Ancient Hebrew has a neuter gender for God

Leo Caesius

Banned
Actually, one of the major defining characteristics of the J-source of the Pentateuch is the use of hu as an epicene pronoun. When the Masoretes edited the text, they furnished it with vowels as if it were the feminine pronoun hi, but it's clearly hu in the original text.
 

Skokie

Banned
More Bible weirdness that runs contrary to our Hellenized/Platonist (?) conceptions about God...

Feet, hand, sapphire footstools, and picnicking:

"Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abi'hu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God ["Elohim"] of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank." Exodus 24:9–11

Yahweh's form, includes a mouth:

"If there is a prophet among you, I, [Yahweh], make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house, with him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of [Yahweh]. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" Numbers 12:6–8
 
אלוהים

Or God According to Wiki
the Almighty God of Israel, the pluralization in this sense is used to show magnitude, or reverence.
If you look at most of the Middle East or the world for that matter up until that time there was a tribal matriarchy as the dominant political system. In Egypt, Amenhotep IV turned Egypt into a monotheist land with Re at the top. The Hebrews who were believed to have Egypt around that time had adopted much of that cult. They later through reversion of the prostitution and gluttony of the Canaanite and Aramaic cultures surrounding them turned to a complete Patriarchy and an elimination of thoughts like God fighting other gods in battle and to a complete monotheism.
Mark Twain in Letters from the Earth asks about the line, thou shalt not have any other Gods before me, whether God allowed other gods behind him or next to him.
Very likely originally yes.
Later during Jesus's time very likely With Greek, Aramaic and Roman influences, some elements of Matriarchism seeped back into the now Jewish minority. Hence all the Divinci code conspiracy that Mary magdalin might have been a decipleor even Jesus's wife or lover and was lowered to a secondary character who's sole purpose was to show the magnitude Jesus's forgiveness.
Again looking at early Hebrew history you see Judges like Deborah who are important female leaders. Sarah has an important role in Abraham's nomadic tribal life. Once David became King the women were no longer important except for their beauty or as to who they marry, even Ester while a strong woman was only mentioned for her beauty and ability to entice the King of Persia.
In conclusion I would figure a better idea for a POD, would be keeping Judaism a Matriarchy and giving it a God Mother, it would then have no unique qualities separating it from the Nations.

What's with all the God Mothers and Lilith discussions lately? For every Deborah you meet a guy like Jacob, that takes two wives and two mistresses and lives with them in a big family.

I see no example of Matriarchy in early Hebrew history. In fact, Hebrews define themselves through the "I am Israel, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham" phrase. Deborah's importance exists solely because of her prophetic powers. And I can't believe you're actually using Dan Brown and his "historical facts" in your demonstration. It's actually very clear that the cult for Mary, the mother of God, originated in Asia Minor, in Ephesus, where the cult of Artemis-Diana was already consolidated. It had nothing to do with the Jews, it was in the interest of the area (one of the first Christianized regions of the Empire) to have the new religion exhibit a female figure and associate her with Ephesus.

Even the attitude of Jesus towards women point out to his singularity in the jewish universe. While the older writers (Mark, Luke etc.) were still influenced by the jewish medium, John is clearly the guy that writes for the new converts: women are very important in his story, in some instances they are decisive in proving some part of Jesus' divine nature. He even refuses to fall for the old trap of mentioning Jesus' ancestors (in order to prove his lineage from king David), by using the guy that is not Jesus' father.
 

Tweeky

Banned
Wouldn't make any difference. In the text, Yahweh is a man, man. Man o' War (Exo. 15:3). Later on he was stripped of his anthropomorphic qualities in normative Judaism and Christianity (and Islam), and it didn't seem to make too much of a difference.

My understanding is that Yahweh was just a minor god in the original polytheistic pantheon of the Israelites. I think that this prick (which is all I can think of to describe Yahweh) was an extremely selfish and immature deity (as Gene Rodenberry had a character say in "Star Trek:The Motion Picture"; we create God in our own image). Was it Tacitus who said that victors write history; because if that's the case the misogynists in the Hebraic cult won.
 

