Guest comment on Women’s Equality book

I am now reading your book on women’s equality and have been impressed with the ideas in Chapter 2, bringing out God as Mother as well as Father.  Two of your examples stood out and are especially meaningful to me:

1. This passage, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,” in Isaiah 66:13, reveals God as Mother as well as Father (p. 37).  There is also a reference. to God’s feminine nature in Deuteronomy 32:11, 12: As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young,   spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.  (p. 38) 

The author goes on to cite many biblical references to God as Mother as well as Father.

2. The author goes into great detail on the historical distinction between two names for God:  Elohim and Jehovah … “Some believe that the name Lord God Jehovah is a personal name of Deity but the term Elohim God is a divine Being.  Mixing the personal with the divine may be a contributing factor to confusion.  In the meantime, the idea of womanhood is racketed about like a ball in a tennis match.” … According to The Interpreter’s Bible, “The great advance is in the Elohist’s thinking about God.”  Their understanding of God, “Elohim’s image and likeness as being both male and female.  A complete God—with all the good qualities of masculinity and femininity—has a complete image and likeness reflected when this God looks into the mirror of infinity.” (p. 23) 

In the Elohistic tradition, God is understood as being both masculine and feminine because in Genesis 1 Elohim’s likeness is both male and female, just like the image’s creator. (p. 34)