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NASB | Jeremiah 7:18 "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to spite Me. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Jeremiah 7:18 "The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods that they may offend and provoke Me to anger. |
Bible Question: Please excuse my lack of knowledge and understanding - I come from a very fundamentalist teaching and am thinking that I have only been taught half the story of the triune God. I have recently heard reference of God's Shekina glory. Is that what you are referring to? ".......The Christian understanding or rather its mutation of the original view of God has the shekhina replaced by "Holy Spirit"......" Can you explain this a bit more please? |
Bible Answer: Many theologians and scholars realize that the Holy Spirit written as, "Pneuma" in Greek everytime it appears in the New Testament, is a feminine being. Note that Pneuma is a feminine word in Greek. This would make Pneuma, the Holy Spirit, a Christian Goddess, not a mysteriously veiled member of an all-male Trinity "club." Also, the Holy Spirit appears at Yeshua's baptism in the form of a dove. The dove has long been a symbol of the Goddess in the Ancient Near East, and was never used to symbolize a god. We must also look in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, and consider the Goddess Sophia. Her name means "Wisdom." She is the Goddess of Wisdom referred to repeatedly in scripture as the wife of God-the-Father. See Proverbs, Song of Songs, also called Song of Solomon, the Book of Sirach and the Book of Wisdom from the Apocrypha (found in the center of any Catholic Bible). Asherah, the Shekinah, was originally worshipped right alongside her lover/husband Yahweh, or El, as He is also called in ancient writings. You've probably noticed His name in names like Mi-cha-EL, Gab-ri-EL, Rach-EL, which mean respectively, "Who is like God?", "Power of God," and "Fair One of God." In Genesis, God the Father turns to some companion, we are never told whom, and says, "Let us make man after our own image." Jewish mystics and scholars of the Kabbalah have pointed out the obvious: Yahweh is talking to His wife. Even more intriguing: many researchers say it is She that is speaking to Him. The Hebrew word used for "God" in Genesis is Elohim, the plural of Eloah, a feminine title for the Goddess. Eloah (sometimes spelled Elat) is the female "half" of El. This Hebrew Goddess in Genesis is Asherah, the Shekinah, the Lady, speaking with Her mate. They agree to create, and so here we are. Many ancient religions, including the Greeks, believed that heaven is a male God who "covers" the feminine earth, Gaia in an intimate embrace. The earth, thus regularly impregnated, bears fruit. Asherah, the Shekinah, consort and beloved of Yahweh. God-the-Mother. Her sacred pillars or poles once stood right beside Yahweh's altar, embracing it. Moses and Aaron both carried one of these Asherah "poles" as a sacred staff of power. The Children of Israel were once dramatically healed simply by gazing at the staff with serpents suspended from it. This symbol, the snakes and the staff, has become the modern universal symbol for doctors and healers.* Asherah was also widely known in the Middle Eastern ancient world as a Goddess of Healing. Then She was removed forcibly from the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures around 400 or 500 B.C. Daughter of Zion, a term found numerous times in the Old Testament, was perhaps a term for a priestess of Asherah. As the "official" state worship became increasingly male oriented, and the establishment became hostile toward all forms of Asherah worship, a time of conflict and bloodshed lasting over a hundred years began. Those that still clung to Her worship paid the price with their lives at the hands of King Josiah and other rabid Yahwists. (Story in the Old Testament). But She could not be torn from the hearts and souls of Her people. |