Can God Give Birth? – Part II | ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Can God Give Birth? – Part II

The biblical data on God’s gender

The fact that consistently throughout Scripture, the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is referred to in masculine terms simply cannot be ignored. If one maintains a high view of the inspiration of Scripture, he or she is compelled to acknowledge that the way the Scriptures present God and His character must be consistent with the way He desired to make Himself known. Neither accommodation to culture nor anthropomorphic imagery can account for the consistently masculine portrait Scripture presents of God. Gender must be, in some sense, characteristic of God.¹

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If God is male, then male is God. ~ Mary Daly

The first quote comes from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Unfortunately, Walton did not do his homework on the matter before publishing this statement—hardly an uncommon occurrence at CBMW—and such a misinformed sentiment would be rather humorous if so many churches weren’t looking to CBMW for guidance on what to teach about gender. The second quote comes from Mary Daly, a radical feminist philosopher and theologian who is far to the left of my own position. Nevertheless, her observation here is one that has plagued the intersection of Christian and feminist thought ever since the two worlds collided: how can a religious system centered around a male deity offer women any chance at equality with men?

In any case, let’s examine what the Bible actually says about how God has revealed Himself in regards to sex and gender.

What’s in a pronoun?

The following observations are more or less accurate:

YHWH, the God of the Old Testament, is always referred to with masculine pronouns, adjectives, and verbs. YHWH is sometimes argued to be the Father, the Son, the entire Trinity, or different divine persons within the Trinity at different times. The possible exception to this is the person of Wisdom in Proverbs, and we will discuss that in the next post in this series.
The word for spirit is feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Greek. However, the Spirit is still referred to with masculine pronouns in certain places such as John 16:13.
References to God the Father as a “he” in the New Testament are numerous.
The Christian tradition holds that God the Son incarnated as a man. The next part of this series will be devoted entirely to Christ.
All of the titles used for God are exclusively masculine.²

However, the following counter-points are true as well:

YHWH is never referred to as a za’char (זָכָר), male.
Deut. 4:15-16 provides a pretty strong statement against the notion of regarding God as male (or female for that matter).

Does the fact that God is usually referred to as a “he” settle the issue? Not necessarily. Hebrew lacked a personal common gender pronoun. So did Greek, Latin, and Aramaic, for that matter. If God was going to be referenced at all, it had to be as a “he” or a “she,” and it was a common practice in antiquity to use masculine pronouns as points of reference for situations where both genders were intended. (In fact, until a few decades ago, this was the common practice in the English language as well, and the gender-inclusive language controversy still gets plenty of play today.) With God being referenced by masculine pronouns, it’s only natural that masculine titles would follow.

Feminine imagery of God

Examples of feminine imagery for God in the Bible is plentiful. Here are a few of the more poignant ones:

Deuteronomy 32:18 – God is described as giving birth.
Psalm 22:9-10 – God is a midwife attending a birth.
Isaiah 66:13 – God is a mother comforting her children.
Malachi 2:13-16 – God is the grieving wife of a faithless husband.
Luke 15:8-10 – God is a woman sweeping her house for her lost coin.

To view the complete list of feminine imagery for God, visit this article by Dr. Margo G. Houts.

Male headship advocates who insist on viewing God as exclusively male or masculine would no doubt argue that these passages are merely metaphors and do not indicate divine truths about the nature of God, but that begs the question: why are the masculine titles and pronouns statements on God’s gender while the feminine imagery is “just metaphor”? By what standard are they determining divine truth from allusions that have no bearing on gender?

As far as I can tell, a completely arbitrary one.

When the “Father of Lights” gave birth

One last passage is worth consideration. Take a look at James 1:15-18 (emphasis mine):

15 [T]hen, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved. 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birthby the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

The Greek word used in v. 15b and again in v. 18 is ἀποκυέω and it means “give birth to, bring into being.”³ The word used in v. 15a is τίκτω and it means “bear, give birth (to).”⁴ The two words are pretty much interchangeable. There’s good evidence that, for centuries, translators and scribes alike have been uncomfortable with the notion of the “Father of lights” giving birth. Observe how some of the most common translations in our day take the passage:

Version	v. 15a	v. 15b	v. 18
KJV	bringeth forth sin	bringeth forth death	begat he us
NKJV	gives birth to sin	brings forth death	brought us forth
ASV	beareth sin	bringeth forth death	brought us forth
RSV	gives birth to sin	brings forth death	brought us forth
ESV⁵	gives birth to sin	brings forth death	brought us forth
NASB	gives birth to sin	brings forth death	brought us forth
NIV	gives birth to sin	gives birth to death	give us birth
TNIV	gives birth to sin	gives birth to death	give us birth
NET	gives birth to sin	gives birth to death	gave us birth

