Jewish Religion: How Does Society Influence God's Identity?

Women are often assigned to something that illustrates weakness and lower in rank than men, and men are always regarded as individuals that is high in rank and possess the strength. According to Marshall (2004, as cited in Ng, Yee, Chong, Lee, & Ahmad Tarmizi, 2013) it is reported that males are always seem as people with independent characters and carrying the important roles in everything they do whereas the females are always be referred to dependent characters in which they always come after men in almost everything. It also happens in language usage in which "man" always take the lead in our language (e.g., male generic, male occupational terms, etc.).

Men have been stereotyped as dominant, strong, brave and aggressive. Also there is an image of men being portrayed as harder workers than women and supposedly the more intelligent gender.

Our world has been a male dominated society from the beginning of time. In most cultures, especially in ancient times, women were thought of as secondary to their male counterparts. Women were considered a possession just as a house or piece of property is considered a possession. The role of women in these early societies did not receive an education but was to take care of the household and have children. The women of the Minoan and Mycenaean ancient Greece cultures held much more roles than homemakers and mothers; they were allowed more freedoms and rights also oracles, priestesses, and political advisors yet they are also seen by men as nothing more than a mere possession.

The Jews indeed, but also some of our own people, supposed that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance. But the philosophers despise these stories as fabulous and formed in the likeness of poetic fictions.

We start out with the use of the male dominated language in the Bible. Much of the development of Christianity has been primarily mostly by men, so our understanding of Christianity and the Bible may come from a more masculine perspective. Mainly men today translated the vast majority of Bibles available. To be honest, I never really gave this topic much thought as an adult before because I just assumed the obvious, that God is a male. All my life, from my parents, extended family, friends and church, this is what I have always been taught and exposed to. This just comes to show that the Bible just enforces the picture in our minds of a male figure since the beginning of time and in turn, we teach our future generations the same. Japinga states that,

It wasn’t until the Greek and Roman empires that gender roles in society really started to widen the gap between males and females. The combination of a growing belief of women as servants and the impact of mythology on culture culminated in a “gender specific code of conduct” (Evans). In Greek mythology (coincidentally written by men), the Hesiod’s Theogony (The Birth of the Gods) played a tremendous role in the status of man and woman (Mason). In Theogony (The Birth of the Gods), Prometheus lives in a world of only men where life was great. There was no work and all leisure. Prometheus makes the Gods

Feminists argue that women’s oppression is shown in almost every religion as they criticise that in almost all the religions, the gods are male although Karen Armstrong holds strong arguments against this and shows that from the start were not always about male dominance. The earth mother was a women/goddess and female priesthoods were found throughout the east around 6000

Gender can be described as “the social attributes associated with being a woman or a man in a particular society” (Woodward, 2000, pp.47) A person’s gender is then determined by their sex which is “a biological classification”. (Woodward, 2000, pp.47) As gender is a social attribute the identities of people of different genders vary from society to society. For example, in many religions, women do not have place in the rituals of the religion as it is simply only for men to do. (Chryssides and Geaves, 2013, pp.331) As religions were formed in certain cultures this shows a clear divide caused by gender roles based on the cultural origin of the religion but also shows that this has an impact on the identities of the male and female members of the religion. This being that the males feel they have more authority over the females of the religion.

For thousands of years there has been a strong distinction between the roles of men and women. Often times in stories there will be women that are only mentioned for their beauty and charisma. Hardly ever will you see pages upon pages being spent talking about the true character and accomplishments of women characters. Even though stories like The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis were written thousands of year ago, (when stories were told mostly told from a males perspective) the light shined on women in the texts show them as wise, strong, and greatly influential beings. In The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of  Genesis, the writer shows the women as bringers of knowledge,  guidance, and care to the men in the texts that are lacking thereof.

In the Hebrew Bible, a significant section where this idea can be seen is in the beginning with the story of Adam and Eve, specifically in Genesis 4. When Eve is manipulated to eat the forbidden fruit, it poses the idea that the suffering of humankind was caused by a woman, showing the idea that woman react without consideration or senselessly, when really Eve was only acting on a very human trait, curiosity. When Eve convinces Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, one of gods punishment to Eve is “Your man shall be your longing, and rule over you” (p.97). Or when God describes Eve as “his woman”, God is essentially saying she is not her own independent person and is meant to be owned by men. This passage alone shows that women are viewed as people that were meant to be controlled; that men were always meant to be above them.

Gender gives you power; males are considered more powerful in comparison to women as a result of their physical makeup. People also mistake what the Bible conveys about the male and female relationships. In the Bible, God states that men should be the head of the house and are responsible for anyone in his household; while women should take care and bring up the children and support the man. God intended this to be a balance of power between soft and strong. The Bible states in Ephesians 5:23-33 “Wives be subject to your husband.. Husbands love your wives.. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as they love their own bodies..He who loves his own wife loves himself;..” However, countless people misinterpret this description-because they

In Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, God is named simply as God. There is nothing but God at first and so there is no reason to call him anything but God. It isn’t until Genesis 1:27 that God is first referred to as a male, a detail that seems intentional considering how God is mentioned almost every verse and yet isn’t assigned gender until pretty far into the story. Even the verse before has God saying “ Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”(Genesis 1:26). This could refer to God as being more than one person, as in older times when people in the area were likely polytheists, or it could represent a reluctance to assign

Women: women deserve so much more respect than we give them. Here is a history lesson for all: Pagan religions, such as Nordic, dating before the birth of Christ introduce goddesses as having the same stature as gods. In Nordic mythology, Odin is known as the all-father and subsequently his wife Freya does not fall short of her role as the wife of the all-father. Freya, for those who do not know, presides over the afterlife realm Folkvang, and according to one Old Norse poem, she chooses half of the warriors slain in battle to dwell there. Parallels can be made to other pagan religions, such as Native American and Greek, where women share the same high stature. As we can see, women at one point had more power than ever. Then came the introduction

The one with the most opportunities. In some areas, that is the case. In the rural area of Pakistan, women are stripped of opportunities such as owning property, credit, and a proper education due to the fact that they are women. Imagine the endless possibilities they would be able to achieve if they were empowered just as the males in their community were. With no boundaries, reaching their peak potential of empowerment is inevitable.  Just as Athena was known for her intelligence, wisdom and calm temperament; so can a woman embody these qualities. Strong women build strong foundations for others to branch upon. It is often shown that a goddess is just as strong as her male counterpart. Be it in strength, speed, or wit, every god has its version of itself personified as a woman. They are an important part of mythology, as it weren't for them, many of the beloved gods wouldn't have been born. Even the earth itself, Gaea, wouldn't have been a possibility if it weren't for the wonderful miracle that women

Feminine power has long struck awe into the very heart of humanity. From modern believers in a single female God to the early Pagan religions, which considered every woman a goddess due to the mysterious and god-like power of the “sacred feminine” to create life, people of various faiths and time periods have revered the powers of womanhood. In traditional American culture, however, women are supposedly powerless and fragile, and men supposedly have both physical and political power. Is this true for modern society? Are our gender roles such that women are fragile and powerless, despite the historical prevalence of faith in the mysterious and creative powers of the female? Or are men fragile, and is modern feminine power not diminished