God is male, Jesus is male, the Devil is male, all the angels and all the demons,
Other religions and mythologies have goddesses, why doesn't Christianity?
Why doesn't Christianity have a concept of the divine feminine?
QuestionDemons in the sense of the fallen angels that sided with the devil. And since all the angels are male,
Why do you think all angels are male?
Biblically speaking, they’re only ever described as being indistinguishable from human males. Hebrews says to be kind to strangers because you could mistreat an angel otherwise.
Not all angels look like human men
Verse where angels appear where they are described otherwise? (Not “seraph” or whatever … “angels” specifically.)
"Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels... Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a human being, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle."
Ezekiel 10: 12, 14
That’s the description of cherubs, yep.
Never said to be that of angels.
Cherubim are absolutely angels, my friend.
That’s the general assumption, but if the discussion is of “biblical angels,” where are the two linked?
Angels, whenever they are described by “name” as angels, appear indistinguishable from men.
So Michael and Gabriel? Not much is really said about their appearances.
If they’re called angels, I’d err on the side of the actual descriptions of angels, as in Hebrews or the story of Lot where they are indistinguishable from men.
Alright. I'll bite. You're saying that angels only refer to a specific kind of angel? The MESSENGER kind? And that all the other God employees are warriors and shit?
I’m saying only that which is called an angel (in Scripture) is an angel. I get that various denominations and theologians have taken liberty with what is and isn’t an angel through the years.
Aren't they?
You're telling me if I pray really hard I can get a cute angel gf???
Angels don’t want to get in relationships with us. But a cute angel might pray for you.
😔
It’s worth mentioning that they introduce themselves saying “be not afraid” because biblically accurate angels look like hundreds of eyes and wings on gold rings. I don’t think there are cute angels in any accepted mortal sense of the word “cute” (not judging anyone that is into that kind of thing, of course.)
Angels are very biblically very human looking. The word comes from the Greek angelos which means messenger. The “do not be afraid” quotes are due to those moments including them appearing suddenly and probably showing more of their spiritual presence. The other beings described aren’t angels but other heavenly beings that’s are described. Angels eventually became shorthand for all heavenly creatures but biblically it is only used to refer to the human like messengers.
Biblically accurate angels only ever appear as men.
Seraphim and cherubim look pretty wild, but they’re never called angels.
Demons are never equated with fallen angels in the Bible. Angels have a body — demons seem to be in want of one (hence all the possessions they’re doing in the gospels).
It's your concept that is confused here, because you're not seeing the difference between a gender given to them in writing because they're associated with qualities that are male and their essential nature which is ungendered. It's for our benefit that they are referred to as male not to identify them.
Jesus, God and the Devil are beings in spirit. Yes they can manifest as male (or sometimes even female or androgynous in the case of Satan) but their essential nature is spirit. In the spirit gender isn't a reality because gender was imbued for the sake of reproduction. Jesus, God and Satan don't reproduce, they create or are incapable in respect to Satan - Satan is a created being with no gender and no possibility to reproduce, that's a limitation on the angelic speciation.
Because the Church is the "feminine" component to the equation. The people of God collectively are His "bride" who exhibit toward Him the feminine virtues of adoration, service, chastity (of faith), hope, long-suffering and reception.
No goddesses, but there is the Mother of God.
Yeah but she's not a part of the cosmology. She didn't create anything or in charge of anything
🤨
Former Catholic here. Mary mother of God didn’t create anything? Only Jesus himself. So God who is actually gender less picked a woman to birth a man. Jesus came to be because of the union of God and woman. No man was necessary in this equation. Womb-man came first. We are all female before male in the womb science proves this. The first human found was a black woman. This is why I am now a former Catholic though. They do worship Mary at least but still the gospels of Mary were removed from the Bible. The truth is out there in plain sight for those willing to dig into it further. Mother Earth creates life just as women do it’s no different here. There can be no son without the mother.
Amen
Mary only created Jesus' HUMAN side, his God side already existed, no?
