Posted on 08/15/2016 6:46:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
In an August 12th op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled “Is God Transgender?,” Rabbi Mark Sameth claims that “the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, offers ‘a highly elastic view of gender’” and that, “Counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel — the God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong — was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity.”
Are there any truths to these claims?
Certainly not.
For Rabbi Sameth, these are issues of social concern and not merely theological abstractions, as he states explicitly at the outset of his article: “I’m a rabbi, and so I’m particularly saddened whenever religious arguments are brought in to defend social prejudices — as they often are in the discussion about transgender rights.”
The real question, though, for Jews and Christians who look to the Hebrew Scriptures as God’s Word is very simple: What do the Scriptures teach? What is the explicit testimony of the Bible?
Had Rabbi Sameth simply stated that God transcends gender, I would have no argument.
Had he only said that when God created human beings He created them male and female, indicating that the fullness of the meaning of both male and female is to be found in God, I would have concurred.
And had Rabbi Sameth pointed out that there are aspects of motherly care attributed to God in the Scriptures (see, for example Isaiah 49:15), I would also have concurred. (Note that rabbinic teaching about the Shechinah emphasizes the motherly aspects of God).
But what the rabbi argues for is much more than this, and since he is making these arguments with social implications, it is important that we respond with clarity.
Rabbi Sameth claims that, “The four-Hebrew-letter name of God, which scholars refer to as the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was probably not pronounced ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh,’ as some have guessed. The Israelite priests would have read the letters in reverse as Hu/Hi — in other words, the hidden name of God was Hebrew for ‘He/She.’”
There is not a stitch of evidence to support this – and I mean not a stitch. Nowhere do we read in any ancient biblical text that the divine name was read backwards by priests (you might as well argue that readers of this article read my name backwards). This is not suggested in any authoritative writing, and there is zero evidence that YHWH was ever taken to mean “He/She.”
The argument is utterly preposterous, and I write this with all respect to the many years of study that Rabbi Sameth has put into this subject. Perhaps he is reading his ideas into the biblical text?
The name YHWH is introduced in the context of God’s self-revelation that “I am that I am” (or, “I will be who I will be”; see Exodus 3:14) using the related root HYH, meaning that the name YHWH is derived from HYH/HWH. (To be precise, it is a third-person, masculine singular imperfect verbal form.)
More importantly, of the more than 6,000 times that the name YHWH occurs, it never occurs with a feminine adjective or verbal form. The name is exclusively masculine.
Even more importantly, this is the consistent revelation of God in the Scriptures: He is the heavenly Father, not the heavenly mother; He is a man of war, not a woman or war; He is the King, not the queen; He is the Shepherd, not the shepherdess; He is the Husband to the widow, not the wife of the widower; He is the Lord, not the lady, the Master, not the mistress; He is the Groom while Israel is the Bride – and on and on it goes, countless thousands of times.
So we can say emphatically that Rabbi Sameth is flat wrong in claiming that the God of the Bible “was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity.”
What about his claim that the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, has a “highly elastic” view of gender (he adds with emphasis, “And I do mean highly elastic”)?
Here too he is completely wrong, as even a cursory reading of the Hebrew Bible indicates, with its very specific outlining of gender roles and gender expectations (which many “progressives” find troubling), and with verses like, “A woman must not put on man's apparel, nor shall a man wear woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 22:5, New Jewish Version).
What about specific arguments he brings to support his case, including: “In Genesis 3:12, Eve is referred to as ‘he.’ In Genesis 9:21, after the flood, Noah repairs to ‘her’ tent. Genesis 24:16 refers to Rebecca as a ‘young man.’ And Genesis 1:27 refers to Adam as ‘them.’ . . . In Esther 2:7, Mordecai is pictured as nursing his niece Esther. In a similar way, in Isaiah 49:23, the future kings of Israel are prophesied to be ‘nursing kings.’”
The first three examples (Gen. 3:12; 9:21; and 24:16) simply reflect spelling variations or unusual spelling conventions (for example, the verbal form in Gen 3:12, referring to Eve, is feminine, while the preposition in 9:21, referring to Noah’s tent and which is allegedly feminine, actually reflects an ancient masculine prepositional form).
As for referring to Adam as “they” in Genesis 1:27, there’s no mystery here (English readers see this as well as Hebrew readers), since “Adam” here simply means humankind, which God creates as male and female and commissions to “be fruitful and multiply,” which one individual, quite obviously, cannot do. (As to how this is accomplished, see Genesis 2:1-25).
