The Gender of God in the Bible, the Early Church and Today's Churches

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As I see it, there are at least 6 aspects of the God gender problem for worship
(1) The need to be faithful to the major elements of biblical tradition: The Bible's patriarchal language for God, especially Jesus' preference for "Abba" (a more intimate term for "Father")
(2) The need to honor the Personhood of God, the God who loves, can be pleased, and wants personal relationships
(3) The stilted and tedious substitution of "God" for all the masculine pronouns
(4) The perceived inappropriateness of varying masculine and feminine pronouns or using the neutral "They" when speaking of or to God
(5) Christian ignorance of the Bible's feminine imagery of God, an ignorance that makes allusions to this imagery seem too pagan or New Age
(6) For Catholics, the need to protect Mary's unique maternal, almost divine role as Mediatrix and object of prayer and veneration

Seeler, you remind me of a dentist who once told me, "I don't want to learn anything new in church." You don't seem to want to be challenged by new ideas here. Discussions only become lectures if people refuse to engage in the hard work of critical thinking. And actually, if by default, people prefer a dumbed down recycling of the old familiar answers and theories, that would bore me enough to discontinue the thread.
 
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Bette is not sure how to engage this whole topic. She finds topics where her name is mentioned six times in one post most fascinating, but also peculiarly repelling. And hugely inappropriately personal for a topic that might engage most genders.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Bette is not sure how to engage this whole topic. She finds topics where her name is mentioned six times in one post most fascinating, but also peculiarly repelling. And hugely inappropriately personal for a topic that might engage most genders.
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Thank you for pointing that out. That settles the truth of the situation...Mystic, you SHOULD HAVE ASKED Bette first

So, now we know this thread is defunct and immoral -- ty revsdd for bringing up your concerns

Perhaps it can be started again without reference to Bette, hmm?

RESTART in 5...4...3.14...
 
Many Kiss't IHC power for getting by the Pans ... and into the flames ... some say this is manic, other accept it a macho as they take over the powerful as Campbells ... those ringers that follow the death o'm eis? Is that manychism?
 
Inannawhimsey said:
Thank you for pointing that out. That settles the truth of the situation...Mystic, you SHOULD HAVE ASKED Bette first

So, now we know this thread is defunct and immoral -- ty revsdd for bringing up your concerns

Perhaps it can be started again without reference to Bette, hmm?

RESTART in 5...4...3.14...
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You're welcome.

And all along, that was my basic concern. The topic was fine, and even pointing out that the topic came from a "derailment" in another thread, and even naming Bette as the one who introduced the topic on the other thread was fine. It was the ongoing fixation on Bette that was making me uncomfortable.
 
The Great Train Wreck blended with an escape of what wasn't toby known as a' gnostic?

What are the metaphors for asa ... a salicylate complexity that can cause analgesia and not knowing your hurt. But then the swell head shrinks so the psychiatrist can work with simple headaches ...
Religious people demand that there be nothing in there anyway ... says so in biblical terms ... and thus pin heads to provide points to the debe it NG ...

You know the myth of de bore ah? IT can auger your head as in trepanning ...close to wo odin and the distraught tree of wisdom ... tis not to be seen! Is that Grim or just a Shadowy feeling that leaves you boxing ... or Baulk sin ... collective guilt for that which is not ... or those without ... devoids or those ravens that left according to the Book of Luke on variants of the story from the sparrow ... an extra Lyon? Thus the myth of nothing grows ... sort of Eire ...
 
(1a) From about the late 6th to the fourth century BC, the Jews had a colony on Elephantine, an island on the Nile River opposite Aswan. Their Elephantine Temple likely had a replica of the Jerusalem Temple's Ark of the Covenant. An ancient Ethiopian church claims to guard the authentic Ark, complete with Moses' tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments, but this Ark is most likely the Elephantine Ark transported down the Nile to Ethiopia when this Jewish colony was destroyed. If so, the Ethiopian Ark would still be priceless because it can be traced back to the age of the great OT prophets.

What practical difference in the OT era does it make to have a female ultimate symbol of power? The Elephantine colony was heretical because it worshiped both Yahweh and the Canaanite/ Egyptian war goddess Anath, who was viewed as Yahweh's consort. What is most intriguing about this ultimate female symbol of power is the fourfold difference She made to the status of the Jewish women there.
(1) In Israel, the woman was her husband's property and, as such, she could not divorce him. But on Elephantine Jewish wives could divorce their husbands. (2) Husbands could neither be polygamous nor take concubines on Elephantine, unlike contemporary Israel. (3) In Elephantine, women could inherit, receive, and exchange property and goods, but Palestinian wives and daughters could almost never inherit property. (4) Unlike their female counterparts in Israel, Elephantine women had equal rights, but this equality carried the same responsibilities that men had; i. e. women had to pay taxes, but they could litigate and share the same legal obligations as men, including military service.

