- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I had recently heard some discussion about whether the Holy Ghost was female. Traditionally, in both literature and art, Wisdom is always portrayed as a woman.
The idea makes me smile. Beam even.
Any thoughts?
There is a LONG tradition of that belief, going way back into the Old Testament. There even is a solid theory that one of the major plot lines in the Bible is the political conflict between one faction that worshipped God as both male and female and another that worshipped God as solely male. The goddess faction lost, obviously. We don’t have it fleshed out adequately still, pun intended, but the idea of Heavenly Mother is a huge step toward acknowledging that the victory so long ago wasn’t a good thing.
The book “the shack” depicts the holy spirit as being female. The book is fictional but it explores some doctinal concepts.
Proverbs 8 refers to wisdom as a person and the gender of the pronoun is female. From vs 23-36 the indication is that she was with God at the creation so when I taught GD one Sunday I suggested that She was either the HG or Heavenly Mother. It was at the end of the class so there was no discussion but I think it gave people something to think about. I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit had no body. Now I wonder if SHE has a body .. But long ago it made someone uncomfortable and Her body got edited. I’m just sittin’ and grinnin’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherahhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah” class=”bbcode_url”> This subject came up during the Bible’s Buried Secrets on NOVA.
FWIW, it’s not clear that first-century Christians thought of the “Spirit of God” or the “Holy Spirit” as an anthropomorphic being at all, let alone male or female. There are clues that they might have, for example, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. Another case for it is the use of the masculine pronoun ‘he’ when referring to the Comforter.
But there are probably more clues that the Holy Spirit was seen more as a power than a being. The Holy Spirit never speaks; unlike devils cast out by Jesus. The Greek word for ‘spirit’ is the same as ‘breath’ or ‘wind’; indicating more of an essence than a person. And most of all, the context of the ‘spirit’ is almost always as an attribute of godliness, as in, “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9).
On Own Now wrote:FWIW, it’s not clear that first-century Christians thought of the “Spirit of God” or the “Holy Spirit” as an anthropomorphic being at all, let alone male or female.
There are clues that they might have, for example, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”. Another case for it is the use of the masculine pronoun ‘he’ when referring to the Comforter.
But there are probably more clues that the Holy Spirit was seen more as a power than a being. The Holy Spirit never speaks; unlike devils cast out by Jesus. The Greek word for ‘spirit’ is the same as ‘breath’ or ‘wind’; indicating more of an essence than a person. And most of all, the context of the ‘spirit’ is almost always as an attribute of godliness, as in, “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9).
That seems to be the case with the Lectures on Faith. It described the holy spirit as the shared mind of God and Jesus. This was later supplanted with the D&C verse that talks about the HG having a body of spirit. This was also a significant reason why the Lectures on Faith were removed from our church canon.
Roy wrote:[That seems to be the case with the Lectures on Faith. It described the holy spirit as the shared mind of God and Jesus. This was later supplanted with the D&C verse that talks about the HG having a body of spirit. This was also a significant reason why the Lectures on Faith were removed from our church canon.
Which is why the D&C should just be called “Covenants” The Doctrine part of D&C was the Lectures on Faith, and the Covenants part is what we have left. BTW, everyone should read the Lectures on Faith, it will give you a good background on how much our Doctrine has changed since Joseph Smith’s time.
Lectures on Faith is a fascinating read, but it isn’t critical to understanding that doctrine has changed since Joseph’s time – or that doctrine changing since then isn’t a bad thing. Given the two options (major changes or no changes), I will take major changes every day – and more than twice on Sunday.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.