God The Father

I have commented about The New Revised Standard Version of the "Bible" (NRSV) quite critically in previous essays: "In fact the first mistake is in combining the first two verses of Genesis into one sentence, making it seem as if the world may have existed before God's creation [as follows:] 'In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form...' The Hebrew simply does not justify this 'translation.' The first two sentences are not joined in the original. The older 'And, the earth was without form and void...' is literally correct, and it cannot be used to suggest Pantheism." If I erred at all when writing this, it may be in using the word "mistake."Wrong, yes. That so-called translation (which is in keeping with several new trendy Bibles) of the opening of Genesis is definitely just plain wrong. From years of reading Hebrew, having learned Sephardic Hebrew in the early 1980s in courses offered at a Jewish college in Baltimore, from an Israeli instructor, I can say, without fear of educated contradiction, that the perfect English rendering of the first two verses of Genesis is what we find in the Authorized (King James) Version: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void..." These cannot be combined into one sentence without taking unjustified and excessive liberties. That is because the only honest way to translate these first two verses is as separate sentences, recognizing where the first ends and where the second begins. Nonetheless, just because the trendy renderings are wrong does not mean they are a mistake. I think it more likely that an agenda has been behind this, something quite deliberate.The ideology of "Inclusive Language" caused problems in the NRSV, most obviously in Malachi 4:6. The deeply meaningful line, "He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse," is drained of its force. For, the words rendered "fathers" (, both are plural forms of the root, ) are mistranslated as "parents." These forms of the word (Ab, from which comes Abba) are different only in so far as one is plural and pointing to something- in this case the hearts of the children (or sons, )- and the other is that to which something is directed, namely the hearts of the children. The correct word is "fathers" in both cases, not "parents." The fathers here are the elders, the patriarchs, the prophets, as the New Testament rendering reveals in the only place where we are treated to an angelic commentary on Scripture, "the wisdom of the just." (Luke 1:17) The Proverbs of Solomon speak as highly of a mother's instruction as they do that of a father, even so, respecting a difference in kind. But, in the NRSV, the words of the prophet Malachi lose their meaning because of a modern ideology.It has never been enough for promoters of "Feminist Theology" to take Inclusive Language only as far as human beings are concerned (which is itself unnecessary and confusing at best). In ways subtle, or at times not subtle, the agenda has been to replace God the Father with a goddess (about which I written before). To teach Creatio Exnihilo, "creation out of nothing," is to teach that God made everything by his Word, that He willed everything that is not God, every nature that is not Divine Nature, into existence, being alone Uncreated and eternal. This is God the Father, by His Word and by His Spirit making all things and giving them life. Against this revelation of Scripture, Feminist Theology teaches a universe equally eternal with God, indeed a universe that is God, in which life comes forth. In many parts of scripture where the active word "made" is found ("without him was not anything made that was made"-John 1:3), newer versions say something passive, such as "came into being." If instead of God the Father we have a Mother Goddess, a universe that is itself one with Divinity, such passive language takes the ideology of Inclusive Language to that ultimate realm of Godhead. Even regeneration is no longer the work of a Father who has begotten His children, so that "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth," (James 1:18) is made passive: He "brought us forth." God the Father becomes a fossil, and a new Mother Goddess, a pagan deity, takes over.This may be new to western people with a Christian background. But, it is very ancient and has precedents that are rooted in Pagan cultures as diverse as the worshipers of the Ashtaroth and of Kali. To one infant sacrifice was offered, and the other consumes and destroys with demonic violence. Whereas genuine motherhood, as God created it, is about life and even nourishment and care, this demonic sort of Mother Goddess worship has always been about destruction. There is no logic to this, but history proves it to be a kind of demonic theme. Our culture, at the same time in which God the Father has been rejected in favor of increasing tendencies towards Pantheism and a Mother Goddess, has become very much, as Pope John Paul II phrased it, the Culture of Death. With rejection of God the Father and his Laws, compassion, justice and love have been sacrificed with the innocents by abortion, just as young children were burned in the fire to the consort of Moloch, the Ashtaroth. A Divine universe that brings forth life passively, from the resources of its own properties, has no argument to make for the unique meaning and dignity of any individual's life. Ultimately, if there is no God the Father who arbitrarily gives life and creates as He wills, there is no love."In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.""In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life..."Certainly, we must make no mistake about that.