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The issue of God's gender affects many religions worldwide, and is a part of some feminist theology.

God and gender in the world's major religions

Monotheists hold a belief in one God as a fundamental religious principle.

• In Sikhism, Judaism and Islam, God is believed to be sexless (or gender neutral), but has been traditionally referred to using male grammatical gender pronouns.

• In Christianity, God is understood to be a Trinity, consisting of three persons in one God. The three persons of the Trinity are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father has traditionally been described with male imagery, and God the Son is believed literally to have become incarnate as a human male – the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The word spirit has feminine, neuter or masculine grammatical gender depending on the language. The Hebrew word ruaḥ (רוח) is grammatically feminine, the Greek word pneuma (πνεῦμα) is grammatically neuter, and the Latin word spiritus is grammatically masculine. However, John's record of Jesus' teaching about the Holy Spirit implies the masculinity of the Spirit, by applying a masculine demonstrative pronoun to the grammatically neuter antecedent (see below).

• In Hinduism, the form of God is varied, and can take a wide range of gender roles. Many who follow Advaita believe ultimately in an impersonal spirit, Brahman.

• Polytheistic and henotheistic religions, including pagan religions and various ethnic religions, believe the spiritual world is encompassed by multiple gods, though they may be one spirit or be born from one parent god.

Modern feminism has influenced some adherents of monotheistic religions to use the feminine grammatical gender to refer to God, either in protest at the tradition of using the male grammatical gender to refer to a being which transcends sex, or to assert that God is female. Others may use alternating or ambiguous grammatical gender, either to avoid causing offence, or to indicate that they believe God transcends gender.

Sikhism

In Sikhism, God is referred to as a gender neutral entity and the original language of the Sikh Scriptures allows the possibility of referring to God in gender neutral form.

The SGGS refers to God as Mother and Father:

"You are my Father, and You are my Mother... You are my Protector everywhere; why should I feel any fear or anxiety? ||1||" Page 103 and again "You are our mother and father; we are Your children." Page 268.

In some places, God is referred to as Mother, Father or Husband:

"O my wandering mind, you are like a camel - how will you meet the Lord, your Mother?" page 234

"O Father, I do not know - How can I know Your Way?" page 51

"You are the Husband Lord, and I am the soul-bride. ||3||" page 484.

Hinduism

In Hinduism there are diverse approaches to the understanding of God - Brahman - which is reflected in the gender by which God is addressed or described.

While most Hindus focus upon God in the neutral form, there are prominent Hindu traditions, such as the Shakta and Tantra traditions, that alleviate God in the female conception, even as the source of the male form of God.

The Hebrew Bible

In Genesis 1:26, Elohim states:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....And Elohim created man in His image, in the image of Elohim He created him; male and female He created them."

Some theologists interpret this passage as anthropomorphic - attributing human characteristics to God (Elohim). Others believe it to be theomorphic - humans are seen as having Godly characteristics (in other words, characteristics of Elohim).

The Hebrew Bible often refers to Yahweh as the Father. In one case, Elohim is compared to the bridegroom and his people to the bride.

For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy Elohim rejoice over thee. (Isaiah 62:5)

The Biblical Hebrew word for spirit is ruach, meaning wind, breath, inspiration; the noun is grammatically feminine. Eastern Language Professor R.P. Nettelhorst states :

"Out of 84 OT uses of the word "spirit", in contexts traditionally assumed to be references to the Holy Spirit, 75 times it is either explicitly feminine or indeterminable (due to lack of a verb or adjective). Only nine times can "spirit" be construed as masculine, and in those cases it is unclear that it is a reference to God's Holy Spirit anyway."

Judaism

The first words of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) are B'reshit bara Elohim — "In the beginning God created." The verb bara (he created) implies a masculine subject. The most common phrases in the Tanakh are vayomer Elohim and vayomer Y<small=2>HWH — "and God said" (hundreds of occurances). Again, the verb vayomer (he said) is masculine; it is never vatomer, the feminine of the same verb form. The personal name of God, Y<small=2>HWH, is presented in Exodus 3 as if the Y is the masculine subjective prefix to the verb to be (see Main article: I am that I am).

