Suppression of the Divine Feminine

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

 

The present post is about the supposed suppressed feminine gender of

one aspect of God in the Bible.

 

When i googled in search of this topic, i was confronted to the bulk

of articles related to the " Da Vinci Code " . This fiction though

questionable has yet the merit to unearth the discussion around this

very important issue: Did the Bible suppressed the Divine Feminine ?

 

The belief is widely spread that the Christians suppressed the Divine

Feminine from the Bible. It seems that it is not as simple…

 

When we speak of matriarchal civilizations, we think immediately of

prehistoric or proto-historic matriarchal civilizations living in a

kind of Golden Age. The first example that comes in my mind is the

Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. If you visit the site,

you will discover a brilliant and prosperous civilization, with all

kinds of commodities and comfort, worshipping a Goddess, though ruled

by a king, and performing cults revolving around the sacred Cow.. If

we look closer to the site, we see no walls, which means that this

civilization lived in peace and was opened to the world.

 

As we come closer to us, we are confronted to civilizations such as

Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Those brilliant civilizations are

clearly patriarchal, though they worship goddesses too. But their

existence depends on wars and conquests. At that time being a woman

was everything but enviable. The woman was meant for bearing

children, heirs, pleasing men and were a widely used currency for

strategic unions. When a civilization lives in peace, the worship of

the Goddess is spontaneous. The cult is meant to show the gratitude

for peace, prosperity, good harvest, etc…. But when war threats, the

man has to take over to protect this hardly gained balance, even if

it chose a Goddess as tutelary divinity, just like Athens chosed

Athena to protect the city. But the warrior Athena Pallas, is not a

mother, She is a Warrior She wears a helmet and a sword. Nothing to

do with Athena Parthenos, the Virgin, though a huge shrine has been

erected for Her : The Parthenon, on the highest point of the city.

 

If we look at the roman religion, we see that there is a large

pantheon with all kind of cults orchestrated according to a precise

calendar. Those cults are performed as a kind of duty, but there is

absolutely no " love " involved in those cults. The Gods get their

proper offerings and cults but are " kindly asked " to live their

heavenly life and not interfere in the human life. The notion of

Divine Love is absent.

 

So the advent of Jesus has something really revolutionary as He

introduces the notion of Love in the relationships. He has something

very feminine as one of the articles hereafter points it out (He has

feminine friendships, weeps, etc….) Jesus lived in a very " male "

period (Romans and Jews) but He had to speak of Love….

 

Speaking of Love and preaching Love was something extreme when we

consider that His audience consisted in warriors and clergymen of two

patriarchal cultures, i.e; Jews and Romans. He could not have spoken

of the Feminine aspect of God directly, so He insisted on the

Mother : " Behold the Mother …… "

 

So He said that He would send the Comforter who would remind us what

He told. He knew that when the Time would come His followers would

understand that the Comforter is the Divine Feminine.

 

Shri Mataji said that Christ could not openly speak about certain

things, and that She was to explain those things to us, though She is

Herself the Explanation.

 

So i could conclude that the Bible did not suppress the Divine

Feminine. And the Christian period contributed to the revival of the

Divine Feminine in some ways.

 

Did the Church suppress the Divine Feminine ? They did and still do

whatever is possible to suppress and to silence it. But by doing

this, they just exacerbate this innate and structural need to re-

establish the Divine Feminine which lies in our collective

consciousness.

 

With Love

nicole

 

******************************************************************

 

 

www.thoughtsandplaces.org/divinefem.html

……

This is the archetype of the Divine Feminine, one of the basic truths

built into the very depth of our being, according to Jung. In the

Catholic world she again surfaces, as best she can, into yet another

female-limiting, patriarchal world. Vesta, pictured in the first

photo above, was also revered as a representation of the Divine

Feminine in a(n even more extremely) patriarchal world, the world of

the Pater Familias where the man was expected to be revered by wife,

child and slave, and was undisputed ruler over his household, by

virtue of his maleness. Roman society was a strongly man- centered

social system wherein women lived to serve, and please, and in order

to thrive in this environment emerging Christianity largely emulated

and adopted/adapted Rome's 'family values' with vestiges quite

evident still in all modern societies.

……

This surprising similarity in a web page devoted to an ancient

goddess and a Jungian's modern interpretation of the ill effects that

come from rejecting the role of the feminine principle in what is

considered Divine reinforces for me that there is no need for the

historically continuous threads that people claim must have existed

for the transmission of the ideas and ideals that swirl around the

Divine Feminine. Perhaps the connection lies in our collective

unconscious, and simply reflects the resurfacing at different times

and places of the same suppressed archetypes with which all humanity

has been born since the beginning of our species!