In my next planned post, I'll give an example of the perks early Christian women have when the divine in radically feminized.
 
Mystic said:
(1a) From about the late 6th to the fourth century BC, the Jews had a colony on Elephantine, an island on the Nile River opposite Aswan. Their Elephantine Temple likely had a replica of the Jerusalem Temple's Ark of the Covenant. An ancient Ethiopian church claims to guard the authentic Ark, complete with Moses' tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments, but this Ark is most likely the Elephantine Ark transported down the Nile to Ethiopia when this Jewish colony was destroyed. If so, the Ethiopian Ark would still be priceless because it can be traced back to the age of the great OT prophets.

What practical difference in the OT era does it make to have a female ultimate symbol of power? The Elephantine colony was heretical because it worshiped both Yahweh and the Canaanite/ Egyptian war goddess Anath, who was viewed as Yahweh's consort. What is most intriguing about this ultimate female symbol of power is the fourfold difference She made to the status of the Jewish women there.
(1) In Israel, the woman was her husband's property and, as such, she could not divorce him. But on Elephantine Jewish wives could divorce their husbands. (2) Husbands could neither be polygamous nor take concubines on Elephantine, unlike contemporary Israel. (3) In Elephantine, women could inherit, receive, and exchange property and goods, but Palestinian wives and daughters could almost never inherit property. (4) Unlike their female counterparts in Israel, Elephantine women had equal rights, but this equality carried the same responsibilities that men had; i. e. women had to pay taxes, but they could litigate and share the same legal obligations as men, including military service.

In my next planned post, I'll give an example of the perks early Christian women have when the divine in radically feminized.
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Appears like an elephantine meme ... or a large sharing of the same space where thoughts and desires could be isolated in imaginative was for non-destructive evaluation or proper pathological etude! In one tradion this was de "Mo" or later expanded to "Moe" or Musive domain that some thought mousse ... or nothing but according to quantum change that everything intelligent departed that space in an incident of Luce 'n something ... thus we get Lucid in the mourning ... after rest ...

It is suggested that the brain reorganizes while out of ID ... if we can gain some understanding of ID and how egos ... in rational-irrational processing of dreams, thoughts and fears ...

These are often incompletely shared by those not trusting of their mate and thus not true soul mates as sole ... a chitty singularity ... can be gravid as rising ... like de midnight sun ... tis dark in data garden ... because of what we don't know yet some insist that they know eternal stuff ... tis a mortal lyre ... a beautiful humur as seen from outside ...

Ben there dunn et ...
 
Mystic said:
(1a) From about the late 6th to the fourth century BC, the Jews had a colony on Elephantine, an island on the Nile River opposite Aswan. Their Elephantine Temple likely had a replica of the Jerusalem Temple's Ark of the Covenant. An ancient Ethiopian church claims to guard the authentic Ark, complete with Moses' tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments, but this Ark is most likely the Elephantine Ark transported down the Nile to Ethiopia when this Jewish colony was destroyed. If so, the Ethiopian Ark would still be priceless because it can be traced back to the age of the great OT prophets.

What practical difference in the OT era does it make to have a female ultimate symbol of power? The Elephantine colony was heretical because it worshiped both Yahweh and the Canaanite/ Egyptian war goddess Anath, who was viewed as Yahweh's consort. What is most intriguing about this ultimate female symbol of power is the fourfold difference She made to the status of the Jewish women there.
(1) In Israel, the woman was her husband's property and, as such, she could not divorce him. But on Elephantine Jewish wives could divorce their husbands. (2) Husbands could neither be polygamous nor take concubines on Elephantine, unlike contemporary Israel. (3) In Elephantine, women could inherit, receive, and exchange property and goods, but Palestinian wives and daughters could almost never inherit property. (4) Unlike their female counterparts in Israel, Elephantine women had equal rights, but this equality carried the same responsibilities that men had; i. e. women had to pay taxes, but they could litigate and share the same legal obligations as men, including military service.

