Christian tradition is replete with referring to God as 'Heavenly Father' Jesus instructs his disciples on how to pray.. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name...". So there is a natural tendency to equate God as a Heavenly Father, but what about "Heavenly Mother"?
To start we need to understand why God is sometimes referred to as "Father".. it comes from the basic definition of 'Father' to be not only a male parent, but a 'creative, origination source'. Similarly the word "Mother" holds the same sort of definition.. both being a female 'parent' and an originating creative source.
So what would you call a being who is like God the Father, in image, likeness and creative power, but female in persona? a Heavenly Mother?
Genesis 1. It's the first chapter of the Bible, and often it's the only chapter people read, and it's full of information, information that gets stepped on by 'Traditions" So let's examine.
Genesis 1 is a narrative by a narrator, presumably Moses about "God" or 'Elohiem" translated to "God" in English translations. The word is technically plural word for "gods", but since the verb in the sentence is singular , it's translated as a singular "God". This narrative follows a pattern.. First we must remember it's a narrator giving a narration about "Elohiem".. Eloheim (God) is the primary focal person in the narrative, but the narrative is by a narrator. The pattern of the text follows the following form.. The Narrator tells us something setup of the situation,
1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.I choose to use the NRSV here because it was explained in a lecture by Micheal Hesier, a well known Biblical Hebrew Scholar, that the NRSV unlike many traditional English translations more accurately follows the grammatical syntax of the Hebrew. So as you notice verses 1 and 2 are one sentence, not two sentences as you might find in a KJV. Which means they combined form a complete thought rather than two thoughts. The important thing to notice here is 'WHEN'..God created, there is a pre-existing conditions, the a earth in a state of a formless void with darkness and a deep.. and Water, which the spirit of God moves across.. This is NOT the NOTHINGNESS that is so often taught by Churches who hold to a Ex-Nihlo belief. But it's not the purpose of this blog to discuss ex-nihlo, just to point out that the Genesis text calls for some pre-existing materials at least.
Then the narrator proceeds to give us a series of Statements God utters, followed up by some actions..that either involve God participating or simply stating their occurrence.. For instance..
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Now another thing I would admonish you understanding, when you read the text, remember just because something is not explained in detail of "How it happened" does not mean that nothing besides what you read happened. And to that point.. there is a ; break between what God 'Said'.. and what the narrator tells us happened. Just because the narrator doesn't go into detail of how it happens that when God uttered the command.. the light came to be.. doesn't mean that it just happened. The latter is what many Churches who hold to the ex-nihlo beliefs claim is going on.. God speaks and his will just happens. But if you pay attention to the text.. it's not making that claim at all. The narrator just simply didn't find it relevant to the story to explain that detail, since this is a story about 'eloheim'..and what he did.
Now to support my point.. we notice the first two verses demonstrates that God didn't start out creating in an empty nothingness.. there were things there.. Earth, the deep, and water. And if you have taken a physics or chemistry class, you'd know light is simply electromagnetic energy, and such would have been present in the water. But setting that little bit aside... let examine what verse 4 has to share..
And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
Now I ask you to ponder this for a moment. After verse three, where God speaks and then it's reported his will became reality.. He then engages in what I see as a QA (Quality Assurance) exercise.. I develop software, and if my clients say.. Let there be a program to do.. and I create the program and it is.. the client then sees the program and tells me it's good... and I get paid. So that's what is going on here.. God after his command was issued, now sees the results and declares them good. If God's will was the ONLY thing involved in bringing forth the light.. what need would God have to 'See his work and declare it good?" Wouldn't you be suggesting that God's will can error.. that he can by his very words, will something into existence that isn't good? That just doesn't make coherent sense.. So what we have in verse four, is God validating that what ever forces are at work (minions, angels, midi-chlorians) fulfilling his will did what he expected and he declares it good.
We see this pattern going on over and over in the first chapter. Now sometimes God get's involved.. he issues the directive and then follows up with some actions of his own, and sometimes there are no actions.. things just are like the example of light above. Or so it goes until verse 26. Verses 1-25 we see God for the most part being a Solo Actor in the narrative, whether or not there are others doing his will, they aren't mentioned. Only God is mentioned, and his is governing over this creation by himself. This all changes when we get to verse 26..
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”Verse 26 is totally a statement by God. No actions.. and it's quite different than all the other statements by God thus far.. It's not only the longest statement, but it's one where he reaches out to one or more OTHERS.. When it comes to making man (humankind) he doesn't go at it alone like he was doing in verses 1-25. He reaches out to others.. And notice that God didn't appeal to the others to help him make man in HIS Image, but it "OUR" image. These others to who he now involves are according to the text, are like God himself.. They share IMAGE an LIKENESS, and creative abilities. So what does one call a being like God who exists in the heavenly realm who has his image, likeness and creative abilities? obviously they aren't humans, becasue humans haven't been created. So they must be beings that in some ways are on par with God himself..
Now there are those who's religious beliefs immediately force them into the nonsensical assertion of blasphemy to think this, other rationalize that the others here are none other than the Trinity, but that begs the question why wasn't the Trinity mentioned in verses 1-25? Only when it comes to making humankind.. I think the answer lies in the verse 27.
Verse 27, is the narrator speaking, not God, and we know he is only concerned with what God does.. no one else.. and he says'
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Here we see that elohiem crates humankind in his image, which BTW is the same image as the US/OUR in verse 26.. And it identifies the humankind as "THEM" , male and female. The use of the term "Them" ties this back to verse 26.. which is the "Them" which are in the image and likeness of the "US". Now throughout the narrative. Elohiem (God) is referenced in the masculine gender.. and yet here he creates a 'female' in the image and likeness of the "US".. which suggests that at least one member of the "US" must be female.
So there you have it. .If there is a Female counterpart to God in verse 26 with his image and likeness, who participates in the making of Man, male and female, what do you call that being other than a "Heavenly Mother"
