God's gender

[the inside out]

I believe that God is masculine. Simple answer.

[Neopatriarch]

That little masculine ending speaks for the nature of GOD?

Common are you being real...to whom?

Bias, who me?

Those little jots and tittles don't count for much in your hermeneutic?

Really, the bible is so heavily weighted in favor of believing God is masculine, and God's masculinity has been acknowledged so much throughout church history that I'm amazed you'd deny it so glibly.

Bill Mouser says this of the issue:

G.K. Chesterton noted an odd problem which arises when someone tries to defend an obvious idea:

Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object , and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase...and the coals on the coal-scuttle... and pianos ... and policemen." ... But the very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.(G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City Pub. Co., 1908), pp. 152-153.)

Answering the question "Why do you believe that God is masculine?" creates same problem. Amidst the mountains of biblical evidence, where does one point first? If someone can read the Bible and seriously question that it present us a God who is masculine, he has already resisted, ignored, or discounted far more proof than any apologist could possibly assemble! (http://www.fiveaspects.org/booklets/masculine/02.html)

-Neopatriarch

[Neopatriarch]

That little masculine ending speaks for the nature of GOD?

Lemme take it a step further. The wikipedia entry on God and gender says this:

However, the Greek pronoun autos (αὐτός,ή,ό) is accurately translated "Him" in John 14, speaking of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, ekeinos (εκεĩνος,η,ο) refers to "that male one" in verse 26 of the same chapter. These are very strong indicators of the masculinity of the Holy Spirit, in the New Testament text, because the word Spirit pneuma (πνεῦμα) is grammatically neuter in the Greek language. The text breaks the rules of Greek grammar, presumably mainly to communicate the personhood, but also incidentally the gender, of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not saying wikipedia is the most reliable source, but on this point they are right.

-Neopatriarch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_and_gender

[Neopatriarch]

In Hebrew it is Ruach apparently feminine.

From answersingenesis:

When God is referred to by a pronoun, it

[OopsMartin]

Sorry to say that I have very little respect for Bill Mouser's teachings. He's a fringe nut. I've observed him closely over the past several years on the net and reading his books. He's out there on the edge somewhere.

You might want to do a bit of research yourself. You will find that in the OT most of the references to God were in the plural Elohim or YHWH. Neither of those are representative of gender. YHWH means "was, is, will be", indicating the alpha and omega , the beginning and the ending. There are very few references to God as Father except in respect to the Son He was going to send humanity for our salvation. Only in the NT do we see plentiful references to God as Father and that by Christ which the Jews hated him for saying.

The upshot is that there are numerous metaphors of God as the beginning and ending, Holy One, husband, mother bear, wings of an eagle, savior, king of kings, advocate, true witnes, lion of Judah, The Almighty, mother hen, the vine, the vinedresser, servant, chief conrnerstone, living water, manna, and so on and so forth. It's not about gender. It's that God is all things to us, He is everything we need to live life to it's fullest, He is in fact our very breath.

There is no mountain of Biblical evidence. Trying to claim God is masculine is just human ego trying to make God like us. He isn't like us. He created us, and that out of nothing. He even created the dirt from nothing that he formed into our flesh.

[Floatingaxe]

Sorry to say that I have very little respect for Bill Mouser's teachings. He's a fringe nut. I've observed him closely over the past several years on the net and reading his books. He's out there on the edge somewhere.

You might want to do a bit of research yourself. You will find that in the OT most of the references to God were in the plural Elohim or YHWH. Neither of those are representative of gender. YHWH means "was, is, will be", indicating the alpha and omega , the beginning and the ending. There are very few references to God as Father except in respect to the Son He was going to send humanity for our salvation. Only in the NT do we see plentiful references to God as Father and that by Christ which the Jews hated him for saying.

The upshot is that there are numerous metaphors of God as the beginning and ending, Holy One, husband, mother bear, wings of an eagle, savior, king of kings, advocate, true witnes, lion of Judah, The Almighty, mother hen, the vine, the vinedresser, servant, chief conrnerstone, living water, manna, and so on and so forth. It's not about gender. It's that God is all things to us, He is everything we need to live life to it's fullest, He is in fact our very breath.

There is no mountain of Biblical evidence. Trying to claim God is masculine is just human ego trying to make God like us. He isn't like us. He created us, and that out of nothing. He even created the dirt from nothing that he formed into our flesh.

Amen, brother!!

[Neopatriarch]

You might want to do a bit of research yourself. You will find that in the OT most of the references to God were in the plural Elohim or YHWH. Neither of those are representative of gender.

From Bill Mouser again:

Nevertheless, when we speak of persons by their proper names, or when a grammatically neuter term is applied to someone known to be male or female, the grammatical gender of subsequent pronouns matches the sexual gender of the person referred to.

I see no problem with this. We do this all of this time in English. When we know what a person's gender is we make the gender of the pronoun agree. So, when the bible refers to God with the pronoun "he", it makes sense to think of God as masculine.

Remember Dr. Charles Taylor, whom I quoted previously, said (regarding the OT):

When God is referred to by a pronoun, it

[OopsMartin]

When we know what a person's gender is we make the gender of the pronoun agree. So, when the bible refers to God with the pronoun "he", it makes sense to think of God as masculine.

This presupposes that we know ahead of time that God

Edited April 3, 2007 by OopsMartin

[Neopatriarch]

When we know what a person's gender is we make the gender of the pronoun agree. So, when the bible refers to God with the pronoun "he", it makes sense to think of God as masculine.

This presupposes that we know ahead of time that God

[firehill]

Really, the bible is so heavily weighted in favor of believing God is masculine, and God's masculinity has been acknowledged so much throughout church history that I'm amazed you'd deny it so glibly.

This is interesting. 'The bible is so heavily weighted in favor of believing God is masculine...'

What's belief? It certainly isn't proof. Is it really 'so heavily weighed in favor of believing God is masculine... or is this just your belief?

Give me a brake. What does this statement have to do with proving absolutley what you believe?

The fiveaspects website < Scary place! Idolatry goes on over there.

AHEM:

So no, God is not male to the absence of female. Neither is God female to the absence of male. God created gender. Gender or masculinity in specific is NOT an eternal uncreated designation. To claim that it is lifts males upon a preferred godlike pedestal, to which we do not belong.

Sorry, but this is funny! Quite a kicker.

There is no indication that the bible is using the masculine inclusive form when it refers to God as "he". I'm presupposing that the bible gives us God's revelation of himself to mankind. God certainly knows what his gender is, and since the biblical authors were inspired by God to write using the pronoun "he" when referring back to God, I'm going to conclude that the authors knew God's gender as well.