Marital Status Of God

[Thinking]

I happened to again read the essay on Becoming Like God and wondered what many of the posters think about God's gender and marital status.

[Jeanne]

1. I voted "other" because I just don't know.  I find God and the spirit in nature and music for which there is a great spirituality for me.  I have seen sunrises in the deserts and sunsets by the ocean..music has been my life and writing is how I learn about myself.  So gender or whatever just doesn't matter to me.

[Russell C McGregor]

As someone who reads the Bible and believes what he reads, I'm inclined to take Jesus at His word, when he consistently calls God "Father." So that settles the gender question.

So why was the poll constructed without a "one or more" option? Was that intentional, or is Thinking going to have a "D'oh!" moment?

 

[BlueDreams]

The ultimate image of God, to me is a man and woman in complete union. So God is married and the image of God is male and female; Mother and Father. Ergo God can reference one or the other or both. I believe we tend to gender god as "he" because of tradition that is incomplete, male dominated, and severely reduced female influence and roles for millenia....as well as general custom. I also believe that ultimately we worship a divine family per se moreso than a triune male focused God. It would also be safe to assume that Heavenly Mother is something that I feel could use more restoring.

I don't know how many wives or husbands either has. My soul feeling is that they are equal numerically as they are in power, dominian, etc....So 1 and 1 each, since it is the divine rule where polygyny and at times polyandry were commanded exceptions.    

 

With luv,

BD

Edited December 17, 2015 by BlueDreams

[Ahab]

I recommend that you hire a professional pollster if you ever want to do a good poll. You didn't allow for multiple correct answers amidst some really bad answers. And you also didn't give any good context for the word God.

God is a word that can refer to ANY person who is the same kind of being as our Father in heaven, which would include ALL of us, or more selectively to only the best of our kind of being.  Very often we use the word to refer to our Father,  and/or Jesus Christ, and/or the Holy Ghost/Spirit, but the word applies equally well to everyone who is the same kind of being they are. 

It would probably be best if you would just avoid doing polls in the future.

[Thinking]

6 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

So why was the poll constructed without a "one or more" option? Was that intentional, or is Thinking going to have a "D'oh!" moment?

What do you mean?

[Mystery Meat]

1 minute ago, Thinking said:

What do you mean?

He means that a lot of us do not have a strong position on if God has more than one wife, but don't really care one way or the other. We can't pick one wife and we can't pick two. So we just don't vote.

[Russell C McGregor]

2 minutes ago, Thinking said:

What do you mean?

I mean, the first two options are:

• God is male, married and has exactly one wife.
• God is male, married and has at least two wives.

Where is the middle option? Why isn't there a choice that says "God is male, married, and has one or more wives"?

Didn't you "think" of that, or did you deliberately decide not to offer it?

 

[Zakuska]

Praying to the Female "God" in the Bible... "The Lords Prayer"

 

Among the many pearls of truth that have purposely been concealed from churches and synagogues is the awareness that Elohim is simultaneously God and Goddess. In the original Hebrew of the Bible, Eloah [el-LO-ah], is the feminine form of ‘God.’ This one specific word, Eloah, literally means “Goddess.”

Theologians, motivated by various agendas, deliberately masked profound truths about Elohim [pronounced el-lo-HEEM], the God of the Bible. They intentionally obscured the presence of the Divine Feminine.Even though some of the Hebrew words for God have a distinctly feminine gender, translators have almost universally suppressed this, being unwilling to use the feminine word “Goddess.” They have consistently used only masculine pronouns when referring to God – even when feminine pronouns would have been correct.

Present-day Bible dictionaries and concordances are still biased, and ignore basic Hebrew grammatical rules in translating the various words for Deity. The result is that most Christians and Jews have been mis-taught that God is exclusively male.

Elohim is a majestic, awesome Being that is beyond comprehension. Elohim is translated into English as ‘God.’ It is actually a gender-combined word, simultaneously representing both unity and majestic plurality.It is a compound of the feminine singular Eloah with the masculine plural suffix -im. Eloah is the feminine singular counterpart of El, which means God. Eloah is correctly translated as “Goddess.” In Hebrew, the -oah, -oh or -ah suffix makes a word feminine [comparable to the English suffix -ess, used in such words as waitress and stewardess.]

In Aramaic, the original language of New Testament times, the word Abwoon is similarly gender-combined, meaning “Father-Mother.” In the original Aramaic, ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ begins with the word Abwoon, but in English translations of the Bible, it has been translated as Father, only.