 

 

www.beliefnet.com/story_18752_1.html

 

What we're talking about when we talk about the feminine divine in

Christianity

By Rosemary Radford Ruether

 

It has become a kind of dogma among many feminists interested in

spirituality that Judaism and Christianity suppressed all female

imagery of the divine. It is also assumed that it was women who

created female symbols of the divine and that these symbols served to

empower women. So, this line of thinking goes, female symbols for the

divine were suppressed as a part of a patriarchal disempowerment of

women. However, my own research, published in my book, " Goddesses and

the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History " shows that all

these relations are considerably more ambiguous.

 

Men, more so than women, probably shaped much of the classical images

of the female divine in the ancient Mediterranean world and

elsewhere. Such images served male and upper class interests, at

least in their official expressions The feminine divine was seen as

protecting men in power, probably because they were believed to be

protecting men, like a great mother whose power is seen as nurturing

rather than judgemental.

 

But in truth, female symbols of the divine were never entirely

suppressed in Judaism or Christianity. Although they were

marginalized, they continued to reappear in renewed forms--and are

still with us today.

 

The root of female images of the divine in Christianity lie in what's

known as the Wisdom tradition, which is found in the latter half of

the Hebrew Bible, in such books as Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiasticus, and

the Wisdom of Solomon. In those texts, Wisdom is described as a

emanation of God: " Like a fine mist she rises from the power of God,

a pure effluence from the glory of God... the brightness that streams

from everlasting light, the flawless mirror of the active power of

God and the image of his goodness " (Wisdom of Solomon, 7:25-26).

Wisdom is seen as a companion of God through whom God creates the

world, an orderer and sustainer of the universe, a mediator of divine

revelation, the one who calls Israel's sons to repent of their folly

and enter the study of wisdom. She is the means of good fortune, the

bride of sages and the redeemer of souls. " Age after age she enters

into holy souls and makes them God's friends and prophets " (Wisdom of

Solomon, 7:27).

 

Wisdom as a feminine aspect of God was developed by scholar-sages in

Jerusalem after the return from exile in the late sixth century

B.C.E. Earlier Judaism had known of the Goddess Asherah, wife of the

Canaanite God El. Since the Hebrew religion identified Yahweh--God--

with El, much popular Judaism before the exile continued to assume

that Yahweh had a consort, Asherah. Although the reformers of the

tradition gradually suppressed this veneration of Asherah, a

lingering memory of this tradition may have influenced the scholar-

sages may as they shaped the idea of Wisdom as a feminine

manifestation of God. Later Jewish mysticism would speak of the

Shekinah (a term used to refer to the Presence of God) as the

feminine consort of the male God.

 

Christianity shaped its understanding of who Jesus is through a

synthesis of the two traditions of apocalyptic messianism--a belief

in an imminently coming Messiah----and wisdom cosmology, the belief

in Wisdom as creator of the cosmos. Significant ideas in our

understanding of Christ--such as the preexistence of Christ as divine

Word with God, the shaping of the creation through the Word, and its

role as sustainer and redeemer of the universe and revealer of God's

truth (Gospel of John 1:1-18)--all developed through the Wisdom

tradition. Jesus is variously seen as a prophet of Wisdom, Wisdom's

son, or Wisdom's incarnation. The New Testament preserves some

references to the feminine personification of Wisdom manifest in

Jesus, such as " Wisdom is justified by her deeds " and " Wisdom is

justified by all her children. " (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:35). But as

the faith developed, the idea of Word (Logos, a male concept) started

to be substituted for Wisdom (Sophia, the female concept). Word was

identified with Jesus,a male prophet, tending to mask the feminine

roots of the Wisdom idea in Western Christianity.

 

Eastern Christianity continued to place an emphasis on Wisdom, which

is identified with Christ or Mary Theotokos (the Mother of God),

Mother Church, or even as the sustaining ground of Being of the

Trinity. This emphasis is clear in the name of the great mother

church of Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople: Hagia Sophia, which is

Greek for Holy Wisdom.

Wwwcreationontheweb.com/content/view/5913

 

What's in a pronoun? The divine gender controversy

by Lita Cosner

A recent UK Times story1reported on a Populus survey conducted for

the Movement for Reform Judaism, saying that `[nearly] three quarters

of Christians think that God is male, compared with less than half of

the general population.'