That's a pretty big deal though.
Ok. I'm sorry
Wrong?
Depends. Most Protestants wouldn’t see her in that way but others would see her as the Queen of Heaven and our Mother and Queen. She’s not divine or a creator (except of course the creation of Christ in her womb.)
If we accept theosis, then we believe she and the saints are becoming divine.
To an extent, we just need to be careful in how we communicate it. Through theosis the saints are becoming divine in the sense that they are participating in God’s divine nature. We are becoming gods by being made perfect image bearers of Him.
By grace we become what God is by nature.
Very true. But understanding that requires proper context. We do by grace become what God is by nature, but we do not become the same as God. By grace we participate in His divine nature and take on His attributes like being fully loving, just, and merciful. However, we do not take on all elements of God like His omniscience, omnipresence, and naturally His timeless existence. We become gods who reflect God and mirrors of His grace but we do not obtain the fullness of His divinity.
THANK you. I'm glad someone understands what I mean here
Idk, man. I might just be a Palamite.
Read Wisdom 7-11. The Divine Feminine is there.
Well, there's Wisdom (Chokmah) who could be interpreted as a "Divine feminine aspect" of the Holy Spirit
Look closer at the Holy Spirit.
God doesn’t have gender. From what I’ve heard, God wants us to see Him as a Father figure, so that is why we refer to Him with male pronouns.
Also, God became a man, so I think it’s best not to overthink on this topic.
don't overthink
Aw man. That's like my only talent
Me too, forgive my hypocrisy lol
some hypocrisy is healthy and natural and inevitable
Because the Abrahamic religions tried very hard to erase all divine feminine parts.
God had a wife once, a mother earth Goddess named Asherah. But the strict patriarchal Jewish society didn't like that and erased her.
Gender is a human thing, God gave man to woman and woman to man to make them complemetary and not lonely, God is perfect instead, he is not a man
Read "She Who Is" by Elizabeth Johnson
My thesis is simple: Because ancient past is very eager to keep males as the absolutely ruling gender, women are seen as the servants and the slave (speaking about that era exclusively) and like in most ancient religions woman is seen as the slave of man, I find it hard to believe that in such an age, women were even considered
Update: This was also an era where a ruling woman was something unthinkable, something considered atrocious and probably a grave sin, for reasons that are beyond my understanding and/or interest, we cannot alter the past, only the future
Alas, Mother Mary is still highly revered while THE LORD seems to be a genderless title, this as the Guardian Angel known as Mahasia is also considered A LORD, but one of femininity
...Then again, the very MOTHER of JESUS is not considered "A Lord" so Mahasia might just be a very very effeminate male Angel
I honestly don't like it, perhaps "The divine feminine" is incorporated as a part of the male self? I mean Anima's and all that stuff?
Grasping for straws here, but ancient religion always tends to worship the male as the ruler, while the female as the servant, modern Christians (as a lot below, probably from the same people that dislike your comment take that into mind) will defend their LORD as "He is not a he, the Lord the Father, the Adonai, the MAN the *insert any of his 72 mostly male names* is not necessarily a man
But that's a bit like me telling you that THE GREAT MALE CAT SIR LORD MASCULINE SIGMA MALE RULER AND OPRESSOR OF FEMALES is not necessarily a male right? If that and the other below statements doesn't quite make sense to you at least verbally and in typing, then that's probably for a reason
Despite this the closest to the divine feminine would be Mother Mary yes? Or the lesser known being, in some Jewish (and formerly more Christianly accepted scriptures) known as Lilith, God's wife, which he "loved" sooooooo muuuuuuuch that he "gifted her" to Adam
The reason that I mention her is that she has become and remained somewhat of a pop culture symbol for the missing "Female power side" of Christianity, if you are deeply Christian I would not search too much (or use Google at all, I mean the "Fruit of knowledge is "evil""
But if you are interested in it as somewhat of a monotheistic study (as myself) it's going to be an interesting journey
*waves goodbye*
It does though! Throughout the Bible, God is depicted as maternal, birthing and nursing the universe and Israel. The Holy Spirit is actually feminine in Hebrew (and neuter in Greek). God’s wisdom and glory are often metonymic with Godself, and they’re depicted as feminine throughout Scripture too. The Christian tradition is also full of fascinating (sometimes bizarre) gendered takes on God and Jesus. It’s sad that most “traditionalists” actually want to erase so much of the feminine imagery for the divine from our own tradition, and that reclaiming that tradition of seeing the feminine in God is somehow “progressive” and heretical
Wait the holy Spirit has a feminine term in Hebrew???
