ON THIS PAGE Introduction
Is God Male Or Female?
Clarifying the Word “Anthropos” Introduction: In answering the question, "Is God male or female," it is important to note that God did not appear in physical form anywhere in the Bible. Gods own words are "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." [Exodus 33:20] "You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below." (Deuteronomy 4:15-18)
In fact a visual image of God is strictly forbidden in Scripture. The second commandment says "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Ex. 20:4-6)
The reason for the prohibition stems from the nature of God as Spirit and thus without material form. As shown from the verse from Deuteronomy 4 quoted above, the prohibition includes human forms - both male and female. Is God Male Or Female?
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-male-female.html In examining Scripture, two facts become clear: First, that God is a Spirit, and does not possess human characteristics or limitations; second, that all the evidence contained in Scripture agrees that God revealed Himself to mankind in a male form. First of all, God’s true nature needs to be understood. God is a person, obviously, because God exhibits all the characteristics of personhood: God has a mind, a will, an intellect, and emotions. God communicates, has relationships, and God’s personal actions are evidenced throughout Scripture. As John 4:24 states, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Since God is a spiritual being, God does not possess physical, human characteristics; however, sometimes figurative language used in Scripture assigns human characteristics to God in order to make it possible for man to understand God. This assignment of human characteristics to describe God is called “anthropomorphism.” Anthropomorphism is simply a means for God (a spiritual being) to communicate truth about His nature to mankind, a physical being. Since man is a physical being, man is limited in his understanding of those things beyond the physical realm, and anthropomorphism in Scripture helps man to understand who God is. Some of the difficulty comes in examining the fact that man is created in God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27 says “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
What this means, is that both man and woman are created in the image of God, in that they are greater than all the other creations as they, like God, have a mind, will, intellect, emotions, and moral capacity. Animals do not possess a moral capacity, and do not possess an immaterial component like mankind does. Genesis tells us that when man was created by God, God breathed the “breath of life” into man. No other creation is described this way, and that “breath of life” is the spiritual component that man alone possesses. God created man to have a relationship with Him; man is the only creation designed for that purpose, and that “breath of life” is evidence of that. Being made in the image of God has nothing to do with physical characteristics. That said, man and woman are only patterned after the image of God—they are not tiny “carbon copies” of God, and the fact that there are men and women does not require that God have male and female features, or that God be a woman. Being made in the image of God has nothing to do with physical characteristics. Although God is a spiritual being, and does not possess physical characteristics, this does not limit how He may choose to reveal Himself to mankind. Scripture contains all the revelation God gave to man about Himself, and so is the only really objective source of information about God. In looking at what Scripture tells us, there are several observations of evidence about the form in which God revealed Himself to mankind: To begin with, Scripture contains almost 170 references to God as the “Father.” By necessity, one cannot be a father unless he is male. If what was meant to be communicated was that God chose to be revealed to man in a female form, then the word “mother” would have occurred in these places, not “father.” In the Old and New Testament both, masculine pronouns are used over and over again in reference to God. Deuteronomy 34:10 has this to say about Moses, who wrote the first five books of Scripture, the Pentateuch: “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,”
This verse describes how close Moses’ relationship with God was. Since Moses walked so closely with God, we can be assured that Moses has probably recorded the nature of God and the means by which He revealed Himself to Moses accurately. Moses referred to God with masculine pronouns and with masculine titles in all of his writings. Jesus Christ referred to God as the Father several times, and in other cases used masculine pronouns in reference to God. In the Gospels alone, Christ uses the term “Father” in direct reference to God nearly 160 times. Of particular interest is Christ’s statement in John 10:30. He says here, “I and [my] Father are one.” Obviously Jesus Christ came in the form of a human man to die on the cross as payment for the sins of the world, and like God the Father, was revealed to mankind in a male form. Scripture records numerous other instances where Christ utilized masculine nouns and pronouns in reference to God. The New Testament Epistles (From Acts to Revelation) also contain nearly 900 verses where the word “theos”—a masculine noun in the Greek—is used in direct reference to God. In most cases, this is rendered “God” in English versions. In countless references to God in Scripture, there is clearly a consistent pattern of Him being referred to with masculine titles, nouns and pronouns. While God is not a man, but is a Spirit, He chose a masculine form in order to reveal Himself to mankind. Likewise, Jesus Christ, who is constantly referred to with masculine titles, nouns and pronouns took a male form while He walked on the earth. The prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament refer to both God and Jesus Christ with masculine names and titles. God chose to be revealed in this form in order for man to more easily grasp who God is. To assert that God chose a female form to be revealed to man is not consistent with the pattern established by Scripture. Again, had God chosen a feminine form, there would be more evidence in Scripture of that. That evidence simply does not exist. While God makes allowances in order to help mankind understand Him, it is important to not try to “force God into a box” so to speak, by placing limitations on Him that are not appropriate to the nature of who He is. [1] Clarifying Anthropos Feminists also assert that the word anthropos always means “human being” and is therefore gender neutral when it refers to Christ. However the facts show other wise. The following point are made by Michael D. Marlowe in an article entitled The Ambiguity of 'Anthropos' It is argued that a Greek-speaking person of the first century would not perceive any male connotation in the word anthropos, because the only word which conveyed the sense "male human being" in Greek was anēr. And therefore we ought to avoid the ambiguous word "man" when translating anthropos…. Anthropos is a Greek word which is often used in a gender-inclusive sense, especially in its plural forms. … the singular anthropos is often used as a collective term (like the English "mankind") which obviously is meant to include both males and females. This is the element of truth which lends plausibility to the assertions mentioned above. But it is a half-truth. The other half of the truth is that when anthropos is used in reference to a particular individual, that individual is always male. But anthropos is not used in reference to an individual female. (3) Whenever a particular person is introduced as an anthropos, that person is invariably male. If the person is female, the word gyne (woman) is used instead. In this respect then, the word anthropos has the same range of meaning as the English word "man," which can be used in a gender-neutral inclusive sense, or as the ordinary word for "male human being," and, like anthropos, it is never used in reference to an individual woman. The idea that "man" is somehow unsuitable as an equivalent for anthropos because it has this ambiguity is therefore completely wrong-headed, because anthropos has the very same kind of ambiguity in Greek as does the word "man" in English. The usage of anthropos indicates that it has not only a specific masculine sense in certain contexts, but also that a Greek-speaking person of the apostolic era would presume that anyone who is called an anthropos is male. This may be seen in the following examples from the New Testament: Matthew 19:5 "Therefore shall an anthropos leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife." (also in Ephesians 5:31) Matthew 19:10 "If such is the case of an anthropos with his wife, it is better not to marry." I Corinthians 7:1 "It is good for an anthropos not to touch a woman."