In my next planned post, I'll give an example of the perks early Christian women have when the divine in radically feminized.
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In Elephantine it sounds like women still had to conform to what was a man's world in order to obtain equality. Sort of like breaking the glass ceiling, one might have to behave and agree to what men have always done in order to succeed. Where is the respect for standards set by women?
 
Ah Waterfall, you inadvertently nicely tee up the second of my examples, which I've decided to entitle "The Christian Woman's Alamo." Do you like that title? Or perhaps you first need to see what I mean. Duh! Stay tuned. First I need to see if the new archaeological discoveries in Pepuza (a Turkish village where early Christian feminists first emerged in 170 AD and took their last stand!) make a difference to what I need to say.
 
(1b) "Remember the Alamo!" That was the cry of Gen. Sam Houston in his quest to drive the Mexican army from Texas. But you Christian women have failed to remember your Alamo! Your courageous foremothers tried to remind you by posting their identification with the 2nd century feminist "New Prophecy" on their gravestones. But patriarchy has effectively suppressed their witness. So let me tell you the story of your Davey Crockett and Sam Bowie, Priscilla and Maximilla.

The story begins with the cult of Cybele, "Mother of all gods," in Phrygia, a province of Asia Minor (Turkey). She evolves from the earliest deity, the Earth Mother whose statues have been found at the ancient settlement at Catal Huyuk in Anatolia (central Turkey). Yes, before there were gods, there was a goddess! Cybele's cult spread to Greece and then to Rome. Her priests were castrated, in part to stress the ultimate power of the feminine. But around 170 AD one of her priests, Montanus, became a Christian and immediately appointed 2 female prophets, Priscilla and Maximilla, as co-leaders. These women soon took over this charismatic movement. The Cybele cult featured ecstatic experiences, so these women sought to renew the NT church's stress on ecstatic prophesying. But they apparently wanted to integrate aspects of "the Mother of all gods" (Cybele). So they feminized Christ: "In the form of a woman, says she (Priscilla), arrayed in shiny garments, Christ came to me and set Wisdom (Sophia) upon me, and revealed to me that this place (Pepuza) is holy...(Epiphanius, Panarion 49 .1.2-3)." In a great and widespread spiritual awakening, these female prophets then appointed women as bishops throughout the Mediterranean world. In iconography Cybele was portrayed with 2 attendant lions. Priscilla and Maximilla could honestly anticipate the modern feminist motto, "I am Woman; hear me roar!" But how did they justify feminizing Christ? And what happened to their "feminist" churches? Stay tuned for your Alamo story, ladies.
 
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Cybele Ean calls ... time gentlemen please go hommoe and listen a bit ... develop common domains ... get right into it!

Thus the expression of whetted and immersed ---Helen Duncan (psychic ... just because she thought across the line of order)!

Is that dissonance personified? Any disruptive haunting spirit can be attributed a character ... such things go round ...
 
(1b--continued) These female prophets call their movement the New Prophecy, but their male Catholic enemies call them Montanists. Apparently, these female leaders (Priscilla, Maximilla, later Quintilla and a host of unnamed women) couldn't function within their patriarchal restraints. So they left their husbands to do missionary work and spread the New Prophecy. They flouted the current standards for Christian female modesty by using lots of makeup and wearing nice jewelry. They even convert the most distinguished North African Christian leader and writer of their day, the lawyer Tertullian (c. 208 AD). It's interesting and important to observe his shift towards a pro-charismatic perspective in his books written after his Montanist conversion. He describes a female prophet who goes out of body during Sunday worship and then reports her revelations after the service and the elders subject them to spiritual discernment. We hear of Montanist virgins processing during church, dressed in white robes and waving lanterns to act out Jesus' Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. They combine their fancy liturgical innovations with ecstatic prophesying.

These women were actually theologically orthodox, except for their unique requirement of more fasts for their ascetic lifestyles and their renewal of the now dormant ecstatic gift of prophecy. But when they appoint women as bishops to their new churches that spring up everywhere, that is the last straw. The bishop of Rome excommicates them, but these uppity women retaliate by formally excommunicating him! The Catholics then try unsuccessfully to exorcise these women. Imagine the violent scene! Their books are destroyed, including 5 books on the New Prophecy written by Tertullian. After about 100 years, this feminist church movement is all but destroyed. Christian women have had their Alamo and been defeated. But their witness lives on through one sympathetic writer, some of Tertullian's books, and indirectly through the witness of their critics. In the formation of the NT canon, one reason for limiting divine revelation to the age of the apostles is to eliminate the prophetic revelations and authority of these Montanist women.

