{"id":1059,"date":"2009-05-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/contentfeeds\/2009\/05\/bible-qa-for-january-17.html"},"modified":"2009-05-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-07T00:00:00","slug":"bible-qa-for-january-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2009\/05\/bible-qa-for-january-17.html","title":{"rendered":"Bible Q&A for May 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word “God” is used without regard for meaning. In most formal religions the texts that talk about “God” use the male, singular term and follow it with pronouns “He, His, Him”. Why?<\/b>
\nWords only have meaning in contexts, not in the abstract. All of the major world religions came to us in the context of patriarchal cultures, and the texts themselves were all–or almost all–written by men.
\nIn the biblical tradition, the Jewish and Christian writers wanted to avoid any suggestion that they were referring to some sort of fertility religion, and so they did not refer to God as a female, by and large. In the Christian tradition, God is called “Father” because it believed that God was indeed the father of Jesus, and Jesus taught his followers to address God as he had done, in the famous Lord’s Prayer (see Matthew 6.9-13).
\nSince so much of the Bible takes place in Egypt, why is there no mention of the pyramids? To this day we don’t know for sure how they were constructed, so why no mention of them?
\nSome of the pyramids surely existed during the time of Moses (around 1300 or so B.C.), but most of the time Israel that spent in Egypt was not spent near the Giza plateau, where the great pyramids are. The Israelites seem to have lived in Egypt’s northern grain storage cities, so Moses would have visited the palace in Memphis, which is not at the Giza plateau.
\nWe also need to remember that the Israelites (including Moses) were nomads, not great building constructors, until well into their history. Such structures may not have impressed them very much. Remember the negative judgment passed on such human constructions in the early tradition about Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
\nYou may want to see the related Beliefnet article<\/a> on recent archeological discoveries about the pyramids.
\n—Ben Witherington III<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word “God” is used without regard for meaning. In most formal religions the texts that talk about “God” use the male, singular term and follow it with pronouns “He, His, Him”. Why? Words only have meaning in contexts, not in the abstract. 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