Hebrew Gendering
Hebrew Gendering
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.
- -)
You might want to shave that hair there. I don't think you have what it takes for a mustache.
"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.
It's possible, then again *anything* is possible. You have a "moment" of monothesim in Egypt that is far better documented, and it really does just kinda come out of knowwhere, as a "thinking person" says something along the lines of "wait, this is stupid. no oen has ever seen these gods, so the god must not be a bunch of little things".
you COULD say that, but ancient gods tended to be petty vindictive fuckers, best not to anger them
That is perhaps why it only lasted one or two generations. but the more you read about it from so-called "source" (translated, of course) the more it's an interesting perspective.
Why did Akenaten, so out of the blue, decide there is only one god. had he talked with others? was he the first? and why is his god so transcendent in a world of earthly gods.
Whenever people say "ancient gods," I always wonder about the implied new gods. (Pre-empting the inevitable comic book reference.) Are there any hippie-dippie gods out there?
There are some interesting theories about things like "aliens", big foot and "robot worlds" that modern science fed society still needs something um... "super natural" or "mystical" or "not-understandable" so those are the new things paople have made up.
and every time we move "god" from a thing (lightening, death, the spinning of the earth, the creation of life, the creation of the earth) we still cling to this "need" for a god, we just keep making it more and more abstract. few people, really are ready to truly let go of a god. I think it's under 20% of the population, and most of them are highly educated in sciences.
And out of those, how many worship the invisible hand of the market, the environment, the blind watchmaker of natural selection, science, or technology.
depends on what you mean by "worship." I define myself as an athist pagan. I rather like ritual, love candles and teh symbology of lighting and extinguishing flames, etc. It's very rewarding for me to praise nature, the universe etc.
and i use ritual in my daily life. "magic" if you will, that i know is just reinforcement of my own inner strength. I light a candle in a "rite" to "lose weight" when what i really know is that i'm just focusing on what i want to accomplish and how to do it. but it feels good, calming, empowering even.
It's one reason i'm rather curt with the "there is nothing good about religion" types. There is importance, and it does fill parts of life. things science and logic and reason can't fill.
The difference is whether you know you're "doing" religion or not. But I've bloviated on that topic at length.
I still believe in a god because to me that makes sense, and its what i feel. i dont have any real proof besides "the universe". but it makes sense to me.
Nothing wrong with that.
My only issue, really, is with anti-science types. people who will say "I don't care what science says, it goes against my book".
that and anyone trying to take their book and turn it into laws.
Mmmmm. In what way does it "make sense" to you? Could you elaborate?
standard "universe is complex, beautiful and everything" Argument, but naturalistic world directed by a god. I dont have much to prove it, just how i feel, possibly influenced still by YEC beliefs; sorta hard to explain.
It's just when you said it "made sense" I thought you might have an interesting logical argument. But, well, thanks for answering.
Bob, almost no one at that point of the argument has anything better than "cause it's what i feel"; which should not be dismissed as lightly as many do. It is a strange thing to contemplate that everything came from nothing, or has always been.
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".
Gender-neutral pronouns are perfect for other-wordly beings like gods. I mean, doesn't "Xe will smite you!" sound much more fitting for a god?
If it's an otherwordly being, why would you call it anything other than "it"?
Because that's for inanimate objects.
it is? we call crabs, 'it', and horses, and eagles, and babies before we know what they are. "What is it?" "it's a girl".
And that's terrible.
Why, exactly? Besides, trying to artificially change a language is pretty un-doable. (not a real word, i get).
Your chances of changing a language would depend on the language I think. It would obviously be pretty impossible for English because of the large number of speakers but not all languages are so big.
Klingon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ohh, i'd love to see that. (mind you, i don't think anyone can 'create' a language. some day ask me about espranto)
What changes would you make? just curious. I suspect since this is what started it, "gender" would be gone.
Im creating henai :P but i sdo it at a very slow pace as words i feel lime translating come to me. As for "Language, but improved" thats debatable. removing gender pronouns doesn't "improve it" it just makes the language more gender neutral then it already was.
No language is 'better" or "improved" any more than a cat is an "improvement" on whatever it evolved from. languages evolve, change to fit the time, the place, the people. As they acquire new words, they might loose some traits, or the other way around.
Having spoken langauges without any gender, as well as languages that gender EVERYTHING, i'm rather happy with english. He for obvious hes, she's for obvious shes, and it for everything else. :_) (though we are hitting a time in society where some things are less obvious, but that's not a problem if we ourselves fucking got over the problems with transgenders, non-genders, etc)
I don't know german, but in russian it is always based on the sound of the word. In french it is often a case of euphony.
But ask yourself this, do you say "she" to cars, boats, generic gods, etc?
There is a fun linguistic study that shows that in russian, where the gender is defined by the spelling of the word, people will use more feminine sounding adjectives for "female" gendered words, than male, even if describing the same thing. for example "auto" "automobile" "car" "vehicle" are all in some ways the same thing, but are gendered differently in russian. when describing one that has female gender, girly descriptions are more common. not sure what that means... i'm just saying.