Tweeky

Banned
Personally I think the Israelites ripped off the idea of a single monotheistic God from the cult of the Aten founded by Ahkenaten.
 

Skokie

Banned
I see no example of Matriarchy in early Hebrew history.

For good reason. There is no evidence, anywhere, past or present, of a matriarchal society.

It's actually very clear that the cult for Mary, the mother of God, originated in Asia Minor, in Ephesus, where the cult of Artemis-Diana was already consolidated. It had nothing to do with the Jews, it was in the interest of the area (one of the first Christianized regions of the Empire) to have the new religion exhibit a female figure and associate her with Ephesus.

I really would like to know the answer to that question. Alexandria is another good candidate after Ephesus. Some scholars believe, though, that the God the Father/God the Son and the Virgin Mary have Hebrew/Canaanite antecedents. Certainly we read in the Bible about how hard the priests and prophets had to rant and rage against the people's inveterate Ba'al and Ashtoreth "Queen of Heaven"/"The Abomination" worship. They really hated that for some inexplicable reason.

Anyway, fuck of a lot good female deities did. Those societies are just as misogynist as any other.
 
For good reason. There is no evidence, anywhere, past or present, of a matriarchal society.

Yeah, I'm a bit fed up with this invention. Apart from the Amazons (which is a legend inspired by the good standing of women in Scythian civilization), women weren't the leaders in no society on this earth.
 

Tweeky

Banned
Anyway, fuck of a lot good female deities did. Those societies are just as misogynist as any other.

Really? All though it was a Man's world, my understanding is that ancient Egytpian women were treated very decently by their menfolk (in fact I recall on documentary how at least one hieroglyphic text basically warned men against "Blokish" behaviour towards women).
 

Skokie

Banned
Women were leaders in exceptional circumstances:

Online Dictionary of Social Sciences

MATRIARCHY
A society or family in which women possess most of the power and authority. While there is some dispute among social scientists, there is no clear evidence of matriarchal societies existing in the world in either the past or the present. Individual families, however, have frequently exhibited matriarchal structure with women clearly possessing dominant authority and control. The term must be distinguished from matrilineal which refers to the system of tracing descent through the blood lines of women and which exists in a number of world societies.

Most of history was just endless drudgery. No golden age of fluffy bunny matriarchal pagans who respected womynkind.
 
Hi!

I'm curious how religion would have developed if ancient Hebrew happened to have a neuter gender. I've been told that many of the ancient texts of other religions use neuter gender to refer to the concept of God (which is consistent with the theory that God has no particular form).

Hebrew, as it turns out, has no neuter gender. All nouns (including the idea of an abstract God) have to be either masculine or feminine. Several aspects of God (for instance, the concept of the Shekhinah) are feminine nouns. However, the vast majority of the references to God in the Bible are masculine nouns. Hence the idea that God is an old man with a beard.

Suppose Hebrew had a neuter gender and Moses (or whoever wrote down the basis for Judaism) used neuter gender conjugations to refer to his concept of a deity. How would the religion have developed? It would make it pretty obvious to people that God is a concept and not somebody who can be envisioned or personified.

I can't help but think of the ancient saying posted in many synagogues next to the ark holding the Torah scrolls: "Know before whom you stand". Although Hebrew doesn't have a genderless "it", it does have a word for "what" which is different from "who/m". Somewhere between the founding of the faith and the creation of the saying, God transformed from a concept to a person. Otherwise, the saying would have said "Know before what you stand" or "Know for what you stand".

What do you think? More egalitarianism? Less idolatry?

Thanks in advance,

ACG

In the Abrahamic religions, it is important to realize that God DOES have a form, unlike the other religions which view him as something that cannot be envisioned, or some sort of amorphous being which has no particular form. This is very important in many ways. The most important of these, in my view, is the statement that man was created in the image of God.

A mankind which is created in the image of God is, in a sense, more God-like and holy. This conception justifies giving him preferential treatment over that given to the other creatures in the world. For example, we, as a society, slaughter animals for food. This is something that would never be considered by a society based on the conception that man is somehow God-like...i.e. created in the image of God.

