The family in the Bible

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2002 by James A. Sanders

The metaphor was carried on into the NT where Jesus is seen as the son of God. It is somewhat surprising that the Trinitarian formula did not explicitly include a mother figure, though I have often suspected that the Holy Spirit was viewed in feminine terms in most of the early church. The Holy Spirit is never masculine in gender in either Hebrew or Greek. "Spirit" in both languages was either feminine or neuter, but never masculine as English translations have tended to make her. The family metaphor was eventually established for many early churches in the apotheosis of Jesus' mother, Mary, displacing older views in some religions of the Queen of Heaven; and Mariology has, of course, developed into quite a cult in non-Protestant churches.

God is also seen as King, especially in prophetic thought, and is a reason given for resisting the establishment of human monarchies in Israel and Judah, as we see in the harsh indictments of kings in prophetic literature (Martin Buber). Even so, God when seen as monarch was still imbued with the Mother/Father parental qualities of both love and discipline within the family.

Jesus' focus on women, especially in Luke/Acts, and his many challenges to what the Torah had become in Judaism were both a challenge to the abuses of patriarchalism and an effort to re-establish the Law as a gift of God intended to guarantee justice and righteousness as the very base of society. His claims in the Gospels that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it were intended to set the concept of Torah or Law back on its original basis as a gift of God designed to keep humans human, against the tendency to selfishness and greed of the rich and powerful, and the tendency to be obedient just to prevent adversity. The power of riches corrupts insidiously and deceptively, and creates the illusion of meritocracy.

The Hellenization of Judaism

In order fully to appreciate what Jesus was doing in his time, and to understand what the figure of Christ meant in fully biblical terms, we need to comprehend the vast importance of what Alexander the Great did to the Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern world, but especially to the Western world. As we have seen in our survey so far, the Bible is based on an understanding of humanity that was centered in the family corporately. Individuals had their worth but only in the context of family, clan, and people. This was a corporate view of human worth and responsibility. When Alexander, however, challenged the Persian Empire and brought it to its knees in the late fourth century BCE, he changed the world. There has rarely been a force more powerful unleashed on the world than this son of Philip of Macedonia, worthy student of the great Athenian philosopher, Aristotle. But his real power was not only in military might, it was in his dedication to Greek culture and philosophy which challenged abuses throughout the known world of patriarchal systems. Alexander was an evangelist for Greek ways of thinking. Everywhere he went he established Greek-type cities, the polis, and in those cities he established schools to propagate what he had learned in Athens. I imagine he established a Peace Corps in Athens to staff the schools and to teach the world what Aristotle had taught him. And at the heart and core of what they taught was individual worth and responsibility. Greece was indeed the birthplace of democracy and human rights.