Nearly every translation is perfectly comfortable with translating τίκτω to mean “give birth.” Upon hitting ἀποκυέω, the translation shifts to a less feminine “bring forth.” Around the 9th and 10th centuries, scribes began replacing the ἀπεκύησεν in v. 18 with ἐποίησεν, “do, make, create.” The τίκτω and ἀποκυέω in v. 15 were left untouched.⁶

As for the significance of this passage, I’m hard-pressed to think of a more feminine activity than giving birth. And the Bible says that the Father can give birth.

Not much of a “consistently masculine” deity if you ask me.

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Other Posts:

Can God Give Birth? – Introduction – Exploring the notion of a divine feminine in Christianity & Mormonism
Can God Give Birth? – Part I – Traditional Christian theories on whether or not God is an essentially engendered being
Can God Give Birth – Part II – The biblical data on God’s gender

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[1] Mark David Walton, “What We Shall Be: A Look at Gender and the New Creation,” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 9 no. 1 (2004): 24-25.
[2] Some egalitarians believe that El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי), which literally means “God of Breasts,” can be a feminine title for God. An interesting feature of the Hebrew language is that human body parts which came in pairs (ears, eyes, hands, etc.) were given feminine nouns while human body parts that were singular (nose, mouth, head, etc.) were masculine. Except for the word “breast.” You would think that if any part of the human body were to be feminine, it would be breast, but that’s not the case; shad is masculine in Hebrew. El Shaddai has more to do with God’s unfailing ability to provide warmth, sustenance and protection and isn’t necessarily a feminine title for God.
[3] F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker, Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 22.
[4] Ibid., 200.
[5] The ESV Study Bible note on James 1:18 states: “‘brought . . . forth’ (that is, from the womb).” Um… you mean like giving birth? So why not translate it that way, Mr. “Essentially Literal” Translation?
[6] See J. David Miller, “Can the ‘Father of Lights’ Give Birth?”, Priscilla Papers 19 no. 1 (2005): 5-7. I can’t actually find my copy of this article as I’m typing this, so I’m going to look it up again at the library tomorrow. I’ll update this post with corrections if necessary.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations for this series are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Comments

Can God Give Birth? – Part II — 8 Comments

The Red Dart on December 7, 2009 at 11:27 AM said:

Jack,

There are a number of problems as I see it with your analysis. Unfortunately, I am in the middle of writing final papers, so I will have to be brief at present. I will also only limit myself to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.

First, there are a number of texts, including prayers to demonstrably male deities, from neighboring ancient Near Eastern civilizations that attribute female imagery to male deities, and vice versa. Moreover, there are a number of names (e.g., ummi-šamaš“Shamash is my (divine) mother”) which reveal similar reversals of gendered imagery. So this is hardly anything special to the Old Testament–in fact, these other texts clearly predate any Israelite materials, and so such attribution is not an Israelite innovation. This raises another relevant point: are we again confusing gender and sex? Pointing to male or female imagery doesn’t inherently demonstrate whether a deity is male or female (as you mentioned i your post). Thus I think it might be valuable to look at the broader socio-historical context from which Israelite society and texts derive to consider notions of sex. For instance, many, if not most Israelites, viewed YHWH as having a divine consort, clearly a female deity. If this is the case, then it would argue in favor of the fact that YHWH was generally considered a male deity. Moreover, despite what has been argued earlier in your series, it is my contention, and the contention of many scholars, that notions of sex cannot be so easily separated from the pervasive and persistent anthropomorphisms that prevail throughout the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. If YHWH had a body, as it most certainly seems to be the case, then it seems likely that he also had (biological) sex, even if he did transcend notions of gender. Additionally, it has to be noted that the Israelite texts date from different periods and different times, and that not all texts agree with each other theologically. This is pertinent because the meaning of one text doesn’t necessarily correlate with the meaning of another (whether the issues are gender and sex, or something else entirely), and so it is worth considering each text in its own context (and by this I do not simply mean just its literary context). So pointing to one text in the Bible as saying one thing, does not demonstrate to me that another text is saying the same thing as well, or is even to be interpreted in the light of the other text. Furthermore, I think it is also worth pointing out that it doesn’t seem significant to me that YHWH is never referred to as aza’char (זָכָר), a “male.” Neither are most other obviously male figures in the Hebrew Bible. However, there are texts that refer to YHWH directly as a “man,” (Heb. ish)such as Ex.15:3 (I haven’t looked methodically, but are there any texts that refer to YHWH as a woman [Heb.ishshah]? I don’t recall any.). Thus, given the general socio-historical background of ancient Israel among other ancient Near Eastern civilizations, and given the fact that YHWH was commonly understood to have both a body and a female consort, I think it is fairly certain, and at least for the Israelite texts that predate the 7th and 6th centuries, that YHWH was considered male. I would also add, although it is an argument from silence to some extent, that if the Priestly and Deuteronomist authors were interested in advancing the notion that their deity YHWH, in contrast to all other known deities from the ancient Middle East, was both sexually male and female, they should have at least made such an argument somewhere, given that, as Mark Smith has noted, “divine corporeality was a general expectation of what a deity was,” and that, as such, seemingly all deities from the ancient Middle East had sex. In a related vein, it seems relevant that, so far as the majority of scholars seem to agree today, there are no known androgynous deities from the ancient Near East. I think, then, that it seems most likely that YHWH was 1) not sexually female, 2) not androgynous, 3) not sexless, and 4) that for many, if not most, Israelites, he was considered male. I think you have a ways to go in showing that YHWH was considered both sexually male and female, although I agree that YHWH was often seen as transcending gendered metaphors.

