The gender of the creator

I am anything but a Biblical scholar...but I have read the book. When one is an avid reader as a child, one reads whatever she can get her hands on. It was one of the texts in our small home library.

I have absolutely no knowledge of the languages in which the book was originally written. so I'm afraid I'm going to take Rabbi Mark Sameth's word for what what is contained in his essay which appeared in the New York Times on Thursday: Is God Transgender? Rabbi Sameth is writing a history of the Tetragrammaton.

My interest in such a work has a clear source: wanting to closely examine the weapon on whose balance seems to hang our fate.

I’m a rabbi, and so I’m particularly saddened whenever religious arguments are brought in to defend social prejudices — as they often are in the discussion about transgender rights. In fact, the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, offers a highly elastic view of gender. And I do mean highly elastic: In Genesis 3:12, Eve is referred to as “he.” In Genesis 9:21, after the flood, Noah repairs to “her” tent. Genesis 24:16 refers to Rebecca as a “young man.” And Genesis 1:27 refers to Adam as “them.”

Surprising, I know. And there are many other, even more vivid examples: In Esther 2:7, Mordecai is pictured as nursing his niece Esther. In a similar way, in Isaiah 49:23, the future kings of Israel are prophesied to be “nursing kings.”

--Sameth

It's tempting to write those examples off as author or editor errors, but then there's that Biblical inerrancy thing.

Why would the Bible do this? These aren’t typos. In the ancient world, well-expressed gender fluidity was the mark of a civilized person. Such a person was considered more “godlike.” In Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the gods were thought of as gender-fluid, and human beings were considered reflections of the gods. The Israelite ideal of the “nursing king” seems to have been based on a real person: a woman by the name of Hatshepsut who, after the death of her husband, Thutmose II, donned a false beard and ascended the throne to become one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs.

The shadows are pulled back in this next paragraph.

The Israelites took the transgender trope from their surrounding cultures and wove it into their own sacred scripture. The four-Hebrew-letter name of God, which scholars refer to as the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was probably not pronounced “Jehovah” or “Yahweh,” as some have guessed. The Israelite priests would have read the letters in reverse as Hu/Hi — in other words, the hidden name of God was Hebrew for “He/She.” Counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel — the God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong — was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity.

Sameth applies these observations to the present in his conclusions, challenging the usual Biblical attack on the very existence or transgender people:

Scientists now tell us that gender identity, like sexual orientation, exists on a spectrum. Some of us are in greater or lesser alignment with the gender assigned to us at birth. Some of us are in alignment with both, or with neither. For others of us, alignment requires more of a process.

It may come as a surprise that scientists view gender as anything other than a simple binary. But thousands of years ago, as a review of ancient literature makes clear, that truth was known. In court challenges, administrative directives and popular culture, the issue is playing out in real time, before our eyes. But behind the unfolding legal drama lies the reality of human nature: the fact that gender is not, nor has it ever been, a matter of “either/or.”

Then again, our modern-day ultra conservative right wing religious people have never hidden the fact that they know more than God when it comes to their attacks (both verbal and legal) on the people they hate.

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Hereticus's picture

Seriously, why would a deity need a gender?

And even if it had one, couldn't it change it at will to suite its needs?

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Progressive, Independent, Gnostic, Vermonter.

In my Catholic High, in the late 60s, one nun told us that gender was meaningless for God, so we should feel free to think of God as male, female, both or neither. I found this a very freeing concept at the time, but did nothing to pursue any personal gender playfulness in my life, unfortunately.

Now, in my 60s, and pretty much of an atheist, I volunteer for a food pantry in a Catholic Church. We have a prayer circle before the people come in for the food we've sorted & packaged. Finally, I am acting on that nun's insight by joining in with the "Our Mother" prayer: Who art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy Name... (Everyone else says "our father.")

It was during Vatican Council II, and so not everything I learned is currently accepted, at least not by the cross-section of Catholics I work with at the pantry.

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Shockwave's picture

fsm photo: Animated FSM gif FSM-BIG.gif

BTW, I wonder if G.d's sex is determined by the patriarchal or matriarchal nature of the society/tribe that comes up with the idea. The Greeks were patriarchal and Zeus was their main god. What about Hindus or Buddhists?

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The political revolution continues

...on occasion, in the guise of Ardhanarishvara. The god Brahmin was formless, hence genderless.

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enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

bondibox's picture

I believe that as a man I find my balance when I'm in touch with the 'yin' side of life. For me that means spending time in nature, trying to be more empathetic, trading in my Ashtanga yoga for Iyengar once in a while. I think that's why America is so screwed up because our male culture stigmatizes these efforts. Lately maybe it's started to take a turn, as have notions of women not supposed to leave the house wearing pants.

As far as God goes, I think god is the string vibration as defined by quantum theory. "Shakti dances back and forth in pure delight between two points, becoming this very Creation inside and out." Now the kicker is that we have control over our thoughts and our breathing, through entrainment we can affect every cell in our bodies, whose to say we can't affect the vibration of the strings?

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F the F'n D's

Bluesee's picture

..I feel I have met the creator in her presence, as you will.

If you would like to read my Wet NDE, you will perhaps gain some insight, hopefully.

I don't believe that the consciousness beyond our life experience has a gender, no. It became paternalistic over History, but the actual reality of the Deity does not ask you if you are a Democrat or a Republican.

She just shows you love and eternity. And then puts you back if you're not ready Smile

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Bernie is a win-win.

You all are debating the gender of god(s)?

What's next; shall we ponder what presidential candidate unicorns would likely vote for?

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Your best bet is to stay out of religious discussions.

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"You argue that you don't want to throw away your vote. That's right. Don't vote for freedom - you might not get it. Vote for slavery - you have a cinch on that." Eugene Debs

Because I find the unreasoned, self-righteous bullshit the religious spout to be super entertaining. It's like watching the Bachelor but with really dumb people.

But if you're thinking that I want my "best bet" to be one that emphasizes reasoned argument and intelligent thought, you got me and you're right. I'll look elsewhere for that. But shit man, who didn't already know that?

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Zenza's picture

Thanks for posting it here.

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Zenza's picture

Thanks for posting it here.

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to include and which to omit from the Bible one that was left out was the Gospel Of Thomas.

The Gospel of Thomas has a very unique teaching and may have been why it was left out-

When Thomas asked Jesus how to enter the Kingdom of Heaven he answered-

"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter the kingdom."

Thomas was known as Jesus "Twin" they were closer than the other disciples and he is thought to have received information from Jesus that others didn't.

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