Welcome, Rachel Held Evans readers! Just so you know, this post outlining female depictions of God in Scripture makes the most sense in conjunction with its follow-up post, telling the story of my head-on encounter with God’s feminine side: Weeping with the Goddess in Jake’s Kitchen.
I’m not much of a “proof-texter.” I don’t like using the Bible as a weapon to fight out my outlook on life versus someone else’s. Further, I’m committed to the ‘progressive hermeneutic’ of ongoing revelation/unpacking the riches of God in our midst. Even so: I don’t, in celebrating the feminine face of God (and sharing my experience of the same), think I’m going ‘beyond the Bible.’ Here’s a sampling of the wealth of feminine images of God in Scripture, including the Apocrypha.
Take a moment and let these sink in*:
Sophia:
First nine chapters of Proverbs focus on Wisdom
- Proverbs 4:13 she is your life, giver of life
- Proverbs 8:35 whoever finds me finds life
- Proverbs 8:15 decrees what is right
- Proverbs 8: 22 – 31 like Wisdom herself, before the foundation of the earth I was there. Wisdom comes from God, was created by God
- Wisdom 7:22 – 8:1 She is the fashioner of all things; 21 attributes which is the product of two perfect numbers 3 & 7. Wisdom is perfection multiplied by perfection. Intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all powerful. Overseeing all, penetrating through all other intelligent spirits
- Wisdom 8:1 She orders all things
- Wisdom 7: 24 She pervades and penetrates all things
- Wisdom 7:27 She renews all things – renewable energy
- Wisdom 9:10 She shares the throne of God
- Wisdom 7:10 – 14 She’s the source of all things new
- Sirach 1:1 – 8 It is God who knows wisdom and pours her forth upon the world
- Sirach 24: 1 – 27 Hymn of self-praise sung by Wisdom in which she describes herself, her origins, her relationship to God and the good things she does for human beings. She came from the mouth of God, she is God’s word, breath, Spirit; as the spirit/wind that hovered over the waters of creation and as mist / steam that covered the earth at the beginning; she is universal, everywhere. Her image as a tree echoes Proverbs 8 – she strikes root among God’s people. She feeds all who long for her. Her food is sweeter than honey. Her food is herself. All who eat of her will hunger still, who drink of her will thirst for more. One will never be able to get enough of what she offers. What she offers is life. She concludes her song with a promise similar to Proverbs 8:35 – 34 – those who obey her will not be shamed. Those who serve her will not fall short. I believe she is the personification of God’s wisdom as the feminine archetype.
Birthing God – womb
• Gen 7:1 – Breasts illuminate a feminine image of God
• Deut. 32:18 “You forget the rock who begot you, unmindful of the God who gave birth to you”
• Job 38:8 “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?”
• Job 38: 28-29 God’s fathering of rain and giving birth to ice from her womb
• Isaiah 42:14 “I groan like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant”
• Isaiah 46: 3-4: “You who have been carried since birth, whom I have carried since time you were born” – incubating in God’s womb
• John 1:12: Those who believe in God are born of God
• John 4:7: Everyone who loves is born of God
• John 16:21: God is bringing forth a new humanity like the pangs of a woman in labor; her hour has come
• Acts 17: In God we live and move and have our being
• Gal 4:19: God’s womb is in pain
• Romans 8:22 From the beginning to now the entire creation has been groaning in one great act of giving birth (creation)
Creator God of Israel is also imaged as the shaper, maker and mother God who formed Israel in the womb and birthed Israel with labor pains:
• (Deut. 32:18; Psalm 90:2; Proverbs 8:24 – 25; Isaiah 43:1,7,15; 44:2, 24; 45:9, 11; 51:13; 54:5 From the word “womb” (rehem) comes the verb “to have compassion” (raham), and the phrase “Yahweh’s compassionate (rahum) and gracious” repeatedly appears in the Hebrew scripture to describe the merciful and saving acts of God in history. (Deut. 4:31; 2 Chronicles 30:9; Nehemiah 9:17; Ps 78:38; 86:16; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; John 4:7 These verses show images of God who demonstrates “womb – like compassion” for her child Israel.
• God creator is sometimes depicted as woman giving birth and sometimes a reproductive image of God as both male and female: Deut 32:18; Job 38:28 – 29; Is 42:14; Acts 17; John 16:21; Gal 4:19; Rom 8:22; John 1:12
Nursing mother:
• Isaiah 49:15 does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son (daughter) of her womb
• Numbers 11:12 was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom like a nurse with a baby at the breast
• Psalm 131:2 – 3 But I have clamed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul within me is like a weaned child.
• John 7: 38 From his breast shall flow the fountains of living water
• 1 Peter 2:2 – 3 You are newborn and like babies you should be hungry for nothing but milk – now that you have tasted the goodness of Christ
Nurturing God – mother:
• Gen 1 :2 nesting mother
• Deut 32 : 11 – 12 mother eagle
• Hosea 11:34 I myself taught Ephram to walk, I took them in my arms
• Hosea 13: 8 I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs
• Psalm 131 image of repose – like a child in its mother’s arms as content as a child that has been weaned
• Ps 17:8 guard me in the shadow of your wings
• Ps 36:7 all people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings
• Ps 57:1 in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge
• Ps 61:4 find refuge under the shelter of your wings
• Isaiah 31:5 like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem
• Isaiah 46:3 – 4 who have been borne by me from your birth carried from the womb… even when you turn gray, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear, I will carry and will save
• Isaiah 66: 10 –13 comforting mother…… as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you
• Luke 15:8 woman tirelessly sweeping for her lost coin, for what is important to her
• Luke 13: 34 (Matt 23:37), how often I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings
Other images:
• Ruah – Gen 2:7, Ps 104: 29; Jn 3:8 presence gives life; feminine Hebrew word meaning breath, wind, inspiration or spirit.