It is true that humans do horrible things to each other. Slavery, warfare, and genocide spring to mind. But it could be much worse in a society where mankind is considered a lesser being, on the level with the animals, a resource to be used and discarded when no longer needed. There have been societies which took that view, if not toward mankind as a whole, at least to large groups of it, such as Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent, Soviet Russia and Communist China. We all know what happened there. In a world where God is amorphous, and mankind was not created in His image, that sort of nightmare might be the norm, rather than the exception.

That's my two cents. Y'all are free to disagree, if you see fit.
 

Skokie

Banned
In the Abrahamic religions, it is important to realize that God DOES have a form, unlike the other religions which view him as something that cannot be envisioned, or some sort of amorphous being which has no particular form. This is very important in many ways. The most important of these, in my view, is the statement that man was created in the image of God.

A mankind which is created in the image of God is, in a sense, more God-like and holy. This conception justifies giving him preferential treatment over that given to the other creatures in the world. For example, we, as a society, slaughter animals for food. This is something that would never be considered by a society based on the conception that man is somehow God-like...i.e. created in the image of God.

It is true that humans do horrible things to each other. Slavery, warfare, and genocide spring to mind. But it could be much worse in a society where mankind is considered a lesser being, on the level with the animals, a resource to be used and discarded when no longer needed. There have been societies which took that view, if not toward mankind as a whole, at least to large groups of it, such as Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent, Soviet Russia and Communist China. We all know what happened there. In a world where God is amorphous, and mankind was not created in His image, that sort of nightmare might be the norm, rather than the exception.

That's my two cents. Y'all are free to disagree, if you see fit.

I'm afraid Yahweh disagrees.

"Now go and smite Am'alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'" 1 Samuel 15:3

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them." Deu 20:16–17

Early Christians too:

"For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved--so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last!" 1 Thes. 2:14–16

"And he said, 'Why, what evil has he done?' But they shouted all the more, 'Let him be crucified.' So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.' And all the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children!'" Mat 27:23–25
 

Tweeky

Banned
As Captain Decker said near the end of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", we create God in our own image; that is a very damning indictment of the Abrahamic religions. Yahweh (that's who God really is) is as described in the old testament, is a malignant narcissist.

Here's some defining traits of such an individual:

Common characteristics of those with malignant narcissism include:
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Impulsiveness, doesn't finish projects, or attempts to finish a project too quickly to move onto something else
Reckless tendencies
Pathological lying or exaggeration of the truth
Shallow affect
Creates illusions of superiority
Strives for constant recognition or prestige
Exaggerates and boasts about accomplishments
Feels ashamed or attacked by negative judgments from others
Preoccupation with fantasies of a perfect partner or future
Lack of empathy or selective empathy
Pulls attention from everyone else onto themselves to feel unique
Tendency to idealize their own superiority, devalue other people's worth or accomplishments
Sensitivity to how others react to him/her
Inability to tolerate boredom
Manipulativeness
Indifference to or rationalizes having hurt or mistreated others (underdeveloped conscience)
Drug and alcohol abuse
Narcissistic rage

The following checklist is from Hare's psychopathy checklist:

Factor1: "Aggressive narcissism"

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Promiscuous sexual behavior

Factor2: "Socially deviant lifestyle"

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral control
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Early behavior problems
Many short-term marital relationships
Revocation of conditional release
Traits not correlated with either factor
Many short-term marital relationships
Criminal versatility
Please note that these traits are common amongst individuals with psychological disorders. The psychopath/malignant narcissist must display a strong tendency towards these characteristics.

Do note that any one individual does not manifest all of the above mentioned traits.
 

Skokie

Banned
To be fair, Yahweh is by no means the most prominent image of God. In fact, what the Bible actually says about him is almost always startling for most believers.

I'd say more people (Christian and Jewish, not sure about Muslims--though I think they tend towards the amorphous personality end) think of God as something in between the old man in the sky and an amorphous personality or force.
 
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