Most Orthodox Jews and many Conservative Jews hold that it is wrong to use English female pronouns for God. Some argue that this is not because God is of the male gender, but because doing so among English speakers tends to draw attention to God as having gender..

The feminine characteristics of God are emphasised by some Reconstructionist Jews and Reform Jews. Classical Hebrew names for God such as HaQadosh Baruch Hu ("The Holy One, praised be He") may be rewritten in both Hebrew and English as HaQ'dosha B'rucha He ("The Holy One, praised be She"). Others believe that this rewriting of Hebrew names asserts that grammatical gender implies sexual gender.

Some Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis have experimented with incorporating explicit anthropomorphic characteristics into their prayers. Reform Rabbi Rebecca Alpert (Reform Judaism, Winter 1991) writes about a feminist siddur (Jewish prayerbook) she used:

The experience of praying with Siddur Nashim ... transformed my relationship with God. For the first time, I understood what it meant to be made in God's image. To think of God as a woman like myself, to see Her as both powerful and nurturing, to see Her imaged with a woman's body, with womb, with breasts - this was an experience of ultimate significance. Was this the relationship that men have had with God for all these millennia? How wonderful to gain access to those feelings and perceptions.

Within Judaism, this statement is controversial. Many traditional rabbinic commentators, such as Maimonides, view any such beliefs as avodah zarah - idolatry.

Secondary male sexual characteristics are attributed to God in some piyuttim (religious poems). These include a description of the beard of God Shir Hakavod, "The Hymn of Glory", and similar poetic imagery in the midrash Song of the Seas Rabbah. Traditional meforshim (rabbinic commentators) hold that these descriptions are metaphorical.

Christianity

In Christianity, the New Testament is the primary source of beliefs about God. Perhaps the two most significant debates in Christian history sought to understand what the New Testament implied regarding:

1. Jesus as divine as well as human (see Christology), and
2. God as three persons in unity — the Trinity — Father, Son and Spirit.

The masculinity of the Father is rarely disputed. The masculinity of Jesus as God the Son is even less disputed.

Passages in the Nag Hammadi scrolls from the well-known, second-century Gnostic heresy, refer to the Holy Spirit as Mother. However, in the New Testament, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as masculine (John 14-16). He refers to the Holy Spirit as Comforter (masculine in Greek), and uses grammatically necessary masculine forms of the Greek pronoun autos. Grammatical gender says nothing about real gender; however, Jesus also speaks of the Holy Spirit as Spirit (neuter in Greek). When Jesus does this, he uses the masculine form of the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (that male one). This is a clear indication of the Holy Spirit's masculinity, because it "breaks the rules" of Greek grammar, to communicate the real, rather than grammatical, gender of the Spirit. This was particularly significant when Christians were debating whether the Holy Spirit was a divine person in his own right, or just a "force". The clarity of the New Testament has meant that Christians who respect it as normative have never questioned the masculinity of the Holy Spirit.

In the Jewish scriptures, called the Old Testament, and also considered normative by Christians, Proverbs 8-9 personifies God's wisdom as a woman.

The Apocrypha, accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as scripture (in addition to Old and New Testaments), has similar references in Sirach 24, Wisdom 6:22-11:1 and Baruch 3:9-4:4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that God is not male, but that his role in our world makes the term "Father" more appropriate than "Mother", although both terms remain informative: "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the differences between the sexes."

Some liberal and feminist Christians sometimes refer to God as "Mother" and use feminine pronouns to refer to God. They may not think of God as a female, but rather as having both masculine and feminine aspects. A few Christians today speak of the Holy Spirit, especially in the role of Comforter and Reconciler, with a feminine pronoun. Others claim that assigning the Holy Spirit a gendered role is an endorsement of social stereotypes. Some have had even stronger views. "If God is male, then the male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on the popular imagination."

Mormonism

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon, teaches that both God the Father and Jesus have distinct, perfect, immortal male bodies. Mormons consider the empty tomb proof that God the Son has a body, transformed by the resurrection to power, glory and immortality. They teach that the Son, though glorified, was able to show his body to humans, eat with them, drink with them, and allow them to touch him as a witness that he had taken his body up, a body with which he later ascended to heaven, a body that he has never again laid aside.