I need to apologize to someone.
Why do you assume God and the Holy Spirit are male?
You're referring to the androgynous God? The one who made Adam in his image?
God made Adam and Eve in His image.
So he's both?
Not necessarily.
Go on...
God presents Himself with male pronouns, but that doesn't mean that God is male in the human sense. God created man and woman in His image, but that doesn't mean that God is male and/or female necessarily, just that it represents God in some sense. I think there's a lot left to be discovered here.
Yeah of course not in the HUMAN sense. I meant archetypally. Symbolically
Well, the archetype and the symbolism is archetype and symbolism of God's nature, and if anyone claims to know the exact answer with certainty, then I think they are lying.
I posted my question to r/Jung as well, in the hopes that they might have some insight. They're experts in symbolism and archetypes and consciousness over there
He was also very Gnostic in his Christianity. I like it.
It's a question. Your question assumes "God is male." It's obvious the incarnate Jesus was male, but why do you assume the other persons of the Trinity are male?
Based on what other people say
Ahh...well, I wouldn't make that assumption. The Bible doesn't tell us that God is male and in fact contains lots of female imagery or descriptions of God. Both men and women were made in the image of God, so God can't "be male" or at least not "just male." I believe God is beyond our comprehension of gender and that it's unwise to describe God as "male."
Yeah I've heard that the story of God removing Adam's rib to make Eve is a metaphor for God removing Adam's feminine aspect and consolidating it into another human being. Male and female, two halves of a whole, It's very Da-Vinci-Code-esque.
If you like that, you should look into how Hasidic Jews believe God has no gender, but has both Male and Female aspects.
Yeah that's what I was referring to. Glad you recognized it
Hasidism is fascinating!
If you think THAT'S good, look up what Aristophanes said about the origin of human beings in Plato's Symposium. Specifically the part about the split
Mary Magdelene was the first apostile which Jesus entrusted some of his most important lessons too. She has scritures which have been omitted from the bible. Meggan watterson is a wonderful theologian who wrotr a book all about her called Mary Magdelene Revealed. She talkes about how Mary had the ability to talk to Jesus through the seed of her heart after his crucifiction .
I love this question and have pondered it and researched it a lot, because I think Christianity needs a divine feminine.
There are certainly various figures and ideas that can be associated with a divine feminine: Eve, Mary, Bride of the Lamb, Sophia (identified with the Holy Spirit) and her three daughters.
We can also look at earlier figures from Mesopotamian religion. Asherah is mentioned 40 times (an important number!) in the Hebrew Bible. In English translations, she mainly appears as a false or rival god with God commanding the destruction of her temples. But in earlier literature she is described as a consort of Yahweh and a heavenly mother.
Then there's the whole issue of Lilith, who again is scarcely evident in English bibles but by older tradition can be read as a demon, an animal, or the first bride of Adam.
I'm sure plenty of Christians will think that it's dangerous or heretical to even investigate the more ancient or esoteric stuff, but I think it gives us a fuller and truer picture of what our tradition is.
As far as I am aware Lilith isn’t actually in the Bible but in other rabbinical works. Not sure how you’re reading Eve as somehow expressing a divine femininity. The bride of the Lamp isn’t exactly a divine feminine either it’s a symbol of the relationship the Church has with Christ
Lilith is in the Book of Isaiah.
