God and Gendered Language
Here is an interesting article about gendered language and its use to describe God at Ancient Hebrew Poetry. The blogger asks this question in relationship to a work entitled “On Beyond Gender: Representation of God in the Torah and in Three Recent Renditions into English” by David E. S. Stein, “Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender?” While the blogger and Stein would both answer “no,” the two would differ on the nuance of their answer. The post is an attempt to critique Stein’s nuance and lay out the blogger’s own nuances. I really enjoyed reading it and was enlightened by it. I’ll post the concluding paragraph to the whole post but do take the time to read the whole post. You’ll be glad you did if you are interested in this topic.
Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender? No, but gender insofar as it is ascribed to God by the biblical authors cannot be taken to imply that God is an inherently male or female deity. The biblical authors thought of their God in all of the following categories: gender-specific, personal, and a-personal. Specific truths are conveyed in each case. We do well, should we choose to situate ourselves in the slipstream created by biblical tradition, to emulate in our own God language the range and variety of categories and social constructs through which God is described in the Bible.
Ancient Hebrew Poetry: Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender?
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