Best wishes,

TRD
Ms. Jack Meyers on December 7, 2009 at 1:25 PM said:

TRD ~ First, there are a number of texts, including prayers to demonstrably male deities, from neighboring ancient Near Eastern civilizations that attribute female imagery to male deities, and vice versa.

Of course. You don’t even have to go to other Near Eastern deities to find feminine imagery applied to males; it’s done in the Bible with human men. But you have to remember that I wrote this part of the series as a reply to other Christians who hold to a sola scriptura perspective and contend that God is exclusively masculine (not male), who don’t believe that a human body is part of God’s nature. There’s a reason I tried to separate the “does God have a body” argument in the introduction to this series. I don’t feel like I have much to contribute to that debate other than a re-hash of what other evangelical scholars and apologists have said.

For instance, many, if not most Israelites, viewed YHWH as having a divine consort, clearly a female deity. If this is the case, then it would argue in favor of the fact that YHWH was generally considered a male deity.

I have to confess, the arguments of secular scholars on this matter have long perplexed me. I understand that there’s been ample archaeological evidence showing that ancient Israelites worshiped deities other than YHWH including Asherah. I don’t understand how they’ve come to the conclusion that these were aspects of true ancient Israelite religion rather than what the books of Kings and Chronicles say they were: foreign incursions on the original religion of Israel. So looking to the contemporary Near Eastern religions of the day for evidence on YHWH and gender seems rather problematic to me when the contention is that true Israelite religion was supposed to look nothing like the other religions of the day, but the Israelites often failed at this.

Furthermore, it was my understanding that for all of the evidence of ancient Israelites worshiping deities besides YHWH that has been discovered, they’ve never discovered an idol or depiction of the God of Israel—the only possible exception being an 8th century storage jar discovered at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud which depicts two figures standing side-by-side and reads “by Yahweh of Samaria and His Asherah.” But this jar depicts YHWH and Asherah as human-shaped with bovine heads—clearly an incursion of non-Israelite culture on Israelite religion. If the ancient Israelites conceived of YHWH as an embodied male from the start, why were they not making idols to match that conception?

If I’m wrong in this, please correct me. You seem to know more about the topic than I do.

However, there are texts that refer to YHWH directly as a “man,” (Heb. ish)such as Ex.15:3

There are also texts stating that God is not an ish; surely you’re familiar with them. The anti-Mormons certainly are (Numbers 23:19, Hosea 11:9). I chose to leave out discussion of these since the evidence goes both ways and the post was running on far enough.

if the Priestly and Deuteronomist authors were interested in advancing the notion that their deity YHWH . . . was both sexually male and female . . . they should have at least made such an argument somewhere

I’m not making the argument that God is “both sexually male and female.” I believe that the biblical data supports the argument that God is both masculine and feminine or that God is neither and was described in terms of both genders as points of reference and that, from a sola scripturaperspective, the argument that God is exclusively male or masculine is strained. The Priestly and Deuteronomist authors did include a strong statement against viewing God as male or female in Deuteronomy 4:15-16.

