I had a post I was working on that got completely lost so this is only a limited memory of it (I have a short term memory of about 5 seconds thanks to a stroke):
I have a dear friend who is a feminist scholar on the Torah and the Christian Old Testament. And yes, she is able to read Hebrew. She and multiple other feminist Jewish scholars (yes, there are quite a few) have argued that there IS, in fact, a feminine face of God in both texts that is most clear in Hebrew versions. Known as Sophia (wisdom), She represents the feminine side of God & is very different from the patriarchal one.
Unfortunately, it has been a long time since I have read Jewish feminist texts on Sophia (I am 74 now & got my doctorate 28 years ago...in communications).
Please search Google (better yet, DuckDuckGo.com) for the following terms:
Feminist scholarship Judaism
You will find a plethora of articles on Jewish feminism and their take on the feminine face of God.
Meanwhile you might find this prose poem of mine that has a very different take on creation and Eve's POV on God/Yahweh and the creation story that grew out of my readings in feminist Jewish scholarship to which my friend pointed me along with the Foucouldian theories on communication I was studying at the time.
This was ages and ages ago. It's just a farcical trip through a very different view on the Creation story--that is, Eve's point of view!
Serpentine Meditations on Power/Knowledge
https://a-room-of-my-own.medium.com/serpentine-meditations-on-power-knowledge-bfd88d98572a
Sample text:
I had a post I was working on that got completely lost so this is only a limited memory of it (I have a short term memory of about 5 seconds thanks to a stroke):
I have a dear friend who is a feminist scholar on the Torah and the Christian Old Testament. And yes, she is able to read Hebrew. She and multiple other feminist Jewish scholars (yes, there are quite a few) have argued that there IS, in fact, a feminine face of God in both texts that is most clear in Hebrew versions. Known as Sophia (wisdom), She represents the feminine side of God & is very different from the patriarchal one.
Unfortunately, it has been a long time since I have read Jewish feminist texts on Sophia (I am 74 now & got my doctorate 28 years ago...in communications).
Please search Google (better yet, DuckDuckGo.com) for the following terms:
Feminist scholarship Judaism
You will find a plethora of articles on Jewish feminism and their take on the feminine face of God.
Meanwhile you might find this prose poem of mine that has a very different take on creation and Eve's POV on God/Yahweh and the creation story that grew out of my readings in feminist Jewish scholarship to which my friend pointed me along with the Foucouldian theories on communication I was studying at the time.
This was ages and ages ago. It's just a farcical trip through a very different view on the Creation story--that is, Eve's point of view!
Serpentine Meditations on Power/Knowledge
Opening lines:
The Serpent was right.
Crafty as s/he was, s/he knew what that old fart Yahweh was up to. That worm could slither through the hidden spaces in Creation with abandon; s/he saw and heard it all, saw that old fart Yahweh bind and gag Mother, swallow Her up and eat Her whole, then act as if She never existed.
Yahweh envied Mother’s creative power, wanted it for himself, and so he swallowed Her, believing, like the cannibals, that one takes on the power of the beings one eats.
He’s been belly-aching ever since.
https://a-room-of-my-own.medium.com/serpentine-meditations-on-power-knowledge-bfd88d98572a
Of course that is MY FICTIONAL creation story using ideas I've borrowed from feminist religious scholarship. With a big dose of humor.
Hope you enjoy it.
(PS I am a Quaker, as is my friend who pointed me in this direction. I haven't communicated with her for a while, unfortunately. Me and my awful memory. Quakers are all over the map on religion. They've even admitted my former husband, an avowed atheist, as a member in an Oregon Meeting. There's a pretty extensive set of interviews you have to go through to get membership.)
