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From: mmc@zeppo.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: God's gender and name - (nf)
Message-ID: <1053@zeppo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Dec-83 10:28:10 EST
Article-I.D.: zeppo.1053
Posted: Thu Dec 15 10:28:10 1983
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#R:ssc-vax:-66200:zeppo:24000003:000:1160
zeppo!mmc    Dec 15 10:27:00 1983

In the Hebrew language, all nouns have gender (either masculine or
feminine).  However, some nouns can have either gender--the Bible has
several examples of this.  Moreover, there are irregularities in which
nouns with feminine forms are grammatically masculine, and vice versa.
Typically, the names of God are treated as nouns of masculine gender.

However, one should not confuse gender with sex.  In my experience and
to my knowledge, God is not referred to in Jewish religious writings as
a <male person> (as opposed to an <entity whose names are grammatically
masculine>), except in analogies and poetic imagery.  Traditional
Jewish teachings (e.g., Maimonides' writings) emphasize that such such
figures of speech are not to be taken literally:  a fundamental
principle of traditional Judaism as I understand it is that God is not
a "body" (corporeal entity, if you like), nor does God have even the
"form of a body".  This principle is expressed in precisely these terms
in the daily liturgy.  Expressions such as "the hand of God", "the
voice of God", etc., are to be taken as human reactions to human
experiences or conceptions of God.

	Mark Chodrow