However, the newspaper report was slightly misleading, as the wording

in the actual poll asks simply how the respondents had thought about

God most recently. And the only way they were able to get `less than

half of the general population' not believing in a solely male God

was to exclude the religious from the general population (62% of

respondents last thought of God as male, compared with 73% of

Christians and 48% of those who did not consider themselves to belong

to any religion). Only 1% of respondents thought of God as female,

the rest being divided between both male and female, neither,

or `none of the above' (the latter category left undefined—perhaps

for the best!).

The radical feminist assault on Christianity

Many feminist writers and theologians claim that the concept of a

male God is rooted in a patriarchal culture which by its very nature

is oppressive to women, and that the Bible contains a female

portrayal of God's nature that has been suppressed by the Church.2

Having moved past this `archaic' and `misogynistic' view of women,

they argue that society should accordingly revise its view of God to

include the female characteristics they claim are found both in

Scripture and Jewish and Church tradition.

Christians believe that it is only possible to know the information

about God that He reveals to us Himself through Scripture. Of course,

God is Spirit (John 4:24), so is biologically neither male nor

female, and He does not have a sexual nature. Rita Gross objects: `If

we do not mean that God is male when we use masculine pronouns and

imagery, then why should there be any objections to using female

imagery and pronouns as well.'3 The simple answer is that God is

described in male terms because that best describes how God relates

to His creation; God has revealed Himself to humanity in male terms;

and God became incarnate as a man, not a woman.

Does the Bible use female imagery to refer to God?

Some feminist theologians and writers claim that Scripture contains

feminine or maternal imagery as well as masculine imagery. Some of

this is simply linguistic gender; both Hebrew and Greek, like French

and Spanish, use gender for nouns. The words for `spirit (ruach) and

wisdom (hokma) take the feminine gender in Hebrew. However, this does

not make them intrinsically feminine any more than truth or sin, both

of which take the feminine article in Greek (aletheia and hamartia).4

Furthermore, when ruach is used for the Spirit of God, it is always

combined with the masculine Elohim and takes on its masculine

characteristics. E.g. in 1 Kings 22:24: `Which way did the Spirit of

the Lord go …?', the word ruach takes the masculine verb

abar: `went'.5

Another type of instance that is claimed as evidence of God being

described in feminine terms is in similes and metaphors. However,

similes and metaphors always are comparing attributes of one thing

with attributes of another they never mean that one thing is

literally the other thing. When Deuteronomy 32:4 calls God a rock, we

do not ask `Granite or limestone?' because we correctly understand it

to be non-literal. The same principle applies a few verses later when

God is compared to an eagle who protects its young (32:11). It is

ridiculous to infer from the imagery that God is female; it would be

just as justified in the context to assume that this verse teaches

that God has feathers and wings! This is not even simply a question

of bad hermeneutics (which it is), but of poor basic reading

comprehension, whether intentional or not, on the part of these

scholars.

Male imagery referring to God

The male imagery used to depict God is fundamentally different from

the female similes found in Scripture. God may be like a mother in

certain aspects, but He is Father; Jesus prayed to Him as Father and

taught His disciples to do the same (Matt 6:9). The Second Person of

the Trinity, Jesus Christ, became incarnate as a man, not a woman,

and Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit with the pronoun `He' (John

14:16–17). These are not similes or metaphors, but teaching regarding

the very nature of God and how He relates to His creation, and how

the members of the Godhead relate to each other.

Was male imagery and Incarnation a concession to a patriarchal

culture?

The male imagery used to depict God is fundamentally different from

the female similes found in Scripture. God may be like a mother in

certain aspects, but He is Father; Jesus prayed to Him as Father and

taught His disciples to do the same (Matt 6:9).

Some scholars admit that the Bible depicts God in male terms, but

argue that it was simply because the patriarchal culture would not

accept a female God. Some go so far as to argue that the only reason

that Jesus couldn't have been a female is because the culture was not

ready for a female Messiah. However, much of this so-called

patriarchy is contained in the Mosaic Law, which God gave to Israel!

God could have revealed Himself in female terms if it was an accurate

portrayal of His nature, and He could have prepared the culture for a

female Messiah. On a similar note, it is also claimed that the only

reason Jesus had to be male was that a female would not be accepted

as a teacher in first century Palestine.

It is not even clear if the culture was as patriarchal as is claimed;

many ancient cultures worshipped goddesses (see, e.g., Acts 19:27–28)

and Paul even had to straighten out the Corinthians about women's

proper place in church services (1 Corinthians 14:33–38). What Paul

meant when he forbade women to have authority over men (1 Timothy

2:12) is debated (and outside the mandate of CMI), but it seems

unlikely that he would have addressed it at all if it weren't an

issue in his day.

