January 2, 2016
Post #8
Dear Readers,
We are dedicated to the absolute co-equality and balance between men and women! Our premise is that God created us this way to be whole, complete, unified – as One, through one another, masculine and feminine. We are discussing how the Word of God as taught by Jesus of Nazareth was willfully or inadvertently misrepresented or misunderstood such that men came to believe they were somehow more equal.
This weblog, our pamphlets, study guides and other materials are inspired by Miguel’s book, The Word 2.0, a new biography of Jesus of Nazareth in his own words, based upon a single, unified timeline.
Find us at Amazon.com or our website: www.whatifjesuswasawoman.com
Whether or not you agree please “share” us with your friends, and be our “friend”!
You are reading one in a year-long series on the “Feminine-ist” teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
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In the context of events which took place in Israel before Jesus was born, I found the Seleucid Greek invasion particularly important because the Greek belief system we call “Hellenism” was enforced at that time. It caused a division among the people of Israel not only along the lines of those who became “Hellenists” and those who were “Traditionalists”, but also, apparently, between men and women. It is in the nature of Hellenism that women be subordinate to men. I have briefly touched upon some basic principles of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and ministry, as they are revealed in my book “The Word 2.0”:
1. Jesus was a “Traditional” Hebrew-Jewish teacher and Rabbi – at the very least!
2. Jesus was not a “Hellenist” in any sense of our understanding the word.
3. Jesus espoused and promoted that our One True God – the God of Israel, is both masculine and feminine, as is reflected in all Creation.
4. Jesus said that we must love the Lord our God first and foremost, and then love one another as we love ourselves.
5. Jesus taught that love, beginning with God’s “Ruach HaKodesh” – the Breath of Life and Holy Spirit, as aspects of God’s Divine Feminine, is the only way that men can experience the Kingdom of God.
6. Jesus rejected the kind of egocentric, selfish, self-centered thinking and behavior of men that characterizes “Hellenism”.
We will discuss each of these points in much greater detail as we continue, and, look for my study guides they will soon also be available!
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References are to pages in the book.
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The ‘Introduction’ of each of the study guides to the book begin with the same clarification about our understanding of our One True God:
“God is undifferentiated masculine and feminine energy in perfect balance, whole, complete, unified, and co-equal, meaning God is neither male nor female, and yet both.”
You are of course free to disagree in part or in whole, but at the very least we hope you find it a useful description. Further, we refer to this state in which God exists as Divine Balance. It captures the sense of complete wholeness of all the aspects and elements found not only in and between men and women, but in all things throughout Creation. This includes not only the reality we experience every day, but molecules and sub-atomic particles, our solar system, and the Universe as we understand it.
The key take-away is however that God is not a Hellenist!
Similarly we use Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine to capture the essential qualities of what we might consider God’s dual nature – the masculine and feminine, male and female, among other things made manifest as men and women, you and I. Consider this excerpt from Genesis (B’ResHeet in the Law):
“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image – in the likeness of ourselves.’ God created them male and female in God’s image.” (Page 26.)
As God had with everything else God created, we are a perfect expression of the Love – the divine balance of masculine and feminine energies. Male and female aspects, co-equal, in unity, harmony, wholeness, completeness. Men and women at peace. This inescapable, irresistible perspective is so simple, so easy, why do men seem to find it so profoundly difficult to grasp? Nevertheless, we understand that this state of being, this absolute co-equal balance between God’s masculine and feminine aspects – reflecting God’s own Oneness as it is called, pre-existed Creation.
Pre-existed so that in the beginning of Creation, indeed from the very first moment of its very first day, Yom Rishon (Pages 23 – 24.), God made manifest – created all that is as male and female. We’d like to draw attention something we found especially useful that God later said in regards to all men and women:
“A man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife – that they are no more two, but one flesh.” (Page 27.)
This basic understanding of God and of Creation, that God is One, means that the masculine and the feminine, male and female, men and women are capable of achieving oneness.
So important is this one point to understanding everything which follows, to this very day, that Jesus quoted God in his ministry:
“Know and understand that from the beginning of Creation: ‘God made them male and female.’
“And did you not read that God who made them at the beginning of Creation made them male and female, also said: ‘For this reason a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife.’?
“And that they two become one? So then: ‘They are no more two, but one flesh.’”
(Page 269.)
Each Saturday we will continue our discussion of God in particular.
Shalom Shabbat!
Miguel