I have to confess though, TRD, if you want serious engagement from me on this topic instead of what I can type off the top of my head, I may have to wait until after finals myself.
The Red Dart on December 7, 2009 at 2:03 PM said:

Jack,

I sent you my paper regarding the scholarly debate about the origins of Israelite practices pertaining to worship of other deities and the eventual development monotheism. You can give it a run-through when you get a chance, or after finals are over–I think it addresses a number of your questions and concerns (not that you’ll necessarily agree, of course). However, I will note here that the distinction between “true” and thus, conversely, false Israelite religion makes no sense to me on historical-critical terms. If, however, you simply meant that “true=native Israelite practice” and false=practices assimilated from foreign peoples, then I suppose that is another question, and one which I cannot answer briefly in this reply. However, the first 25 pages or so of the paper that I sent you demonstrate why I (and the majority of “secular” scholars) think that 1) the majority of people who eventually composed the nation of ancient Israel were actually just native Canaanites, and so the Deuteronomist depiction of “Israelite vs. Canaanite” is a misleading distinction, 2) royal and popular circles reflect traditional Israelite religion, including worship of Asherah and other deities, down until the end of the Israelite monarchy, and so the later movement (well represented by the Deuteronomistic school) that advocated the worship of YHWH only was a rather innovative and late development, 3) Israelite religion (and Biblical religion) was a diverse phenomenon, and there were differing groups and views and these groups and their views developed over time. There are a number of other things I could say, and I have some counterpoints for your most recent comment, but I suppose we can discuss this another time given both of our schedules.

If you are looking to engage this issue from a perspective ofsola scriptura, I suppose that I am not the person you will want to engage, and you’ll have to wait for others to discuss those things with. My apologies if I derailed your primary interests in composing this post!

Best wishes,

TRD
kew on December 8, 2009 at 9:50 AM said:

Jack, you are so awesome. I can definitely follow your arguments, but I am not educated enough to construct my own. I can see your point that scriptural evidence is problematic on the issue of God’s gender.

Language and discourse are fascinating issues, as well as the assumptions we make about sex and gender.
Rob Perkins on December 17, 2009 at 11:12 AM said:

Rats, I was hoping he’d written something longer.

How are finals coming along, Jack?
Ms. Jack Meyers on December 17, 2009 at 11:21 AM said:

Nah. Normally I’d let the trolls have a few more rounds, but this one wasn’t even very interesting. Just angry, and very, very stupid.

Turned in my Colloquium on Church History final on Tuesday, did my Old Testament final yesterday. Just put the finishing touches on a 15-page paper for one class and I’m about to go study for two hours, then take my History of Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism final.

Tonight I am writing all night to finish my patristics paper (I know, I’m a slacker) and I have a take-home final for that to do. I have to have it all in by tomorrow at 5 pm. Thanks everyone who’s been keeping me in prayer.

UPDATE: There were some comments from a very rude troll on this thread whom I wound up disemvoweling. I’ve now sent his comments indefinitely to my “pending” queue as I don’t care to have that exchange mucking up this thread.
Whitney on December 17, 2009 at 4:56 PM said:

I fully support all-night paper writing sessions. Mostly because I’m doing the exact same thing tonight. It’s almost like we’re actually hanging out!!

I’m definitely saying a prayer for both of us.
Ms. Jack Meyers on December 17, 2009 at 7:02 PM said:

#[deleted] Ryan ~ If you have a master’s thesis on the subject of God and gender, then you’re probably capable of offering a thoughtful and constructive critique on the subject. Do you see the comments from The Red Dart on this thread? He certainly didn’t agree with me, and he gave me a thoughtful critique on the matter which gave me things to think about. Disagreement is perfectly welcome on this blog as it helps me learn.

You didn’t do that though. You blundered onto this thread accusing me of having “missed” the fact that Christ was a man, and you were condescending about it. When I pointed out your error, you moved the goalpost and switched to acting like I was a total dumbass for not agreeing with you that this fact devastates my case. You’re apparently so confident in your position that you don’t even think my next post is worth hearing, which just strikes me as beyond arrogant.

I’m usually not so quick to discipline commentators, but you came out swinging like a troll early on and I’m not going to lose any sleep over having sent you on your way. Next time you want to engage someone like this, I’d suggest you take a deep breath and chill the hell out first. I promise, people will be a lot more willing to listen when you don’t come out acting like a jerk from the get-go. And if you aren’t trying to persuade people to consider your position, then you’re probably just wasting your time anyways.

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