The Vulgate translates the Hebrew name as lamia. The Greco-Roman Lamia myth is another one that underwent centuries of developments, but by the 5th Century CE the word probably meant something like "demoness".
The KJV has it as "screech owl" (an animal with which Lilith was identified if the Burney Relief is a Lilith depiction, but that's debated by scholars).
The NRSV returns it to "Lillith":
Isa 34:14 Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.
I don't exactly read Eve or the Bride of the Lamb as the divine feminine, either. I'm just saying that one could, people do (even in other comments here), and that these offer possible avenues of inquiry.
Personally, I tend to the idea of the Holy Spirit as the feminine person of the triune God.
Interesting. I’ve not seen that read of the Holy Spirit, but He is interesting since He’s the only member of the Godhead to be referred to using neuter, male, and female descriptors as far as I am aware. I would strongly disagree on Him being a feminine person of the godhead though. None of the Trinity are male or female persons, besides, to some degree, Jesus who is male in His humanity but not so in His divinity. God uses male pronouns when referring to Himself but He is beyond male and female.
she appears as a false or rival god with God commanding the destruction of her temples, but in earlier literature she is described as a consort of Yahweh and a heavenly mother
Aw man. They got divorced? :(
In Christianity, yes.
But according to Tishby’s Wisdom of the Zohar, Yahweh is seduced by Lilith and wed to her until the coming of the Messiah, after which he will be reconciled to Asherah. (Medieval Jewish mysticism gets really wild. Fascinating stuff, highly recommended reading.)
God doesn't have a gender, and I'd venture neither does His Son, necessarily. Wisdom is often referred to as feminine, naturally, as is the religious body, i.e., using she/her to refer to the church.
Jesus literally calls him "abba"("father" in aramaic) and in the greek originial of Matthew 3:17 God says
"οὗτός ες ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα."
"This is my beloved Son(υἱός), with whom I am well pleased."
God is far beyond any human constructs like gender.
Wisdom...
Athena? Sophia?
I’m pretty sure Jesus has said “I am he” and he is is called the SON of god
Pronouns aren't gender
Your right, I’m not saying your wrong I was just bringing up my thoughts
Well, I think it sort of does, at least in a sense. Smuggled in, though.
One way: I don't find it crazy to see a progression from the ancient Israelite worship of Asherah and the Queen of Heaven into the personified feminine Wisdom of the later Hebrew Bible. From there, I think the elevation of Mary filled some of this 'gap' for Christians starting in the 2nd century.
Another way: There's definitely some gender-bending art of Jesus in the medieval era, where he's birthing the church out of the wound in his side. That wound was commonly painted very clearly as a vagina.
If there were angels with feminine names in Judaism I think we would have seen some development there, too. Instead we moved into the cult of the dead phase and brought in all sorts of saints, male and female, to expand this further.
Is this anthropologically valid? I can't say - haven't started any research there yet. But it at least passes a common sense test, imo.
The other commenter is correct that the HS is often portrayed as feminine, but the HS is to de-emphasized that I think they are kind of irrelevant to the lived faith of most people.
From Wikipedia:
Some scholars hold that Yahweh and Asherah were a consort pair in ancient Israel and Judah, although others disagree.
YOOOOOOOOOOOO
Uhh....what?
Sorry I got excited. I just found out God has a WIFE. A heavenly MOTHER. I never knew that.
A long long time ago, back when Israel was still polytheist, but moving to being not-polytheist. YHWH was the tribal war God, and he subsumed the role of El as the supreme deity. In doing so, Asherah came to be seen as YHWH's wife, not El's.
None of the Bible authors accept this situation, but it was common for a very long time in ancient Israel.
It's also not clear the role that she played in Israelite religion and life. There's no direct evidence of worship, for instance. The Queen Mother may have played a role as her highest cultic representative, too (e.g. Bathsheba).
Mark S. Smith's The Early History of God may interest you on this.
YHWH was the tribal war God, and he subsumed the role of El as the supreme deity
Is that like... Zeus overthrowing Chronos?
