Seven Names of God in Born Again Non Denomiational Christianity
The Episcopal Church building has decided to revise its 1979 prayer book, so that God is no longer referred to by masculine pronouns.
The prayer volume, beginning published in 1549 and now in its fourth edition, is the symbol of unity for the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is the 3rd largest Christian communion founded in 1867. While in that location is no clear timeline for the changes, religious leaders at the denomination's recent triennial conference in Austin accept agreed to a need to supersede the masculine terms for God such every bit "He" and "King" and "Father."
Indeed, early Christian writings and texts, all refer to God in feminine terms.
God of the Hebrew Bible
As a scholar of Christian origins and gender theory, I've studied the early references to God.
In Genesis, for example, women and men are created in the "Imago Dei," image of God, which suggests that God transcends socially constructed notions of gender. Furthermore, Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible written in the 7th century B.C., states that God gave nascence to Israel.
In the oracles of the eighth century prophet Isaiah, God is described as a woman in labor and a mother comforting her children.
And the Volume of Proverbs maintains that the feminine figure of Holy Wisdom, Sophia, assisted God during the creation of the globe.
Indeed, The Church Fathers and Mothers understood Sophia to be the "Logos," or Word of God. Additionally, Jewish rabbis equated the Torah, the police force of God, with Sophia, which ways that feminine wisdom was with God from the very beginning of time.
Perhaps one of the about remarkable things always said most God in the Hebrew Bible occurs in Exodus 3 when Moses kickoff encounters the deity and asks for its proper noun. In verse fourteen, God responds, "I am who I am," which is only a mixture of "to be" verbs in Hebrew without any specific reference to gender. If anything, the book of Exodus is clear that God is just "being," which echoes after Christian doctrine that God is spirit.
In fact, the personal name of God, Yahweh, which is revealed to Moses in Exodus iii, is a remarkable combination of both female and male grammatical endings. The first part of God'south proper name in Hebrew, "Yah," is feminine, and the final part, "weh," is masculine. In light of Exodus three, the feminist theologian Mary Daly asks, "Why must 'God' exist a noun? Why not a verb – the most active and dynamic of all."
God in the New Testament
In the New Testament, Jesus also presents himself in feminine language. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus stands over Jerusalem and weeps, saying, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, yous who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I take longed to gather your children together, every bit a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
Furthermore, the writer of Matthew equates Jesus with the feminine Sophia (wisdom), when he writes, "All the same wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." In Matthew's mind, it seems that Jesus is the feminine Wisdom of Proverbs, who was with God from the beginning of cosmos. In my opinion, I think information technology is very likely that Matthew is suggesting that in that location is a spark of the feminine in Jesus' nature.
Additionally, in his letter of the alphabet to the Galatians, written around 54 or 55 A.D., Paul says that he will continue "in the hurting of childbirth until Christ is formed in you."
Clearly, feminine imagery was acceptable among the first followers of Jesus.
The church building fathers
This trend continues with the writings of the Church fathers. In his book "Conservancy to the Rich Man," Clement, the bishop of Alexandria who lived around 150-215 A.D., states, "In his ineffable essence he is male parent; in his compassion to u.s. he became female parent. The father past loving becomes feminine." It's important to remember that Alexandria was i of the most of import Christian cities in the second and third centuries forth with Rome and Jerusalem. It was also the hub for Christian intellectual activeness.
Additionally, in another book, "Christ the Educator," he writes, "The Word [Christ] is everything to his little ones, both father and mother." Augustine, the fourth-century bishop of Hippo in N Africa, uses the image of God as mother to demonstrate that God nurses and cares for the faithful. He writes, "He who has promised us heavenly food has nourished us on milk, having recourse to a mother'southward tenderness."
And, Gregory, the bishop of Nyssa, i of the early on Greek church fathers who lived from 335-395 A.D., speaks of God'south unknowable essence – God'south transcendence – in feminine terms. He says,
"The divine ability, though exalted far above our nature and inaccessible to all approach, like a tender mother who joins in the inarticulate utterances of her babe, gives to our human nature what it is capable of receiving."
What is God's gender?
Modern followers of Jesus live in a world where images risk becoming socially, politically or morally inadequate. When this happens, as the feminist theologian Judith Plaskow notes, "Instead of pointing to and evoking the reality of God, [our images] block the possibility of religious feel." In other words, limiting God to masculine pronouns and imagery limits the endless religious experiences of billions of Christians throughout the world.
It is probably best, and then, for modern day Christians to heed the words and warning of bishop Augustine, who in one case said, "si comprehendis non est Deus." If you lot accept understood, then what you have understood is non God.
Source: https://theconversation.com/what-the-early-church-thought-about-gods-gender-100077
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