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[Praise and Stun]

Yesterday, I was approached by some folks asking me to listen to a short presentation on their phone. They weren’t speaking my language (German) that well, but from what I understood they claimed that there was a divine family directly in the bible. In their presentation they had some quotes that were apparently proving that there was in fact a godly mother. Unfortunately, I didn’t write them down. I remember them arguing that since families here on earth consist of father, mother and children (because humans were made in God's image) there is also a divine family consisting of the same parts. There were more assertions though, but I don’t remember them.

Now onto my questions:

1. What do you think about this claim? I know it’s hard to debate something when there is only a vague claim, but maybe you've heard of the divine mother(family)?

2. Is there an actual strain of christianity that distinguishes itself by the belief in a divine family?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for asking. Anywhere one goes one can find aberrant ideas. No, there is no divine mother, and no divine family. Let me toss out a few bullet points for conversation:

• God (YHWH) has no sex/gender. There are reasons YHWH is referred to as "He" in the Bible, but God is not male.
• There is no female counterpart to God. Though at times in Israel's history they compromised and apostatized, wanting to be like the other nations, and attributed to YHWH a female consort (Asherah), but Asherah was denounced by the prophets, disavowed by YHWH, and broken down by the strongest religious reformers (Hezekiah and Josiah). Asherah, to our knowledge, was never legitimately recognized, though she was officially recognized by godless rulers in Israel.
• Even Asherah is known as God's consort, not His wife, and in the Bible there is never any mention of or allusion to a divine family.
• There are no male or female entities in heaven. God is genderless, as are angels, cherubim, and seraphim. Jesus was a male (obviously), but his maleness was biological and had nothing to do with his divinity.
• Jesus never married (despite Dan Brown's fanciful fiction in **The Davinci Code**). Mary Magdalene was not a sex partner for Jesus, nor his wife.
• The virgin Mary is never portrayed as divine or having any divine characteristics in the Bible. This is an invention of the Roman Catholic Church.

There is no strain of Christianity, to my knowledge, that distinguishes itself by a belief in the divine family. Mormons believe that God had(has) a wife, but Mormons are not considered Christians (they don't believe in the deity of Christ).

Let's talk.

[Praise and Stun]

Well, thanks for your answer.