It was a peaceful thing, not an overthrow as much as saying "Oh yeah, these guys are the same, actually".
The Bible even tells us this.
God also spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty,[a] but by my name ‘The Lord’[b] I did not make myself known to them.
Exodus 6:2-3 (adapted from NRSV).
I am Elohim. I appeared....as El Shaddai, but by my name YHWH I did not make myself known to them.
We see a merging of at least some of the imagery as well. El was known also as Bull-El, and cows became Yahwistic imagery. See, for instance, the golden calves of Jeroboam and the Exodus story. These were idols of YHWH.
...Like Baal?
Like Ba'al, as in like other local deities and how they were worshipped? Yes. Just like that.
God present Himself as male in the Bible, but one has to consider that He did so communicating through very patriarchal societies. So it may be that what was the male role on those societies were more representative of who God is, than the female roles were. If we go back to Genesis, it says that God created male and female in His image.
The bride of Christ?
Virgin Mary
Mary
Human
God is beyond gender. He is not a biological male or female but a transcendent being. We use male pronouns and call Him our Father because that’s how He has expressed Himself to us and because He incarnated as a human male. Basically, God is neither male not female but uses male pronouns.
Maria.
Some Christianities do…. Why doesn’t your tradition? Inquisition and standardization from the empire. (Sophia, holy wisdom. In Gnostic lore)
And Mormons believe in a heavenly mother but don’t talk about it… Mormons have a lot of Gnostic components to their belief system.
Mary is the divine feminine.
What does she do?
In addition to the stuff that others have mentioned: Jesus spoke Aramaic. The Aramaic word used for "father" in Aramaic in the Lord's Prayer is "abwoon", which actually can mean both "father" and "mother".
...Damn, dude! Bringing that HEAT, I appreciate it!
I looked it up, and I found a source that says that "abwoon" is actually a combination for the word for father and the word for womb. Either way, same concept
Because God is One and He has identified Himself as male.
There is no reason to bring in modern day female/ male politics. God has identified Himself as “I Am” and refers to Himself as He.
If we added a goddess, when God said He is One, that would mean we are adding a god where there isn’t one.
Edit: grammar
adding a God where there isn't one
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Be careful Fangorangatang. If that's even your real name. You're close to something very profound.
If God is "I Am", then who is "I Am Not"?
If God is Presence, who is Absence?
Who is... the VOID?
Bro what
There's no light without darkness
Darkness is the absence of light.
I see. Evil is simply the absence of God?
But God created BOTH, yes?
So either:
God is NOT all good, and he is, in fact, capable of creating evil,
God IS all good, and what we call evil is, in fact, good that we just can't understand, because we're tiny limited humans and he's all knowing and all powerful and he works in mysterious ways
or 3. God IS all good, and evil IS evil, and He is not, in fact, the one who created it.
But that's impossible right? God created EVERYTHING. Or maybe there's more than one God. Maybe what we call God is in fact a bunch of different entities all wearing the same mask. The God that can be identified is not the true God, right? The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. Because he's infinite, no label we could ever give him will ever fit. But what if it's not because he's infinite? What if it's because... He's a contradiction?
The incomprehensible union of opposites. The Shining Darkness. The first AND the last. The beginning AND the end. The Alpha AND the Omega.
Can you elaborate?
Is God love or did he create it?
He is. Is that what you’re sayin’?
Is he hate?
Sorry. I know the answer to that. My point is that, if God can do anything, can he be evil?
If God created everything, did he create the absence of himself?
He will cause that separation and that will be Hell, he wants to be separate from Hell and sin. The goal is to take everyone with him but if he is with them they gotta be Holy too or they’ll die cause his presence will be there in Heaven.
It’s okay, hahah I know you’re trying to draw some point out. I just wish I was cut throat. I does say somewhere. “God sits on his throne and does as he pleases.” There’s many scriptures about the untamed character of God. I suppose he could, just the Bible claims he is good aswell as justice ect. I stick to what he says he is. Not try and make up more or add to what he says he is cause I can’t define good and evil. Only for myself but that’s twisted cause the maker defines it.
