To most readers of
the Bible, God is almost universally accepted as male; with the exception of
the Holy Spirit, who is presented as female. But is the gender of deity always
gendered as tradition and Church history says it does, or is there possibly more
to the story than what we have been told and led to believe? I guess the first
place to start in the journey of inquiry is the start at the beginning
(‘Bereshith’).
Genesis 1: 1 In the
beginning God (“Elohim”) created the
heavens and earth.
In “The Expository Dictionary of Bible Words”
(1985) by Lawrence O. Richards, the word ‘Elohim’ is the most frequently used
name for God in the entire Old Testament, occurring nearly 2,570 times. Lon
Milo Duquette writes in “The Chicken Qabalah”
that this word stems from the root word ‘Eloh/Eloah’ which is a feminine
singular noun for Goddess (or divine feminine); “im” is merely the plural masculine suffix. Duquette, who is a
Kabbalist, or Jewish esoteric/metaphysical practitioner or teacher, is not the
only person to make this same association. So, taken together the word “Elohim”
gives the meaning of Goddess/God; Dual-gendered deity/ Creatress-Creator;
Feminine/Masculine divine Principal; or something like that. Ok, maybe this is
a little bit to much to swallow, but keep reading, as in the following below:
Genesis 1: 26, 27
Then Elohim said,
“Let Us make man in Our image after Our likeness.” So Elohim created man in His
(not their??) own image, in the image of Elohim He (not they??) created him
(Adam); male and female He (not they??) created them (Cp. Genesis 5: 1-2).
NOTE: The male and female (Adam) was
created in the image and likeness of the Us/Our-“Elohim.”
There’s more:
Exodus 6: 2-3
Elohim also said to
Moses, “I am the Lord (Yahuwah), I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El
Shaddai (“The Almighty”). . .
NOTE: The word “Shaddai” is plural of
the root ‘shad’ which refers to a female breast/ or teat [as it pertains to the
female mammary gland], and the “ai”
is just the plural suffix for breasts or teats. A literal translation for El Shaddi might be something like: God
of breasts or breasted God (hermaphrodite??). Since men do not have breasts it
seems reasonable to conclude the deity of the patriarchs was dual-gendered, or
a Goddess, at the very least.
Continuing further:
the book of Job is considered the second oldest in the entire Bible and this
great great man is believed to be a contemporary of Abraham, so it is certainly
worth the time and effort to see what he perceived or understood of deity’s (God’s)
nature as it was revealed to him.
Job 38: 1, 8, 29
Then the Lord
(Yahuwah) answered Job out of the storm, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when
it burst forth from the womb?” “From whose womb comes the ice?”
“Who gives birth to the frost from heaven?”
NOTE: The language in the above
rendering would seem a little odd to be spoken by a male, wouldn’t it; does a
man have a womb or give birth to anything?
Job 22: 26-27
Surely then you
will find delight in Shaddai
(Mighty), and lift up your voice to Eloh/Eloah (God). You will pray to him (??)
and he (??) will hear you.
NOTE: Curious why Job would use
feminine references (Shaddai and Eloh) and then include such pronouns as him
and he if God were strictly gendered as male (Oops)? Interestingly, David B.
Clark maintains that the single book, Job, makes heavy use of ‘Shaddai’ and
comprises roughly 2/3 of all the uses of the word mentioned in the Old
Testament. Some other biblical passages that seem to juxtapose Lord (Yahuwah)
with God/Goddess (Elohim) are: Genesis
24: 3; 1 Samuel 6: 20; Psalms 50: 6; Isaiah 30: 18; 37: 16; 40: 28; 45: 15; 54: 5; 65: 16; and Jeremiah 10: 10.
I have covered the
Old Testament in quite some detail, so what about the New Testament?
Luke 11: 27
And
it came to pass, as Jesus spoke these things, a certain woman of the company
lifted up her voice, and said unto him, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee,
and the paps (Heb. Hashaddayim)
which thou hast sucked.”
Revelation
1: 13
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto
the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the
paps with a golden girdle (KJV).
COMMENTARY: This last part is
quite revealing and controversial because paps are another word for breasts. In
Luke’s gospel the Hebrew is the plural suffix (“ai” or” im”) of singular
breast/teat (shad). The translation of most modern bibles uses the “chest” or “breast/bosom”
(singular) but some other translations do not, such as: Jubilee Bible 2000;
American Standard Version; Darby Bible; Easy-to-Read Version Bible; and American
King James. A few other versions use “paps” as in: Webster Bible; Douay-Rheims;
King James. This matter might just be far from being settled as a certainty, so
the reader has to draw his or her conclusion. The inclusion of the feminine
into the exclusive male godhead as co-equal in all aspects of divinity can have
a profound effect socially, theologically, psychologically, and culturally;
impacting not only the role of women in society and the Church, but will
reshape the future evolvement of life on planet Earth.
Robert Randle
776 Commerce St Apt
701
Tacoma, WA 98402
March 20, 2017