• Rahamin Hebrew word for compassion – root word, rahan, means womb.
• El Shaddai – God of the mountains or God of the breasts
• Seamstress – Gen 3:21
• Washerwoman Isaiah 4:4, Psalm 51:7
• Midwife Psalm 22:9 – 11, Psalm 71:6; Isaiah 66:9
• Woman baking bread Matt 13:33
• Seeks justice Proverbs 8:18
*I’m pretty sure I originally derived this list from somewhere, though now I forget where. If you know where, please share in the comments and I’ll attribute.
Recommended Reading if you want to explore the feminine imagery of God more fully:
In Memory of Her by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (Feminist)
Is It Okay to Call God “Mother”?: Considering the Feminine Face of God by Paul R. Smith (Evangelical)
Embracing Jesus and the Goddess: A Radical Call for Spiritual Sanity by Carl McColman (Episcopagan)
Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power by Rita Nakashima Brock (Womanist)
Revelation of Love by Julian of Norwich (Contemplative Catholic)
She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson (Feminist)
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain (a general literary-historical investigation)
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd (Post-evangelical, post-Mainline)
The Maternal Face of God by Leonardo Boff (Catholic-Liberationist)
The Unknown She: Eight Faces of an Emerging Consciousness by Hilary Hart (Perennial)
Is it possible the feminine imagery here is describing many different things? Some cases it is about creation itself, not God. In other cases it is about attributes of God (like his wisdom and compassion). Still at other times it is about the way God acts – he is a creative God and the one who generated all life that exists. Is there a difference in saying God is feminine or has a feminine image and saying he embraces the qualities of both males and females? Sometimes we try to find balance by swinging the pendulum so far the other way that we knock a ton of other truths out of the way in the process. It is important we embrace the whole picture and not just part. We have probably been guilty of neglecting some of these verses, swinging the pendulum too far the other way. It is good when we can embrace all truth even when there is tension in doing so. Thanks for the list.
Mike this is awesome, thanks!
All I want to say here is, “Yes, but….”.
And there are too many “buts” for me to pick one.
Yes, but God is indefinable by human definitions. To try and do so is to limit a limitless God!
Yes, but in the beginning God created man in His image; male and female He created them. God encompasses all that is male and all that is female because He took woman out of man.
Yes, but to try and make God female is to make Him less than all that He is.
Yes, but you cannot separate the aspects of God. The whole concept of the Trinity gets wobbly when we try and separate the three Persons. They cannot be separated just as the maleness and femaleness of God cannot be separated out. Even in the passages that were cited, in context, almost all of them also point to other aspects of God.
I am not a scholar and am probably treading in waters well over my head in this blog. But I know that I know what I know. God is God and He is more interested in how much we know Him than in how much we know about Him.
I love the fact that God has so much in His word for me to identify with as a woman. I love the fact that He has so much in His word for me to understand about men. There is so much wealth of knowledge within the pages of Scripture to keep my intellect fascinated for eternity…. and yet it is my heart that He says fascinates Him. That is an aspect of God that will draw all people to Himself, male or female, if we get it.
Maybe I am just simple. For me there has never been a conflict as to the gender of God. He is male but a complete male: one that contains all of the aspects of both human genders. We are made in His image… we are like Him… but He is definitely not like us!
Donna, this post does not appear to me at all to be “trying to make God female.” Neither is it trying to “limit a limitless God.” Instead, it explores the multitudinous feminine images that appear alongside the masculine images of God in the Bible.
In saying that God is male, are you not doing the very thing you fault this post for doing? Does not making God male limit God? When God uses so many metaphors for Godself that are feminine, are you not trying to separate out an aspect of God by insisting that God is male?
And what exactly does it mean to say, “God is male, but a complete male: one that contains all the aspects of both human genders”? Are you saying that maleness is more “complete” than femaleness? In that case, what is the female? An incomplete male?
Are you saying that maleness, to be “complete,” must also contain femaleness? In that case, what does it mean to speak of “maleness” at all, as juxtaposed to “femaleness”?
I think it makes more sense to say what Genesis 1:26 says, that God made humans in God’s image, male and female– that humanity, both male and female, is a reflection of God’s image. It makes sense to differentiate between what we mean by “male and female,” and what we mean by “masculine and feminine.” As far as “masculine and feminine” (the attributes), the Bible is clear that God contains both. As far as “male and female,” (the physiology), the Bible is clear that God is neither.
So, if I’m reading you correctly: to call God a female is to limit God. To call God a male does NOT limit God, because only males can be complete?
If God made women so incomplete that they can’t even be complete people, I don’t think they’d have been called upon so often to do God’s work, in the Bible and in the present day.
What a fascinating thread! From my baseline reading of Scripture, the only Person in the Trinity that takes on any gender in the human sense is God the Son. Both God the Father and the Holy Spirit remain genderless in the “created, human” sense.
I also would like to point out that Adam’s companionlessness is the first thing that that God declares “not good”, and this declaration happens *before* the fall. Combined with the rabbbinical definition of ‘good’ (life begetting life), we can see that fallenness or evil is not a direct definer or counter-point of goodness….
From an explicit Trinitarian reading of Scripture, one can see parallels between the timing of Woman out of Man and the Son out of the Father…. we may be confusing sexuallity with “different, but of the same essence”, a Nicene orthodox Trinitarian truth which can inform purdiscussion of gender….
I’m not sure if this is covered, but Mike, be sure to include that Jesus is Sophia in Paul’s thought – See 1 Co. 1.24-30.