Wisdom and Femininity

The first 2 chapters in Genesis strike me as philosophically profound. In particular, I'd like to explore the meaning of male and female in the ancient Hebrew (perhaps mesopotamian?) worldview.

In the Bible, God is often envisioned as a "He". Why a He? Isn't God as much a "she" or an "It", as a "He"? Yes. But the ancient Hebrew view, and perhaps, an earlier model which it bases itself upon, looked clearly into the distinctions between male and female nature, and came up with a perception that I believe accurately reflects human nature.

Creation is centered around Adam. God "made man". The word "Man" at this point, Adam, in Hebrew, signifies humanity. But then, when he makes "man", the bible uses the word Ish, which refers to the male sex. God made man, and realized that he would be lonely by itself.

The ancient Hebrews, I believe, were reflecting on the power that the male sex wields over the female sex. Essentially, the power in society lies in males. This fundamental power differential is rooted in physical differences. Men are larger, and stronger, than females. Being mammals, we are liable to take advantage of this.

That being the case, still, the ancient Hebrew clearly recognized that man by himself was "not good". In fact, it is very very, very bad. Male nature by itself is insanity. Male nature is endless competition and strife. In fact, the wisdom in social relations is to be found not in the male nature, but female nature. The bible enunciates this by describing Eve (hava, in hebrew, meaning life) as a HELPER. Perhaps a more appropriate designation would be "model". Females embody exactly those traits - cooperation, empathy - that male-kind must look to and recognize a fundamental wisdom in.

Problem is, men do not feel these emotions as clearly as woman do. While empathy, cooperation, comes to females more easily because they are biologically and genetically programmed by evolution to be more attuned to their young - and thus other selves, men often need to actively cultivate empathy and compassion in order to make these traits a stronger factor within their relational repertoire.

I'm not saying everything about the Bibles perception makes sense. I can't quite account for Eve's "misperception", or dalliance with the snake, and reconcile it with this view. The idea that immorality originates in "females" might perhaps refer to mankinds own misperception of the wisdom within nature, within the body. When we become "overcome" with knowledge, when we are confronted with the temptations of power, and wealth and pleasure, we forget about the organic unity within the natural world.

Competition could be described as male, whereas cooperation could be described a female. The hormone testosterone will make a female more aggressive and competitive, whereas estrogen - a hormone 2 times as great in females - will have an inhibiting effect on testosterone.

If we ever hope to make this world a more peaceful place, we must take what is natural and intrinsic in males - our power of choice - and recognize the inherent wisdom within female nature: empathy, cooperation, that is, an emotional awareness of an underlying connectivity between selves.

Competition is the antithesis of this. It leads to emotions which dehumanize other humans. When the power that males possess is used irresponsibly, it ignores and belittles the wisdom within female nature, derides men who exhibit "effeminate" values as wimpy, or girly.

Regardless of your view, there is more wisdom, more sanity, more equality, more happiness and more peace, in a view point that gives precedent to emotional facts of human relationships, compared to the "external dominator" model that seems to govern present-day business relationships, defined by an arrogant and ignorant "survival of the fittest" model that is bound to leave more people injured than helped. A "patriarchal" model, if we can call it this, will leave this planet destroyed and our species endangered, if we don't change our way of relating with one another, and the world. Conceptually, this happens by embracing and cultivating "feminine" qualities; by recognizing and embodying the wisdom of female kind.

reply to post by Astrocyte

n the Bible, God is often envisioned as a "He". Why a He? Isn't God as much a "she" or an "It", as a "He"?

Well, men wrote the Bible.

Gotta be some kind of clue.

The "God" in the Hebrew bible is a Sumerian Annunaki. This is a fact. His name was originally En.lil, which means lord of the command. He didn't create the Adam. That was En.ki/E.a (Lord Earth/He Who's House Is Water). There is so much confusion regarding who is actually God in the Bible. From the hidden i.e. suppressed texts I've read, Khod (God) was a Female Spirit to begin with. Then men came into dominance and covered this fact up. And its been a downward spiral ever sense. The most peaceful, prosperous, and fair societies on this planet, were ran by women. Monica Sjoo's art piece "God Giving Birth" puts it all into perspective. This art was actually banned at one time. Guess that lets you know she was onto something powerful.

reply to post by Oannes


I think we should take things as face value here. And there's plenty of reasons, for me, why what you said doesn't make much sense.

1) The Sumer period was over and done by the time the Hebrew scriptures were written. That said, undoubtedly, the Hebrew scriptures were influenced by Mesopotamian thought. But it would be incorrect that the difference is merely one of an error of "copying". I think we moderners have a really bad habit of imputing cave-men like sensibilities to men who lived 4000 years ago. My reading of the literature - biblical literary analysis, among other analyses of ancient texts - gives me the very clear idea that the ancients were quite aware of the concepts that went along with the details in their mythological narratives. This then means that what we infer to be mere "deviations" might have been well thought out rebuttals, or an opposing worldview, to the original worldview.

For example, the Babylonian mythology contains the Babylonian metaphysics. The ancients seemed to have used these mythologies as repositories for their ontological beliefs about the nature of reality. Since this "trade secret" was known to the ancient Hebrews, the differences we see in mythology are not "failures to effectively transcribe" Babylonian beliefs, but a deliberate and conscious change in belief system i.e. in philosophy.

That said, this thread isn't about justifying the Hebrew worldview. I was just thinking about how the bible presents reality in such a way where woman appear to be disadvantaged, whereas a closer reading which takes into account the metaphorical-ontology of the text indicates that the female is there to "guide" the consciousness and awareness of the male sex. Implanted within her very nature are those socioemotional attributes that society needs to model if peace, wellbeing, and indeed, the Garden of Eden, is ever to be made an earthly reality.

reply to post by Astrocyte


It can be seen that woman was created for the purpose of love, that man may love and woman may reciprocate such. This is altogether a different topic, so it seems, from her having eaten the forbidden fruit.

Since a rib was taken from eve to make man, it can also be seen that man is not whole, as is the aim of this thread.

Seeing god as masculine only aims to show that God is the head(so it seems to me at least), as man should be in relationships as concluded by St. Paul.

Because if God were to be of a sort of gender it would mean that he is not whole, God forbid!

Because God is either one,and they way they spoke of Eve and Lilith should be a telling clue.