El Shaddai is another name of God used in the Bible. The word ‘shad’ means ‘woman’s breast,’ and ‘shaddai’ means ‘breasts,’ or ‘many breasts.’ Though El Shaddai is translated as ‘God Almighty,’ or ‘the Almighty’ in the English Bible, it literally means ‘God with breasts’ or ‘[many] breasted [God].’ The name El Shaddai refers to the Goddess of Israel.

There is a radically important declaration in Exodus 6:3: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them.” The Patriarchs were aware of the Father [Yahweh], but Elohim related to them primarily as the Goddess, El Shaddai.

The word Eloah appears fifty-seven times in the Old Testament, and Shaddai or El Shaddai appears forty-eight times; two-thirds of these are found in the book of Job. Job lived during the days of Abraham, and Job is the second most ancient book of the Bible. There are two specific declarations of the femininity of Eloah, in Job. The Father announced,  “the sea ‘leapt tumultuous from the womb’.” [Job 38:8] Then, He rhetorically asked, “Out of whose womb came the ice?” [Job 38:29] Obviously there is a Biblical Goddess, Eloah, from whose Divine Womb sprang the sea and ice.

Ruach ha Kodesh is the Hebrew phrase that means ‘Holy Spirit.’ Ruach is feminine, and the Aramaic equivalent ruah is also a feminine noun. These words are always paired with feminine verbs and pronouns.The Holy Spirit is feminine, and is another designation of Eloah. In the original Aramaic texts, Messiah promised: “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that She may dwell with you forever.” [John 14:16]

Wisdom is another name for the Goddess. ‘Wisdom’ is the feminine Hebrew word Hochmah; the equivalent name in Greek is Sophia. Although the word ‘wisdom’ definitely is equated with good judgment and astuteness, Wisdom unmistakably refers to Goddess in several scripture passages, The Messiah said: “Wisdom is proven by Her children.” [Luke 7:35]

Wisdom announces that She was brought forth before the physical creation, and She also assisted in the generative process, alongside Yahweh. “Yahweh created Me, first-fruits of His fashioning, before the oldest of His works. From everlasting I was firmly set – from the beginning, before the earth came into being. The deep was not when I was born, nor were the springs with their abounding waters. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I came to birth; before He had made the earth, the countryside, and the first elements of the world. When He fixed the heavens firm, I was there; when He drew a circle on the surfaces of the deep, when He thickened the clouds above, when the sources of the deep began to swell, when He assigned the sea its boundaries (and the waters will not encroach on the shore), when He traced the foundations of the earth. I was beside the Master Craftsman, delighting Him day after day, ever at play in His presence, to play everywhere on His earth, delighting to be with the children of men.” [Proverbs 8:22-31]

The Bible makes numerous references to the Goddess. It instructs us to praise and worship Her; to offer prayer to Her. “I am one who calls on Goddess and expects an answer.” [Job 12:4]

“Then Shaddai will be all your delight, and you shall lift your face to Eloah. You will pray and She will hear.”[Job 22:26-27]

https://sahajapower.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/eloah-goddess-of-the-bible-you-will-pray-and-she-will-hear-%E2%80%9D/

Edited December 17, 2015 by Zakuska

[Thinking]

4 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

I mean, the first two options are:

• God is male, married and has exactly one wife.
• God is male, married and has at least two wives.

Where is the middle option? Why isn't there a choice that says "God is male, married, and has one or more wives"?

Didn't you "think" of that, or did you deliberately decide not to offer it?

 

6 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

He means that a lot of us do not have a strong position on if God has more than one wife, but don't really care one way or the other. We can't pick one wife and we can't pick two. So we just don't vote.

I felt like one or more would make the poll more confusing. Experience has taught me that no matter what options I include, the last one needs to be other. Choose that option, then explain your position.

[consiglieri]

11 minutes ago, Russell C McGregor said:

I mean, the first two options are:

• God is male, married and has exactly one wife.
• God is male, married and has at least two wives.

Where is the middle option? Why isn't there a choice that says "God is male, married, and has one or more wives"?

Didn't you "think" of that, or did you deliberately decide not to offer it?

 

You also didn't offer the option that God was a homosexual on a prior planet who remained celibate and in the resurrection was made heterosexual and then got married.

 

[Ahab]

All people are God so the options are endless. 

[Thinking]

37 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I recommend that you hire a professional pollster if you ever want to do a good poll. You didn't allow for multiple correct answers amidst some really bad answers. And you also didn't give any good context for the word God.