The Holy Spirit has a spirit body, not a physical body, and is also considered to be male.

Mormons also believe in a distinct Heavenly Mother who has a perfect, glorified and celestial female body. The official doctrine of the Church is that prayers should be directed to the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit. The Heavenly Mother is not worshipped.

See Godhead (Mormonism); Mormonism and Christianity.

Islam

In the Qur'an, God is most often referred to with the neuter pronoun "Hu", which is usually translated as "He". Other references include I, We, and the neutral pronoun "ma" which translates as "that which" as in the phrase "the heavens and that which created them" (surah Shams (91), verse 5). Islam maintains that God has no gender.

There is controversy as to whether, in Arabic, singular and plural forms in the masculine and feminine genders leads to ambiguity. It is argued that, because "God is One", the masculine gender has to be used to prevent this ambiguity.

Translating the names of God into English

There are a number of ways to translate the names of God into English from Hebrew. Hebrew uses only four consonants for the name — Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh (יהוה, YHWH) — hence it is called the Tetragrammaton. Some modern English bibles render this as LORD — L capital, and ord in small capital font face. Others use Yahweh, and the old King James Version used Jehovah. In English, outside Bible translations, the tetragrammaton is often written as YHWH or YHVH.

The original meaning of this form is connected with the "I AM" of Exodus 3:14 (and it probably contains a Hebrew masculine verb prefix — the Y). Sometimes this word is rendered into English by using Hebrew Adonai, instead of attempting to directly translate YHWH, following an ancient Jewish custom of respect. The modern Jewish form of this custom is to refer to the divine person as Ha Shem — The Name.

The Hebrew word Adonai literally means my lords (with pseudo-plural), and is usually translated as Lord. The Hebrew names Elohim, El, Shaddai, and Yah are usually translated as God — with Elohim being the most common. Elyon translates as Most High.

There are a number of compound names for God. YHVH Tzevaot is translated as Lord of Hosts. YHVH Elohe tzevaot would be Lord God of Hosts. Among non-Orthodox Jews, there is a growing tendency to avoid the gender-in-English-language debate, and to simultaneously reclaim the vocabulary of Hebrew itself, by not translating these names in English prayers.

An example of a traditional translation is:

• "The earth belongs to the Lord, and all it contains; the world and its inhabitants." (Psalm 24)

An alternative translation is:

• "The earth belongs to Adonai, and all it contains; the world and its inhabitants."

Shekhinah is Hebrew for the imminent presence of God; this name of God appears in some traditional Jewish prayers. Within Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) the Shekhinah represents the feminine aspect of God's essence; other terms represent the male aspect of God.

See also Names of God

Third person pronouns

Many prayers use one or more of the names for God many times within the same paragraph. The first time it appears a proper name is used, while further instances use a third person pronoun (he, she or it). English speakers usually use masculine or feminine third person pronouns to refer to people, and the third person pronoun - "it" - to refer to non-people. Traditionally, in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writing, the third-person pronoun "He" has been used to refer to God in English translations. In non-religious contexts, English speakers have generally used the word "he" as a substitute for a gender-neutral third person pronoun.

In English, it is improper to speak of a person with the neuter pronoun "it". All Christians that believe in the Trinity by definition believe in the three persons that are one god. For many, referring to God as “It” is heretical.

The idea of God being an "It" rather than a "he" or "she" does have some support in Jewish, Christian and Islamic medieval thought, much of which was based on Neo-Aristotelian philosophy. Some medieval philosophers of all three of these religions took great pains to make clear that God was in no way like a person, and that all apparently physical descriptions of God were only poetic metaphors.

In the Chinese language, translators of the Christian Bible have created a new Chinese character to act as a gender-neutral pronoun: 祂 (Pinyin: tā). Tā, in essence, is the universal pronoun for all objects and persons. However, gender (as well as personhood) can be distinguished in writing. The normal pronoun for "He", 他, not only implies gender, but the radical 亻(rén) also implies that God is human. The radical in 祂, 礻 (shì), is associated with divinity.

