Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Leave it to the New York Times to carry political correctness to the highest possible heights (pun intended) such as featuring an op-ed that questions whether God is a transgender.
According to Newsbusters, the August 12 article was written by Rabbi Mark Sameth who expounded upon his eight-year-old theory that “counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel…was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity.
He claims that “the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, offers a highly elastic view of gender.” For example, Adam and Eve, and other biblical figures had “well-expressed gender fluidity” according to his interpretation of Scripture.
“And I do mean highly elastic: In Genesis 3:12, Eve is referred to as ‘he.’ In Genesis 9:21, after the flood, Noah repairs to ‘her’ tent. Genesis 24:16 refers to Rebecca as a ‘young man.’ And Genesis 1:27 refers to Adam as ‘them’. Surprising, I know.”
He lists other examples such as Esther 2:7 when Mordecai is pictured nursing his niece Esther and Isaiah 49:23 where the future kings of Israel are prophesied to be “nursing kings.”
The rabbi claims that‘these aren’t typos.
“In the ancient world, well-expressed gender fluidity was the mark of a civilized person. Such a person was considered more godlike.” He goes on to cite the neighboring cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt, where “the gods were thought of as gender-fluid, and human beings were considered reflections of the gods.”
Samath first published these cockamamie ideas in an article appearing in a journal for Reform rabbis in 2008 in which he explains: “The four-Hebrew-letter name of God, which scholars refer to as the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was probably not pronounced ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh,’ as some have guessed. The Israelite priests would have read the letters in reverse as Hu/Hi — in other words, the hidden name of God was Hebrew for “He/She.” Counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel — the God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong — was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a duel-gendered deity.”
One of the main problems with this reasoning is the fact that God is spirit, meaning He doesn’t have a gender – so that pretty much destroys Samath’s theory right out of the gate.
However, as Newsbuster’s Matthew Balan points out, another major problem with Samath’s scriptural interpretation is that it ignores the fact that the Hebrews frequently found themselves “in major trouble with God” whenever they borrowed from the faith of their pagan neighbors. Judging from the number of times the Hebrews resorted to pagan worship and found themselves in exile or wandering the desert, God didn’t think too highly of the allegedly gender-fluid gods of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
The fact that the New York Times even published such an article is proof that today’s liberal media will go to any length to promote its “progressive” ideology – even to the point of utterly embarrassing themselves.
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