Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Hebrew Theology and The Divine Feminine

The desire some scholars have to imagine that the Ancient Israelite Religion originally had a separate Female Deity alongside YHWH does not actually create a Theology more genuinely Feminist then traditional Abrahamic Theology.  In my view needing separate Gods for Men and Women only reinforces the Gender Binary of Cisheteronomativity.

I much prefer the idea of a Creator who is All Genders.  And that is implied right in Genesis where it explains that Adam was made Male and Female because Adam was made in the Image and Likeness of God.  And having the rest of Scripture further emphasize this does not require imagining that the original Hebrew Text was changed or edited at all, the problems arise from how it's been interpreted and translated, and to some extent how the Hebrew Language itself has ben reinterpreted.

To this day Hebrew Mysticism associates the letter Heh with the Feminine, generally adding a Heh onto the end of a word makes it Grammatically Feminine.  But there are exceptions, there are some key Biblical words that are not considered inherently Feminine even though they end with a Heh, and a lot of these I feel have had their Femineity denied by theologians because of how often they are used to describe YHWH.  YHWH itself ends with a Heh as does it's shortened form Yah.  Elah and Eloah are forms  of El that end with a Heh yet don't get translated Goddess, Elohim is Eloah with a -im plural suffix added at the end. 

There are some schools of Trinitarian thought that seek to associate the Feminine aspects of The Godhead specifically with The Holy Spirit.  And one can see why with the Hebrew word for Spirit being usually used in it's Feminine form and the association of personified Wisdom with the Holy Spirit.  But I view this both Male and Female quality as ultimately applying to each Person of The Trinity.  Jesus is the Desire of Nations in Hosea where Desire is a grammatically Feminine word, and the Sun of Righteous which title Malachi writes in a Grammatically Feminine form.

The desire for an exclusively Female Goddess, either alongside or in-place of YHWH, sounds to me like it suites one particular kind of Feminism, a word that begins with a T and rhymes with Serf.

As someone who's view of their own Gender has become increasingly Fluid, a God who like me can be both is much more appealing.

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