God's wife Asherah is mentioned especially if you look at early texts. However Christianity has edited her out as much as possible over time.
No, Christianity didn't "edit" anything out about Asherah. Nor are there earlier texts that mention her/it, apart from the Bible itself and maybe the occasional scribble found on an archeological relic. And even there, it's not clear whether Asherah is referring to a goddess, or a tree/pole used in cultic worship.
To suggest Christianity edited her out would be to assert that Jews in the time of Christ were worshipping Asherah, but then somehow Christians came along and erased all that. You won't find anything to support such a claim though historically.
The name Asherah appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible, but it is much reduced in English translations.
Well, here it is 40 times in the NIV, which is an evangelical Christian translation:
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=asherah&version=NIV
But I'm not sure what English translations of the Bible have to do with Christianity supposedly erasing Asherah out. Particularly when if you look at those quotes, it's pretty clear a lot of them are talking about a pole or tree as it talks about cutting them down.
Look at the other comments, I JUST found that out from another dude here. Can't believe God has a wife I never knew about
The god of the OT Yahweh started as one of many, it was a polytheistic pantheon. There are still the occasional hangovers from that time such as Palms 82 talking about a council of gods.
Yoooo!!!! Like Zeus?? That's good shit! (pardon my french)
As repayment for that, I got something for YOU bro. You ready? knowledge for knowledge
The roman equivalent of Zeus is Jupiter, and another name Jupiter had is Jove
Now go look up the Latin pronunciation for Jove
God is a human being where he has a gender, God is Non binary and yet everything at the same time. He is described as a father and a man because a man is the head of the household and God is the head of all creation.
Because Christianity is more concerned with the story and message, and isn't going to change the genders to make other people feel better. The genders don't really even matter, they don't make any difference. Also, other comments here have nicely discussed some more feminine associations.
Yeah I'm really happy with the response to this post. Lots of quality discussion
And yeah I suppose you're right about the message. I was just curious about the cosmology. The worldbuilding of mythologies
Ah, I see. Fair enough. In that case, it's difficult. Because to a Christian, it isn't Mythology. It's just a fact, so asking why it is that way is like asking why the grass is green.
There is a Father in Heaven, therefore there must be a Mother too. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches such.
Hehe. NOW you're talking 😼
Becuase women were viewed as property in the times of Jesus
Oh yeah.
Well, people of that time and place were extremely misogynistic. Women couldn’t possibly be seen in control of anything or have any special/superior attributes. Secondly most inflected languages have gender for each noun, so you sorta have to ascribe a gender to even a spirit. English, being a mongrel language, has no gender for nouns though we sometimes ascribe gender to things like a ship is feminine, etc.
Were they misogynistic because of religion? Or was religion misogynistc because of them? Chicken or egg?
Because goddesses don’t exist.
Christianity is not just some other religion, it is the revealed nature of God to mankind. God is as God is, and he has revealed this to the world.
Because that concept doesn’t exist biblically or scientifically. A male is needed to produce sperm which creates life. God as The Father creates his children just as his sons create children. Male plants pollinate to cause growth of new plants. This is just the way it works sorry
Are you serious? Produce as much sperm as you want bro, they won't turn into people unless they meet an egg
And yeah I'm aware that that concept doesn't exist biblically, that's what I'm ASKING. What makes Christianity different from the other religions? Why doesn't the Christian cosmology include any female archetypes?
Whaaaaa?
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Like other responses have said, there are passages in the Bible that associate God with motherly acts. Christians may think about God as a being who's above male or female. Aren't angels also associated with spiritual warfare for example? Males have usually been warriors in a lot of cultures because of a number of reasons. Is it accurate to say all the demons are male? Depending on how you look at it, the goddesses that were worshipped by other cultures may be interpreted as demons.