This objection is absurd even on the face of it—the Prophets and

Jesus themselves frequently challenged the culture of their day,

where it didn't match God's standards. Indeed, humanly speaking,

Jesus' enemies wouldn't have bothered to criticize Him if he had not

been a staunch critic of much of the culture, even using challenge-

riposte in His critique.

Some go so far as to claim that Jesus was either genetically or

psychologically female; since Jesus did not have a human father, the

argument goes, all His genetic material came from Mary. Since Mary

did not have a Y chromosome, Jesus must have been genetically female,

though male in appearance. It should be obvious that, though natural

parthenogenic offspring are the same sex as the parent, the case of

Jesus was a supernatural virginal conception, and the God who created

the universe surely would have no problem in creating a Y chromosome.

Some have the good sense to accept that Jesus was physically male,

but claim that He had female psychological characteristics, or that

he behaved in female ways: He loved children, had special friendships

with women, and wept. However, none of these are especially feminine

characteristics. There was no taboo for males displaying emotion in

public; in some cases, it would be expected of them. People claiming

Jesus displayed female psychology nearly always cite Matthew 23:37 or

the parallel passage Luke 13:34: `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.' This is a simile, like

the examples above, and the scholars who infer female psychology from

this passage might as well say that Jesus had some aspects of chicken

psychology, as well!6

The Bible has an overwhelming emphasis that the Saviour of humanity

would not only be both God and human, but a male human. Indeed, the

first prophecy about Jesus in the Bible, Protevangelion of Genesis

3:15, specified that it would be a male descendent who would crush

the head of the serpent, and Eve understood the prophecy to refer to

a male when she misapplied it to Cain in Genesis 4:1 (see `Eve and

the God-Man'). God declares Jesus to be His beloved Son (Matthew

3:17, 17:5), not daughter, and He is called High Priest (Hebrews

2:17), not priestess. In Revelation, Jesus is the Bridegroom of the

Church (ch. 21). The overwhelming presence of male imagery applied to

Jesus from Genesis to Revelation strongly suggests that the Messiah's

maleness was no accident or concession to culture, but central to His

nature and mission.

The relational maleness of God

Identifying God in female terms leads to a fundamental change in how

God is viewed:

He is no longer Lord over the world, but a mother birthing it. He is

no longer king over his realm, but the world is actually part of his

(her?) body. It seems that the evangelicals who wish to simply add

mother to the list of names for God in the Scriptures, have no way of

preventing this kind of revision of the way in which God relates to

the world. Once the authority of scripture is given up with regard to

the name (mother), there is no authority to which they may appeal to

argue against the natural revisions of the God-world relationship

associated with feminine language.7

The Bible is clear about the `otherness' of God; the creation

narrative in Genesis clearly illustrates that God existed before the

creation and is completely separate from it. Those who identify God

in female terms have no way to prevent this fundamental change in the

view of God where the creation becomes part of God (panentheism), and

thus in some way humanity becomes divine in this view as well.

The way that God relates to His creation corresponds with male roles;

He is Father, King, and Master. There is no way to diminish the

maleness of these roles without diminishing our view of the nature of

God Himself.

Is it anti-female to refer to God with male pronouns?

A truly biblical understanding of God is far from anti-female,

because both male and female are created in the image of God (Genesis

1:26–28). Some imagery used in the Bible may even be easier for

females to understand and relate to; e.g. the Church as the bride of

Christ (Ephesians 5:22–33, Revelation 21:9,17).

If we refer to humans by the names, and even with the pronouns, that

they wish to be known by, it seems to be common courtesy to do the

same for God. If God reveals Himself as Father, King, Lord, etc, it

seems obscene to insist on calling Him Mother, Goddess, etc.

The issue is: who defines how we relate to God: us or God? If we

refer to humans by the names, and even with the pronouns, that they

wish to be known by, it seems to be common courtesy to do the same

for God. If God reveals Himself as Father, King, Lord, etc, it seems

obscene to insist on calling Him Mother, Goddess, etc. As Michael

Bott argued, `respecting the requested manner of address is good

manners at least. So we call God our " Father " because to do otherwise

is simply rude.'8 Furthermore, in the Bible naming someone or

something symbolized authority over that person. As Roland Mushat

Frye put it:

Language for God is not equivalent to the kinds of naming we use in

ordinary speech. … [W]e recognize that ordinary names for creatures

are subject to human custom, choice, and change. According to

biblical religion, on the other hand, only God can name God.

Distinctive Christian experiences and beliefs are expressed through

distinctive language about God, and the changes in that language

proposed by feminist theologians do not merely add a few unfamiliar

words for God … but in fact introduce beliefs about God that differ

radically from those inherent in Christian faith, understanding and

Scripture.9

Does secularism have anything better to offer?

