When did the idea of a Christian God being a woman originate?

Question

The bible does refer to God as a "He" but the idea exists in the modern world anyway. Does anyone know the originals of this idea when it happened, or even who thought of it or where?

Answer 1

Well . . . the Christian god was originally the Jewish god, and the Genesis creation story in the original Hebrew is sometimes encountered, depending on the text, referring to deity with a gender-neutral or feminine noun. One often-cited account is the creation of humankind, going something like, "in [It's] own image [It] created them, man and woman [It] created them." Check out Tim Freke and Peter Gandy's work on early Christianity for more reliable source citation.

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Michaela, if you think of god without regard to sex, then why use the pronoun "him?" All you answerers who replied with something like "the liberal commie feminists did it" are just supporting the stereotype that Christians don't care to get the facts straight on their own religion, they just want to appear authoritative.

Answer 2

While the god that evolved into the modern Christian god was originally a (probably male) tribal war god, for a while (before Christianity) there was widespread belief that god was neither male nor female, and that it had male and female aspects to it. In Hellenic times, there was a female personification of wisdom that may or may not have been identified with the Jewish god in some way.

Later Gnostic thought held that the "original" god was female, and that the cranky war god in the Old Testament was a male descended from her.

Nowadays, though, people often refer to the Christian god as "she" to get a rise out of Christians, subtly pointing out their subconscious sexist beliefs. *Why* should a feminine pronoun be offensive, if they don't accept the idea that male is to some degree better than female?

Answer 3

I'm almost convinced that is an idea originating from women/equality movement. Since we declare that women are equal to men in everything, why not adding one on the list of wanna-be-God?! Same thing with the black God. Equality means every person has the same basic rights as other. That also means that anyone can be a "candidate" for the "God" part.
Personally, I do not think of God in therms of sex, race or age. He just is.

Answer 4

There's a good chance that the IDEA itself manifested as soon as people realized that since gender is defined by opposite gender defining Jehovah/Yahweh (i.e. the Christian god) as a man is madness.

It leads to all sorts of crazy questions such as "If this infinite god was a man, how long is his penis, and who would he stick it in?"

God would have to use a definition of "man" that contradicts almost everything that defines the words man, male, guy and all that other XY chromosome stuff. It would create a new categorical definition of the word "man" that would apply exclusively to him.

But if you create a categorical definition that only applies to a single, unique and unreproducible thing the new definition become meaningless (or at least redundant) as the categorical definition becomes identical to the definition of the thing itself.

It would be sensible to say that the masculine identifier is just a default (such as he, him) from a language that has no gender-neutral pronoun (it) and a holdover from polytheism where female and male gods romped about putting their penises into all sorts of spots to give birth to heroes, monsters and lesser gods.

A little crooked thinking could assign god a feminine aspect (due to his ((her?)) ability to create life, the most distinct and unique feminine trait ) or to say that God embodies traits of both sexes due to his/her omnipresence, omnipotence and paradoxical inherent nature (such as being the Alpha AND the Omega ect.ect.)

Answer 5

If you look at Aramaic translations of what Jesus said, Jesus calls God Mother and Father. Jesus did not speak in Greek, he spoke Aramaic. Also, in Psalms God is called she. Wisdom is always referred to as she in the old testament and refers to a part of God. In the old testament when God breathed life into Adam the breath that was used is called Sophia which refers to the wisdom talked about in the Psalms, which refers to the feminine aspect of God. God is not gendered, God is a spirit. Man, to relate more to God has called God father. But to call God Father and not Mother would be a form of idolatry because using one gender over the other would cause the other gender to be looked down upon. And well we know that happens every day, women are looked down upon as second best to men. Especially in Patriarchal religions.

Answer 6

Some believe that the virgin Mary is a reconceptualization of the goddess cults and a convenient bridge for pagans who chose to buy into it to Christianity. Converting this way was probably more comfortable than anything the Inquisition would offer as an alternative.

Answer 7

I believe it surrounds the story of mary magdeline. She supposedly gave birth to a child of Jesus.. and they called her the holy grail .... she put forth the only living decendant of GOD and it was kept very secret... for fear of life. SO any refrences to a female GOD , I am assuming that she would be the only WOMAN to fit into that category.

Answer 8

Way before God was ever considered to be a man! (e.g. the cult of Magna Mater=great mother).

Answer 9

Stupid people will try to make books say a lot of things that they didn't originally. Look at the King James Bible. it says a lot of crap not found in any bible before it.

Answer 10

The buy-bull says, Man was created in OUR image.

The Gnostics always believed in a Mother God. Look up Azna.


http://www.angelfire.com/me4/angelichealing/azna.html