God is a word that can refer to ANY person who is the same kind of being as our Father in heaven, which would include ALL of us, or more selectively to only the best of our kind of being.  Very often we use the word to refer to our Father,  and/or Jesus Christ, and/or the Holy Ghost/Spirit, but the word applies equally well to everyone who is the same kind of being they are. 

It would probably be best if you would just avoid doing polls in the future.

You're hired. Please rewrite the choices.

[Ahab]

No thank you.  Just don't ever do that again.

[Walden]

I am not a believer of the LDS faith anymore, but when I was I would have answered " God is male, married and has at least two wives." My thought that he is male is likely due to how he is referenced throughout the Bible, how Jesus referred to him as his "Father" and how when we pray to our "father in heaven" I just always envisioned a male.

Likewise, since polygamy was described in D&C 132 as an "everlasting covenant" that was "instituted from before the foundation of the world," and in verse 64 God describes it as "my law,", my thoughts while a believer was that God was a male who practiced polygamy. 

[Thinking]

30 minutes ago, Ahab said:

No thank you.  Just don't ever do that again.

Perhaps you should remember that this is a discussion board and that the polls are there as an extra tool to get a sense for what posters think. There was not nor will there be an attempt to publish the poll as some sort of scientific  study so I think that you need to relax a little bit.

[Ahab]

Lol.  I'm always relaxed,  bro.  I've just been giving you a hard time for my enjoyment while thinking maybe you would appreciate my feedback. 

You know what I think, now, I think.

[JAHS]

I would say God is married and has at least one wife and may or may not have more than one wife.

[JLHPROF]

I went with "God is male, married and has at least two wives." but it is more accurate to say "God is a man and his wives".

It takes ALL of them to be a God.  And why do I think God is a polygamist? - If polygamy is a sometimes law with a sometimes blessing attached, do we really think that there are laws that God never lived or blessings that God never received, but that others do?  Pretty sure God lived EVERY law to become God.

[JAHS]

12 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I went with "God is male, married and has at least two wives." but it is more accurate to say "God is a man and his wives".

It takes ALL of them to be a God.  And why do I think God is a polygamist? - If polygamy is a sometimes law with a sometimes blessing attached, do we really think that there are laws that God never lived or blessings that God never received, but that others do?  Pretty sure God lived EVERY law to become God.

But what about those of us who may some day become a God of our own universe but have only had one wife?

[Russell C McGregor]

2 hours ago, consiglieri said:

You also didn't offer the option that God was a homosexual on a prior planet who remained celibate and in the resurrection was made heterosexual and then got married.

 

(To the tune of Rawhide: )

Keep trollin' trollin' trollin'...

Edited December 18, 2015 by Russell C McGregor
Fix an emoticon

[Russell C McGregor]

2 hours ago, Zakuska said:

Praying to the Female "God" in the Bible... "The Lords Prayer"

 

Among the many pearls of truth that have purposely been concealed from churches and synagogues is the awareness that Elohim is simultaneously God and Goddess. In the original Hebrew of the Bible, Eloah [el-LO-ah], is the feminine form of ‘God.’ This one specific word, Eloah, literally means “Goddess.”

No, it literally doesn't.

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/433.htm

Have you ever tried actually checking the claims of any of these long cut-and-pastes of yours?

The length of which becomes somewhat tedious?

Eloah is a Hebrew MASCULINE and is the singular form of the word "Elohim."

It is the closest Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic Allah.

 

[Russell C McGregor]

1 hour ago, Walden said:

I am not a believer of the LDS faith anymore, but when I was I would have answered " God is male, married and has at least two wives." My thought that he is male is likely due to how he is referenced throughout the Bible, how Jesus referred to him as his "Father" and how when we pray to our "father in heaven" I just always envisioned a male.

Likewise, since polygamy was described in D&C 132 as an "everlasting covenant" that was "instituted from before the foundation of the world," and in verse 64 God describes it as "my law,", my thoughts while a believer was that God was a male who practiced polygamy. 

And yet, all the while you assumed that Joseph Smith (mingling with gods he shall plan for his brethren) never ever practiced polygamy?

Uh, sure.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

But what about those of us who may some day become a God of our own universe but have only had one wife?

Isaiah 4:1

2 Samuel 12:8

Luke 1:35

D&C 132:3

 

[carbon dioxide]

I voted other.  God the Father gender is male.  No resurrected beings are gender shifters.  You are what you are resurrected as.  The Son is also male.   As to the number of wives the Father and Son have we don't know.  It has to be a minimum of one but they could have many.  We don't know.   There should have been an option of "God is male, married to at least one wife and possibly more."