As for the idea that Mordechai (or, the Lord Himself, as Rabbi Sameth argues) is presented as a “nursing mother,” this too is misstated. Rather, the verb ’-M-N (which is used in Esther 2:7) basically means “support, nourish,” as opposed to Y-N-Q, which refers to nursing a child. And the verb ’-M-N, when referred to a male, means a foster-father and when applied to a female, a foster-mother. This can be seen clearly in Isaiah 49:23 (a verse cited by Rabbi Sameth in support of his thesis), where it says, “Kings will be your foster-fathers [the root ’-M-N], their princesses your nurses [the root Y-N-Q]” (Complete Jewish Bible).
So, the rabbi is not simply making a mountain out of a molehill, he is making one out of a non-existent molehill.
Again, had he argued that both male and female derive their personhood from God’s image, or had he claimed that God transcends gender, I would have agreed. And had he simply stated, “God’s Word teaches us to be compassionate towards all, and that include those who identify as transgender,” I would have affirmed this as well.
But his attempt to use the Hebrew Scriptures to support transgender activism is utterly misguided, fatally flawed, and unworthy of serious consideration.
Kook. He should join the Evangelical Lutheran Church. They probably have a lot in common with him.
While non-Orthodox Jews may be Halakhically Jewish, their "branches of Judaism" are not. Only Orthodox Judaism is Judaism. The "rabbinic ordinations" of the non-Orthodox "branches" is invalid, and consequently their clergy are not rabbis at all.
Now . . . if the rabbi quoted is Orthodox, then that is something to worry about.
That’s because they couldn’t read! Nevertheless, like it or not, within the confines of their abilities, gifts and talents, they still obey the whims and will of their creator
And, linguistically and culturally, what else could He have referred to Himself as?
He have to use the terms His audience’s language would allow.
He had to use the terms his audience could accept as an Über-alpha male.
Imagine the cognitive dissonance another Semitic people would have if allah declared she was a woman. Women are property! (Not even valuable property!)
“Mr. Sameth is a Reform rabbi. That is all one needs to know.”
This guy does NOT speak for me, or for any Orthodox Jew that I have ever known.
No goose could. It did not have vision or wisdom of that scope.
We could imagine what some goose-philosophers might come up with to explain the man, or even try to help the man. They might end up trying to put grains of corn in his tobacco pipe thinking it to be a beak.
The story of human religion so often turns out to be like that. We think we have to prove to God that we’re wise and good, rather than needing to take our folly and evil before the Lord to be cleansed away and us to be transformed in His mercy.
And mercy scares us, because we know of not a single way we can obligate God to it. But we would not need to obligate God to it. This would be like needing to obligate a river to being wet. If we’re dry, it’s because we refuse to drink. Not because the river did not keep on being wet.
There is such a range of philosophy that is seen in the group going under that worldly name.
Their “fault” is not in denying the Sinai encounter, but to contextualize it in a way that Orthodox deny.
The real question is: who gets what the Lord intended here? Moses warned those people that they could not keep the Law. They claimed they could. The playing out of history has shown who was right. “Reform” somehow senses there has to be a remedy for this, but does not quite grasp what the remedy is. But neither do “Orthodox.”
Still, the geese were saved...
BTTT
“We have to get into questions about what “looked” means in the context.”
I figured you would say that. Whatever is counter to your set of beliefs, spiritualize it into oblivion.
Moses said “Let me see your glory”. He did not have spiritual looking in mind, the Bible never mentions spiritual looking in that manner.
God let him see Him from the rear. In another case, they saw God’s feet. Moses talked with God face to face, although God was surrounded by a fog so Moses could not see him.
God visited Abraham and had a meal with him, just before he took a look around Sodom.
That says it all.
It’s easy for you to scoff at what you have never encountered.
Why do you assume that the capacities of God or man are limited to what “is falsely called knowledge [Greek: skientia, from which we get the word ‘science’]” ?
And indeed though you use a word with a pejorative connotation in English, “oblivion” — we should indeed forget what is false, in favor of what is true.
I didn’t read the entire article, but I would be more apt to believe that God is “ungendered.” God is unique and I don’t think the human is capable of fully understanding God as any kind of being. We may learn someday...
A complete and absolute sickening disgrace reminiscent of the worst of Sodom and Gomorrah. I say this as someone with actual rabbinic ordination, unlike this disgrace to any religion. If he thinks that G-D Almighty’s Torah can be used by his sick mind to play with and distort, then he’d have made himself a complete enemy of the Jewish people, if he wasn’t too sick to be held responsible.
Disgusting beyond words.
Now, I hope a lot of “real” rabbis then walk up to mirrors.
You said it.
“He has to use the terms His audience would allow...”
Sounds like it is the audience that has all the authority in that scenario.
Yes, to exactly the same degree that a child has all the authority when an adult explains something to them in terms the child can understand.
Please tell me you don’t have children...
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