Early Christianity and ancient Judaism before it were both light-

years ahead of their cultures regarding the treatment of women. The

Mosaic law was very pro-woman; it was the first ancient law to punish

both parties of adultery equally (Leviticus 20:10) whereas in other

cultures of that time only the woman was culpable, and it has been

argued that the birth impurity laws (Leviticus 12), so vilified by

modern feminists, amounted to a maternity leave for new mothers since

they could not do household work while they were unclean. The Mosaic

law also provided for a woman who was raped by forcing the rapist to

support her for the rest of her life, and forced Jewish men to treat

females of conquered people with dignity. Jewish daughters could even

inherit property when there were no sons. While some of the laws may

seem misogynist in the 21st century Western world, such laws were

vital for the well-being of women in the ancient world.10

Paul's statements commanding women to be silent and forbidding them

to have authority in the Church have given him an anti-female

reputation, but he also wrote that `There is neither Jew nor Greek,

slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus'

(Galatians 3:28). The Church provided for elderly widows with no

family to take care of them (1 Timothy 5:9–16). Outside the Church,

in the prevailing culture of the day, it was not uncommon for baby

girls to be exposed and left to die soon after birth; both

Christianity and Judaism regarded this as an abomination.

The same hermeneutic that allows exegetes to replace `Father, Son and

Holy Spirit' with `Mother, Daughter, and Life-bearing Womb' would

also free humans to reinterpret any part of Scripture to fit with the

spirit of the age—including the many explicit pro-female parts! If we

are free to redefine even one word of Scripture, not one word of it

is unchangeable.

On the other hand; secularists have been shown to be anti-female.

Many evolutionists, including Darwin, have argued that women are

inferior to men, since the weaker men are eliminated by war and other

things, but weaker women are not eliminated by such forces—instead,

men protect weak women. Thus the male population is worked on by

natural selection where only the strongest survive, but the women who

men find attractive, not necessarily the strongest or most `fit',

reproduce. One evolutionist even argued that females were closer to

animals than to males. Indeed, sexual equality would be totally

unexpected under consistent evolutionary theory, since males and

females throughout the biosphere experienced different selective

pressures.

Abortion, advocated by secularists as a fundamental women's right,

results in far more dead baby girls than boys, and has horrendous

psychological consequences for the mother, while allowing fathers

reduced responsibility for promiscuous behaviour. And of course,

abortion kills babies, which is by far the most important reason why

it's evil.

That Christians with a biblical view of God insist on calling

Him by the male names He has given Himself in no way reflects

negatively on the biblical view of women, because both men and women

are created in the image of God. Because of this, Christians are

commanded to treat both men and women with proper dignity and

respect. Replacing biblical language for God with unbiblical female

names and terminology does not elevate women, but is an attempt to

redefine God Himself. The same hermeneutic that allows exegetes to

replace `Father, Son and Holy Spirit' with `Mother, Daughter, and

Life-bearing Womb' would also free humans to reinterpret any part of

Scripture to fit with the spirit of the age—including the many parts

of the Bible which are explicitly pro-female! If we are free to

redefine even one word of Scripture, not one word of it is

unchangeable.

References

1. `God moves in a gender neutral way', The Times 19 May 2008,

p. 25. Return to text.

2. For some answers to these fallacious claims, see Wieland, C.,

The follies of feminism, Prayer News, August 1991. Return to text.

3. Gross, R, `Female God language in a Jewish Context';

Womanspirit rising: a feminist reader in religion, p. 173, cited in

Bott, M. `Is God She?' Apologia 5(2):5–20. p 9. Return to text.

4. Jeffrey, D.L. `Inclusive Language and Worship: The Central

Role of Language in Defining the People of God' Return to text.

5. Taylor, C.V., Linguistics, Genesis and Evolution, Part 5: The

Creator, Creation 7(4):21–22, 1985. Return to text.

6. Cottrell, J. `The Gender of Jesus and the Incarnation: A Case

Study of Feminist Hermeneutics'. Return to text.

7. Stinson, R, `Our Mother Who Art in Heaven: A Brief Overview

and Critique of Evangelical Feminists and the Use of Feminine God-

Language'. Return to text.

8. Bott. M. `Is God She?' Apologia 5(2):5–20, p. 11–12. Return

to text.

9. House, H.W. `God, Gender, and Biblical Metaphor' (Ch. 17) by

Judy L. Brown' Return to text.

10. See Glenn Miller's series, Women in the Heart of God. Return

to text.

Published: 20 August 2008(GMT+10)