Mankind and humankind

Translations of the Bible and prayerbooks traditionally have used words such as: man, men, his, mankind, brotherhood, etc. In their historical usage these words in most places have always meant human, human beings, his and hers, humankind, peoplehood, etc. Feminists contend that no such neutrality was implied.

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Christian Bible tries to correct this by changing words like "man" to "person", and "brothers" to "brothers and sisters", in all cases where the text is not referring to specific individuals but to people in general, or to a group of people that is most likely composed of both men and women. In keeping with this approach, the NRSV does not change the traditional male pronouns that refer to God.

A recent translation known as Today's New International Version (TNIV - sometimes referred to derisively as "The Neutered International Version") attempts to avoid sexist language by using "they" as the pronoun for a single person of unknown gender, a practice that has been common in spoken English for over six hundred years but is often avoided in formal writing. Critics of this translation dislike the usage of "singular they" both because conservative prescriptive grammarians sometimes consider it improper grammar, and because it sometimes may obscure the meaning of verses where it is significant that the pronoun is singular.

However, the continued usage of words such as Father, men, mankind, brotherhood, etc., has been increasingly called into question by some readers who believe these words destroy the Bible's original prose style. Conversely, traditionalists believe the use of gender-neutral terms itself is an aberration from the original books. Moreover, in such works as the Letters of St. Paul, when masculine terms are used, they might very well have been originally intended to refer to males exclusively, as it was common to segregate houses of worship sexually; this practice continues among Orthodox Jews to this day, and it is perfectly conceivable that the Apostle was addressing the males in these communities.

New translations

Most modern-day readers of English Bible translations are not familiar with Hebrew; they read the translations literally, through the view of modern feminist thought, and thus sometimes read the text as if it were describing a male God. Many readers feel removed from the text, as they either do not want to worship a male God, or they also want to worship a female God as well as a male God.

While this problem does not exist if one prays in the original Hebrew (or Arabic, Aramaic, etc.), many prayer-book editors in the non-Orthodox denominations of Judaism, and in liberal denominations of Christianity, have become sensitive to this issue. Several solutions have been proposed:

• Keeping the standard translation, which uses the term "He", and using commentary to explain the issue more fully. This is the approach used by Orthodox Judaism and most branches of Christianity.

• Translating God as "It". For theological reasons, this has been rejected by all branches of Judaism and of Christianity. But, see above for a discussion of why it could be considered legitimate.

• Translating God as both "He" and "She". A few experimental prayerbooks by Reconstructionist Jewish feminists have tried alternating "he" and "she" within the same prayerbook, and sometimes even within the same prayer. This approach has failed to win widespread approval; critics object to it for many reasons, one of which is that this gives the appearance of dualism or goddess worship. Some liberal Protestant Christian denominations use this approach on occasion.

• Rewriting all prayers in the second person, only using the term "You". A few experimental prayerbooks by Reconstructionist Jewish feminists have tried this, but this approach has failed to win widespread approval. Interestingly, Contemporary Christian Music often addresses God in this manner, although probably for different theological reasons (that is, to emphasize a personal relationship with the Divine).

• Gender-neutral translation involves rewriting prayers to remove all third-person pronouns. Sometimes this involves changing sentence and paragraph structure. This approach has been adopted by the editors of all new Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish prayerbooks. Some liberal Protestant Christians also have rewritten prayerbooks in this way. Conservative Judaism has rejected this approach because there are many cases where no such changes are possible without totally rewriting the sentence, thereby moving the English far from the Hebrew structure.

  Gender-neutral translation can also be accomplished by replacing third-person singular pronouns with third-person plural pronouns, repeating "God" each time to avoid "he". Some Christian translations of Scripture, including the New Jerusalem Bible, use this technique when referring to humans, but naturally this technique is not used in the case of God.)

• Gender-sensitive translation. This approach is a modified form of the above. In this approach, one rewrites most sentences to remove third-person pronouns, but occasionally the pronoun "he" is allowed in order to preserve readability and the original sentence structure. This is the approach taken by Conservative Judaism in three editions of Siddur Sim Shalom. Most inclusive-language Christian translations take this approach.

