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OK I can't do this anymore via blocking. hehe.
So hebrew has a gender for every noun, just like French, Spanish, and Russian. French and German, as examples, give nouns gender based on - well, I don't know what and I don't think any one else does. But some languages, like Russian and Semitic languages base the gender on the sound of the noun. in russian, for example, anything that ends in a consonant is a "male" gendered noun, and things that end in "a" or "ee" are female. (there a few other rules, that I forget). So the drive to name a god a "he" or "she" is dependent on how the word is pronounced, and not that people see it as having balls and other boy parts.
There is no doubt that YHWH the war god is a boy, but Elohime there is no indication that it ever was seen as a physical dude or dudette in teh way YHWH was. And Shekina is very much a female "thing" though again, not a dude or dudette in any personhood way.
war god? elohime? WHAT IS THIS HERSEY. YAHWEH HAS AND ALWAYS WAS THE GOD!
but hm, interesting. Danke for sharing me this^_^ although what led you to learn it?
Most non-christian scholars see a somewhat typical group of gods in the Hebrew myths that match gods in Sumerian myths, Assyrian myths, and other Semitic groups. If you break the Torah into the two scrolls, the image of a very early YHWH-War god is pretty evident. he says almost the exact same thing as Ba'al and Assur in various myths. and there are theories about other goddesses that are maybe mentioned, including lilath. Theories that Rebecca or Ester might have been goddesses at one point, humanized as the God become monotheistic and male. but that's all speculation - the stuff about the women.
"how did I learn this". 9 years of school plus nearly 10 years teaching it. Though technically my field is Native American religion and theology, to do that field required a huge amount of xian theology. Plus, myths are da' bomb. I dig them. :-)
ahh :P
and yah, i know, i just like assuming x role of most follower man every a lot :P
im actually interested in pre-monotheistic Israelite religion, a topic that finding out about thanks to... well... monotheism relies on finding remnants or archaeology nobody can dig.
i do know that yahweh isnt the omnipotent thing he is claimed to be; given he couldnt take the plains from the iron chariot men
YHWH is also very limited by some kind of unwritten rules. He cannot "find" adam in the garden. He must kill people just to get his way. he's an amoral jerk quite often, by the way.
Pre-monotheistsic isrelite religion is a trip and a half. What we "know" (informed guess, might be the best term) is pretty extensive, actually. Not that any Christians and only a few Jews will likely EVER agree with what is found. :-) God has always been one and only one.
I've always played around with (on a non published level) 'how one becomes monothesitic", and it's almost always "science" that is in my answer. We begin to understand that lightening is not a god; that rain is not a god; children come from sex, etc., and that pushes "gods" father away. and as they are more and more removed, they cease being so human, and become something more "universal". To the point that today, if there are any religious folk in science, their "god" is almost as removed from a personal god as you can get. "creator", "first mover", "part of everything" etc.
"YHWH is also very limited by some kind of unwritten rules." The rules of the mind, you mean. God's powers seem to be limited by his own believers' imaginations.
speaking of the push to monotheism... in my religion... or maybe my history class i had last semester; my teacher gave out the idea that the push to monotheism was possibly related to the exile; as a crisis point where the Israelite's had to deal with the fact "Our god/gods lost, how do we deal with this" and the idea that it was go further into monotheism (from what looks like henotheism at best) or abandon Yahweh and pick the better, victorious gods.
For what it's worth (and I realize that I'm coming to this a little), even mainstream Christian scholars acknowledge this, or at least the ones I took religious studies courses from did. Some of those professors were also ordained clergy, too.
It really depends on who the scholar is, but yeah, most accept that there are natural language differences which limit things like "what physical gender is a god, if the word itself has a gender".



