Toto

Conservative Jewish LA radio talk host Dennis Prager has written a theologically, um, quirky Op-Ed today for Father's Day in the LA Times: Our Father Is No 'It' or Gal God.

Prager lists a number of pop-psychology reasons for making God male - it seems that men need to be civilized but are too pig-headed to take moral laws from a female, that male rebellion against the female authorities of early childhood is necessary, that women have less of a problem with male authority that men do with female authority figures. . . . I imagine that the letters to the editor from both sexes will be interesting.

But he makes some statements that I find puzzling, and I hope someone here can shed some light on things.

He says: (Prager claims that a male god can be sexually neutral, while a female god can never get rid of her sexual characteristics, "That is why goddess-based religions were also drenched in sacred sex.")

In comparison with Greek, Roman, Epyptian, and other ANE gods, YHWH is relatively well behaved. The other gods were continually fornicating (with both divinities and mortals), and most other creation myths seem to involve some sexual elements.

But can you say that YHWH is sexless? Man was made in his image and is not sexless.

And what does this mean? When did the Israelites de-sexualize their god and why?

Or did they? For more pop psychology, here's another advice column: Can G-d Be a She?

Wallener

Ah, Prager, the Landover Baptist of Judaism...

How to put this delicately...this says a lot more about Prager's sexual hangups than anything about G-d. And the Khabbalists aren't much better: to ascribe certain characteristics as "male" or "female" is to - yet again - perpetuate gender stereotypes.

The traditional view isn't that G-d is sexless - it's that G-d isn't definable in human sexual terms. "Above gender", for what little light that sheds on the matter, and keeping in mind Judaism is not immune to the misogynist virus that seems to infect all groups.

Derec

I do not think I disagree with Wellener. I mean, Prager is a tool and all but he has a point as long as he means gramatics rather than actual identity of a god.

As was mentioned in the OP, the pronoun "it" is impersonal, it is used for things, not persons. Not even pets unless you want to be rude. But there is no neuter personal pronoun in the english language. Probably not in Hebrew either but I am not sure.

Now, when we in English talk about a person with unspecified sex traditionally "he" is used if the lengthy "he or she" is to be avoided. So in a sense saying a god is a "he" leaves room for a gender neutral being while "she" does not.

Of course, it beats me why a monotheistic god would need gender anyway...

Derec

NOGO

Hi Toto,

I guess that if you are one God and that there is no other, then life must be rather boring. There are no Goddesses to have sex with. Also Yahweh does not seem to have a life of his own. His only interest in life seems to be humans and in particular his chosen people. There are angels up there but their only purpose is to serve Yahweh look after humans.

In my opinion the Bible describe a God that the Hebrew people needed.
The Greek Gods on the other hand seem to have a life of their own and existed for other reason than to serve humanity.

I think that this basic reason comes from the way that the Yahweh cult started in the 8th century BCE.

Toto

At one point, YHWH seems to have had a "consort" - a wife or Asherah.

From here A while back, I read The Hebrew Goddess by Raphael Patai, which says that the Hebrews took quite some time to turn their god into a celibate spiritual entity. Is this book considered reliable?

edited to add: "The Lost Goddess of Israel" - abstract Did God Have a Wife? on Amazon

Wallener

It does appear to be a defensible position. The famous 1 Kings story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and Asherah is interesting: the prophets of Baal are killed, but the text is silent on the fate of the prophets of Asherah.

neilgodfrey

God was able to make male and female in the image of God because God was both male and female, according to the Egyptian origin of the Genesis 1 story. This from Egyptologist Gary Greenberg's 101 Myths of the Bible. Some Egyptian gods had both male and female attributes in the one body, and one god, Atum, conceived on his ownsome by "acting as a husband with my fist". For the literary and textual traditions behind this and how it got to the Hebrew Bible (whose god was rendered sexless by the time it made it to its written form) I recommend the book.

Dr_Paine

I believe if there is a monotheistic god, that god must be asexual. As one writer mentioned, unless he pleasures himself, what would be the function of a sexual god?

I suppose that humankind was at one time asexual as well. Consider the presence of vestigial nipples on men. This is not a proposition I am prepared to defend; it is merely a tentative observation.

Loomis

It looks like Yahweh may have had sex with Sarah and Hannah.

Genesis 21:1-2
Yahweh visited Sarah just as he had said he would and Yahweh did for Sarah what he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that the elohim had told him.

I Samuel 2:21
Yahweh visited Hannah so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters.

… And of course, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says Yahweh is a son of El.

Chris Weimer

Derec - "it" is a neuter personal pronoun.