• Some Christian groups have created a new pronoun: God (subject or object), God's (possessive), Godself (reflexive). While the Catholic Church officially frowns on this, a significant number of American Catholic parishes alter the Mass responses by repeating "God" each time to avoid the third-person singular male pronoun. The use of the reflexive Godself is more rare.

• At least one bible translation from the Hebrew and Aramaic, the Hebraic Roots Version Scriptures(HRV) acknowledges that the Holy Spirit (the Ruach HaQodesh) is referred to in feminine terms unlike the masculine terms applied to the Father and the Son.

(It should be noted that some critics object to this terminology. Particularly for those who believe feminist interpretation is misogynist (see above), terms such as “gender-neutral” and “gender-sensitive” can be offensive. Critics charge that these terms imply traditional interpretations are not sensitive to women. Nevertheless, in the lack of acceptable alternatives these phrases are used in this article.)

Over the last twenty years many Jewish prayerbooks have been rewritten to be gender-neutral (Reform, Reconstructionist Judaism) or gender-sensitive (Conservative). Examples are shown in the following translations of Psalm 24. The following is a traditional translation excerpted from Siddur Sim Shalom, a Conservative siddur. (Ed. Jules Harlow)

A Psalm of David.

The earth belongs to the Lord, and all it contains; the world and its inhabitants.

He founded it upon the seas, and set it firm upon flowing waters.

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may rise in His sanctuary?

One who has a clean hand and a pure heart, who has not used God's name in false oaths, who has not sworn deceitfully.

he shall receive a blessing from the God of his deliverance.

A modern translation of Psalm 24 now appears in the revised editions of Siddur Sim Shalom.

A Psalm of David.

The earth and its grandeur belong to Adonai; the world and its inhabitants.

God founded it upon the seas, and set it firm upon flowing waters.

Who may ascend the mountain of Adonai? Who may rise in God's sanctuary?

One who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not used God's name in false oaths, who has not sworn deceitfully.

shall receive a blessing from Adonai, a just reward from the God of deliverance.

References

1. Quartz Hill School of Theology Quartz Hill Journal of Theology-- Summer 2005 (Quartz Hill: Quartz Hill School of Theology, 2005), Volume 3 More Than Just A Controversy-- All about the Holy Spirit by R.P Nettelhorst (equivalent to chapter 7 )
2. BHS, p. 1.
3. Nag Hammadi Scrolls
4. Nestle and others, Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed., (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgeselschaft, 1993).
5. William D Mounce, The Morphology of Biblical Greek, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), p. 241.
6. John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-14.
7. ibid., p. 242.
8. [http://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Wayne-Grudem/dp/0310286700 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), p. 232.
9. CCC 239.
10. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, (1973), c. 1.}}
11. James Trimm Hebraic Roots Version Scriptures, (South Africa: Institute for Scripture Research, 2004, 2005), pp. lv,577,1358,1359,1464.

See also

• Feminism
• God
• God (male deity)
• Goddess
• The Hebrew Goddess
• Goddess movement
• Sky father
• Hindu views on God and gender

External links

• God as Mother (A Christian view)
• Feminine images for God
• The Spirit and the Bride

Bibliography

• Elliot N. Dorff Male and Female God Created Them: Equality with Distinction, University Papers, University of Judaism, Los Angeles, 1984, pp. 13-23.
• Paula Reimers Feminism, Judaism, and God the Mother, Fall 1993, Conservative Judaism
• Jules Harlow Feminist Linguistics and Jewish Liturgy Conservative Judaism Vol.XLIX(2) Winter 1997, p.3-25.
• Matthew Berke God and Gender in Judaism in First Things, June 1996
  • God and Gender in Judaism
• Bible Translation and the Gender of God, S. T. Kimbrough, Jr. Theology Today, Vol.46, No. 2, July 1989
  • Bible Translation and the Gender of God
• The Incomprehensibility of God and the Image of God Male and Female, Elizabeth Johnson, Theological Studies, Vol.45, no.3, 1984, pp.441-465.
  • The Incomprehensibility of God and the Image of God Male and Female

• Christian philosophy
• Religious feminism