The Gospel of John remarkably differs from the other Gospels in several ways. Among those differences is that Matthew and Luke say that Jesus’ mother was a virgin. Mark doesn’t mention it, while John claims that Jesus was with God in the beginning, and not only that, but also that in him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. It refers to Genesis, where, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But that earth was formless, empty, and covered by darkness, so God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. That is noteworthy, to say the least. John remains cryptic and goes on to add a few more transcendental musings of the Platonic kind (John 1:9-13),

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Christians are born of God. Jesus gave us the right to become children of God. It could be why Jesus said he was the life, apart from being the way and the truth (John 14:6). John seemingly contradicts himself by calling Jesus God’s only begotten Son (John 3:16), since begetting refers to the male role in procreation. The idea of a begotten son, an emanation of the transcendent God within the physical cosmos, was widespread among religious philosophers of the time. John borrowed the idea to fix his theological problem by making the manner in which Jesus was God’s Son transcendental rather than physical. If you do that, it doesn’t matter whether God is a man or a woman or the particulars about how God spawned Jesus. It is all in the magic realm.

Men cannot give birth, so if God birthed Jesus, God could be a Mother, and the transcendental begotten formula could be how John masked it. Now, John doesn’t say Jesus was Adam, who begot humanity by being the husband of Eve, who was God. To avoid the unplatonic phrasing of God having sex with Jesus, he reformulated it, again in a transcendental manner, as Jesus giving us the right to become children of God. The same author, who was not the Apostle John, clarifies in his first epistle what it means that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 5:1),

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His child as well.

How come that God the ‘Father’ gave birth to Jesus? Somehow, everyone ignores the glaringly obvious, and no one asks that question. When there has always been a giant, stinky rat decomposing in the kitchen, you stop noticing its smell. The phrase born of God occurs several times in this letter (1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 5:4, 5:18). Today, Christians assume that the phrase ‘born of God’ has only a spiritual meaning, as Jesus likened entering the kingdom of God to being born again when answering a question posed by a Pharisee named Nicodemus (John 3:3-6),

Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ ‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.’

Nicodemus mentions the womb, so the phrase ‘born of God’ implies that God is a Mother. That raises a question. If the early church leaders went to such great lengths to remove the evidence of God being a Mother, how could they have overlooked the phrase ‘born of God’? The correct answer is that they didn’t. The language of the Gospels is Greek. Greek culture dominated the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, where Christianity spread. Learned Jews like Paul were well acquainted with Greek thought. Greek thought and mythology helped the early church fathers reconstruct their religion after changing God’s gender.

In Greek mythology, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was born from the head of the male deity Zeus. As the tale went, Zeus’ head opened to let Athena out and closed again. In this way, a male deity could give birth. And that was very convenient. When the church fathers altered God’s gender, they may have initially thought of the Zeus-and-Athena analogy, so Jesus was born of the Father. There is another enlightening piece of evidence, the Odes of Solomon. These are first-century Christian writings, thus of the earliest days of Christianity. Ode 19 (here is that number again) comes with the following lines,

A cup of milk was offered to me: and I drank it in the sweetness of the delight of the Lord.
The Son is the cup, and He who was milked is the Father.
And the Holy Spirit milked Him: because His breasts were full, and it was necessary for Him that His milk should be sufficiently released.
And the Holy Spirit opened His bosom and mingled the milk from the two breasts of the Father, and gave the mixture to the world without their knowledge.¹

No other ancient Christian text explicitly mentions gender-related attributes of God. Here, God has female physical characteristics despite being called Father. And because it is an ancient text dating from Christianity’s first century, the Father was first a Mother.

Latest revision: 15 September 2026

Featured image: Bible: Only God Knows What Jesus Really Said. Loesje.org.

1. The Lost Bible: Forgotten Scriptures Revealed. J.R. Porter (2001).