God Doesn’t Have a Penis
That’s what the Bible tells us
I read an article recently by Dan Foster titled “God Has a Penis — The Bible Says So.” The title was sarcastic. The article argues that since men wrote the Bible, it was men who ascribed gender to God. Therefore, the fact that God shows up as male in the Bible doesn’t tell us about God. It tells us something about the people who wrote the Bible.
I am largely sympathetic to the point of view expressed by the article. But there is more to the topic of how God is gendered in the Bible. And God’s penis, or lack thereof, is a particularly interesting place to start.
The Bible emerged in the ancient Near East surrounded by religions that focused on fertility. Bearing children and obtaining a good harvest were the blessings for which the people of the ancient Near East looked to the gods. Statues depicting the gods emphasized their reproductive functions. Large breasts and hips on the females, and a large phallus on the males. For male gods, the penis was the main event.
The Bible is not shy about ascribing human physical characteristics to God. In the Hebrew Bible, God has a face, back, arms, legs, hands, and feet. But God doesn’t have a phallus. Given the context in which the Bible developed, this absence is remarkable. God may be male, but male without the male sex organ. The…