This feminist movement is energized partly by a vision of Christ as a Woman. How they can justify this biblically will be a subject of my next planned post.
 
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Thus thebe ithchii story about women made up to make the orthodox men fall into it ... which could be the pre-ordained state of ID or an overcoming passion emoticon at the butte (booty) of the thing that expresses parts that isn't and thus culminating in incarnate dreams ... appearing as isn't ... things men have to face head on ... while he Luces IT!

Sects condensed are the oddest duos ... divine comedy rendered senseless? RIFTS of non-sense are said to be good for expunging the soul ...
 
(1b-continued) EARLY CHRISTIAN EFFORTS TO MAKE SENSE OF GENDER LANGUGEF OR GOD

We read about "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in Matthew 28:19-20. But this phrase does not mean the same thing as the creedal explanation of the Trinity. Theophilus of Antioch (180 AD) provides the earliest use of the term "Trinity" and he feminizes it, conceiving of it as "God, His Word, and His Wisdom" (Sophia--feminine) and can even call Christ "sophia." Other early Christian writings reword this as "The Father, the Son, and the Mother (= Sophia)." Jesus speaks as the mouthpiece of Lady Wisdom (Luke 11:49) and Matthew reinterprets this saying to elevate Jesus to Sophia Herself (Matt 23:34). So when a Montanist female prophet has a vision of Jesus as a Woman (= Lady Wisdom), she has precedent in our Gospels and in Jesus' self-understanding. Remember, the glorified Christ transcends male anatomy!

The personification of Lady Wisdom derives from OT Wisdom literature that identifies Her as Lady Wisdom and often has Her speak directly as Lady Wisdom. The language used to characterize Her is borrowed from Egyptian goddess worship, specifically Isis worship. But orthodox Judaism is monotheist, so this goddess language is transformed into another figurative way of talking about Yahweh and His nature.
The feminist Montanist movement in the late 2nd century uses the image of a female Christ (Sophia) as a source of empowerment in their ambitious effort to spread their brand of a more egalitarian Christian faith throughout the Mediterranian world. Their demise is the last gasp of a female quest for equality in the church of late antiquity.
 
Is wisdom in the street ab itchii lady after being excluded and eliminated from the temple (jez abelle in biblical conned text) i.e. something we are directed not to have knowledge about in the greatest of myths 've adepts? Thus chi appears as not or just a dark incarnate form without firm shape and hard to grasp as a metaphorical screwing ova ... is this adaptable to subtle wisdom or Latin heiro gama that Trumpt be Putin-out? That back and forth reciprocation?

Screwing ova? That is that wee thing working it's way out of the deeps to encounter Semite essences ... once known as animal ethereal essence that could co join in making something from nothing but God as a word of ome-G'd is that permissible in the shady spots ... near dark voids? Perhaps reality para lel to what was expected impossible dream previously to the concept thereof! Sometimes causes sweats in the night ... and scattered sheet whetting ... sand it over with copper plating schemes ... conspiracies of the other kind ... metaphor IQ all ... but unseen ...
 
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[Disregard previous post. It is expanded with its typos corrected here.]

YAHWEH'S POETIC FEMALE BODY PARTS: THE BREASTS AND WOMB, AND MATERNAL LABOR PAINS, AND MATERNAL LAP AND GUIDING HAND OF MOTHER YAHWEH

(1) "Was it I [Moses] who gave them birth that you should say to me, "Carry them in your bosom like a beloved little mother with a baby at her breast (Numbers 11:12)?" Moses implies the female imagery of Mother Yahweh's "bosom" and nursing "breasts."

(2) "You were unmindful of the [Mother[ Rock who bore you and you forget the God who writhed in labor pains with you (Deuteronomy 32:18)."
"Yahweh God goes forth..."But now I cry out as a woman in labor, panting and groaning (Isaiah 42:13, 14)."

(3) "My {God's] womb trembles for him (Ephraim = Israel). will truly show motherly-compassion upon him...For Yahweh has created a new thing in the land, female surrounds male. (Jeremiah 31:20, 22)." This translation is based on "compassion" as the meaning of the plural of the Hebrew "rechem," which means "womb" in the singular. The mystical implication celebrates God's protective envelopment of his infant Israel.

(4) "O Yahweh, I have calmed my soul like a weaned child, like a weaned child on its mother's lap (Psalm 131:1-2).:

(5) "Like the eyes of a slave girl fixed on the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are fixed on Yahweh our God (Psalm 123:2)."
 
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