Obviously in these places one cannot maintain that anthropos is a strictly gender-neutral word, such as the English word "person." Even if such a gender-neutral word existed in Greek, the authors would not have used it in these contexts, any more than we would say, "it is good for a human being not to touch a woman." This would imply that we did not consider a woman to be a human being. But we have no trouble understanding the usage of anthropos in these places if we recognize that the word (in the singular) had such a masculine connotation or valence that Greek-speaking people would expect the referent to be male. [2]
The issue is clarified even further in Jack W. Cottrell’s book… Gender Roles & the Bible: Creation, the Fall, & Redemption: A Critique of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. “Feminists claim that Jesus is not described with the Greek words for “male” but rather is called anthropos, which means “human being” rather than “male”. They conclude that we are therefore not intended to think of Jesus as a male but simply as a generic human being. This argument, however, is faulty from the beginning because it is based on incorrect data and an incorrect understanding of the term in question. The following points will make this clear. First, the claim or implication that Jesus is described in Scripture only as anthropos and never with the words meaning “male” is simply false. It is true that anthropos is applied to Jesus more often… about 32 times. But in fact two words that mean specifically “male” i.e. anēr and arsen are also applied to Him in the Biblical text. Anēr is used six times in unequivocal references to Jesus: John 1:30, Luke 24:19, Acts 2:22, Acts 17:31, 2 Corinthians 11:2, and Revelation 21:2. In John 1:30 the Baptist says, “After me comes a Man [anēr] who has a higher rank that I, for He existed before me.” Here pre-existence is attributed to Jesus in His maleness. In Acts 2:22 Peter refers to “Jesus the Nazarene, a man [anēr] attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs,” a man nailed to a cross but raised up again by God (verses 23-24). Here the male Jesus is approved by God and is crucified and raised up again for our salvation. In Acts 17:31 Paul says that God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man [anēr] whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Here Jesus is raised from the dead as a male and he will judge the world as a male. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, I betrothed you to one husband [anēr] that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.” Here our present relationship to Christ is as a male and so it will be at the Second Coming.
The word arsēn is used in three texts. Luke 2:23 cites an Old Testament requirement and refers it to Christ: “Every first-born male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.” Revelation 12, in a symbolic scene that can be referring only to the Incarnation of Jesus, uses this word twice. Verse 5 says that the “woman clothed with the sun” (v.1) “gave birth to a son, a male [arsēn] child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” Verse 13 refers again to the “woman who gave birth to the male [arsēn] child”. This is a total of nine references to Jesus with terms that emphasize his maleness.
Someone may still say that anthropos is used more frequently that the terms for “male” (32 vs. 9). Is this not significant? No, it is not. For one thing, some of the 32 uses of anthropos are parallel passages in the gospels. More importantly, all but six of these 32 references are quotations of statements by uninspired people. But that still leaves six of these terms by divinely inspired persons: John the Baptist (John 1:30), Peter on Pentecost (Acts 2:22), Paul at Mars Hill (acts 17:31) and in 1 Corinthians 11:2; and the Apostle John (revelation 12:5, 13). This means that of statements spoken with divine authority , the number is exactly even” six use anthropos, and six use the terms for “male.” We do not dispute the fact that the six inspired references to Jesus as anthropos make significant theological points. But does this mean that this term is deliberately chosen to emphasize Christ’s humanness rather than his maleness? This can hardly be the case, especially in view of the heavy theological concepts and soteriological events associated with Christ as male in the six passages where anēr and arsēn are used. [3]
End Notes [1] http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Believer's%20Corner/Doctrines/is_god_male_or_female.htm [2] http://www.bible-researcher.com/anthropos.html [3] Jack W. Cottrell. Gender Roles & the Bible: Creation, the Fall, & Redemption: A Critique of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Pgs 156-158 |
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