear there will have to be some changes to the DIR system....I am just glad Rex is here to see the extremism I have to deal with...!!!

 

[roger1440]

Rumor has it that way back in the olden days, God originally had a wife. If this rumor is true, God must be masculine because the wife is feminine. His so called wife is mentioned numerous times in Jewish scripture. She makes more than just a mere cameo appearance.

Asherah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ASHERAH - JewishEncyclopedia.com

“These Asherah figurines are made of clay and thousands of them have been dug up by Archaeologists in Israel. Note she clutches her breasts to say I am El Shaddai, the Breasted One.” Asherah Figures; Slide 86

 

[outhouse]

Rumor has it that way back in the olden days, God originally had a wife. If this rumor is true, God must be masculine because the wife is feminine. His so called wife is mentioned numerous times in Jewish scripture. She makes more than just a mere cameo appearance.

Asherah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ASHERAH - JewishEncyclopedia.com

“These Asherah figurines are made of clay and thousands of them have been dug up by Archaeologists in Israel. Note she clutches her breasts to say I am El Shaddai, the Breasted One.” Asherah Figures; Slide 86

That is correct Roger. If you read my post it goes into more detail.

Asherah had her day in the sun, and was worshipped as a female deity, before being downgraded to cult status later on.


Asherah was first Els wife, before Yahweh

 

[roger1440]

That is correct Roger. If you read my post it goes into more detail.

Asherah had her day in the sun, and was worshipped as a female deity, before being downgraded to cult status later on.


Asherah was first Els wife, before Yahweh

I had to scroll up. I just read your post. Yeah, you pretty much said the same thing

 

[Desert Snake]

I had to scroll up. I just read your post. Yeah, you pretty much said the same thing

I already knew that as well. doesn't make the Biblical terms for Deity mean specific gods in parallel cultures.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Why not "god" = "It"? Aren't gods spiritual beings anyway, having no gender? However, they can have certain masculine and/or feminine traits.

Although I would argue that outhouse's explanation of origins is debatable, I agree with this:

Because that is not how the god concepts mythology evolved.

I would go farther, though.

We tend to think of concepts in terms of words and grammar or syntax as mostly meaningless. And of course a lot of it is. For example, in English we have the subject of a sentence and sometimes an object (what in many languages related to English, including Middle and Old English, would be indicated as such by being in the nominative or accusative case, respectively). However, a rock can be the subject of a sentence as easily as a person.

Nominative/accusative languages like English, though, aren't just a matter of grammatical subject. In English, we use the nominative pronoun (the subjective case) for both of the following types of sentences:
1) I run
2) I helped her

In ergative languages, we'd find
1) I run
2) Me helped she

Nominative/accusative languages encode (or mark) the subject of a passive sentence the same way they do the subject of a transitive sentence. Only in order to compare such languages with ergative languages, we need better terms like agent/patient. That's because we conceptualize the "subject" as having the same grammatical role whether or not there is an object. In ergative languages, the agent (the "subject" of a transitive sentence) is "marked" specially (you might say that the dictionary or normal form is the form you'd find in a passive sentence or an "object" of a transitive verb).

Things get worse. Even though ergative and nominative languages differ in how they align, they are comparable. This isn't as true with active languages, in which transitivity isn't really even a feature of the language. Alignment is much more fundamentally "meaningful". What determines the structure of such languages has to do with how the concepts the words refer to are considered in terms of properties like agency or animacy.

And, of course, humans are naturally inclined to attribute agency and "find" agency in inanimate things, plants, trees, weather, etc. The words for soul or spirit in many languages come from (and mean or did mean) breath/air. Modernity has rendered alien so much of the kind of thinking that was virtually universal since before recorded history. Recently, studies with children have shed some light on this "natural" conception of the world that was ubiquitous in the past and is now largely dead even among the deeply religious.

 

[outhouse]

Although I would argue that outhouse's explanation of origins is debatable,

The family of deities, Father El, Sons Baal and Yahweh and Asherah wife to both El and Yahweh, is not up for debate. It is in writing and existing in preexisting cultures that evolved into Israelites.

Yahweh being depicted as Male is not just clearly established, it is factual, in the Israelite culture when he was married to Asherah. Circa 800 BC

I cannot post the pic due to its graphic nature [male genitals]

 

[roger1440]

I already knew that as well. doesn't make the Biblical terms for Deity mean specific gods in parallel cultures.

I don't understand what you mean.