Hey, why don’t you just jump in because in a minute this is going to turn into a frenzy and no one wahts that!

Shad=breast?

Shaq=beast?

I believe the Hebrew word “shad” is translated “breast”.

I forgive you for the typo on my name. It’s a common mistake.

John H-

You are one of the few people I know in blog-o-world who is humble enough to say “I was mistaken.” It is an attitude becoming of the Christ we serve. Thank you.

There was this one time I remember that I thought I was wrong. I later realized I was mistaken.

BTW – I am a Far Side enthusiast as well. I even came up with one of my own.

(Two snakes, husband and wife, are in bed during the night. The husband seems to be in pain and the wife snake asks him why. The husband snake says “I got up to get a drink of water and stubbed my tongue”!)

Chad: So may you embrace the God who’s bigger than any of our language. May you celebrate all of the images and pictures and metaphors that help us better understand who God is and what God is like. And may you be comforted as a mother comforts a child.

Sounds pretty orthodox to me!

I stand corrected. In my study last night on this issue I confirmed your position regarding allegory. In a nut shell, eventhough God is infinate and trancendant and untimately incomprehensible by His finite creatures were are created in His image, i.e., He has made us was intellect, self awareness and a finite spiritual component. And although God is pure Spirit and therefore genderless, He expresses Himself to us allogorically in terms (such as Father) which we can relate and comprehend. And although it is perfectly acceptable to recognize the several feminine characteristics of God as described in the Bible, the exclusive use of the allogory of Father and exclusive use of the masculine pronouns “He, Him, His” etc., in the Biblical narrative — and the example of Jesus’ exclusive use of the same to address God –would make the approbation of “Mother, She, Her” in reference to God inappropriate.

I realize no one on this site has done this and have never argued they have. My argument has also never been with Bell on this issue. My beef has been with The Shack and I remain unmoved in that I view Young’s portrayal of the Trinity as predominately female is inappropriate at best and that putting the words and theology of a man in the mouth of “God” borders on blasphemy.

P.S. Rick. Sorry to disappoint, but I had to resort to my tomes on systematic theology. I’m sure, for example, you got your understanding that El Shaddai could mean “many breasted” from just your study of the Bible and the Holy Spirit. But I had to resort to the study of commentaries of other men.

I think Bell also says it well in the benediction for “She”:

So may you embrace the God who’s bigger than any of our language. May you celebrate all of the images and pictures and metaphors that help us better understand who God is and what God is like. And may you be comforted as a mother comforts a child.

I completely understand the concern over the “goddess” issue, however from everything I have heard that was not Bell’s direction.

1 John 3:1 – See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2 – Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Are we just an analogy too?