I don't think I have anything very deep to add to this subject but -
Midrash_Proverbs
Midrash Proverbs (Hebrew: מדרש משלי) is the haggadic midrash to the Book of Proverbs, first mentioned under the title "Midrash Mishle" by R. Hananeel b. Ḥushiel (first half of the 11th century) as quoted in the Mordekai on B.M. iii. 293.
Shlomo Sands correctly points out how weird the preceding period in Jewish history was. We have very little knowledge of Judaism in the last centuries of the first millenium CE.
The transition of the
Shekhina from it's "original" aspect of Godly presence to Phatass Goddess looks totally Rabbinic and later.
The noun shekina does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, although the verb shakan, and other terms from the root škn do occur. There is also no occurrence of the noun in pre-rabbinic literature such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is only afterwards in the targums and rabbinical literature that the Hebrew term shekinah, or Aramaic equivalent shekinta, is found, and then becomes extremely common.[5] McNamara (2010) considers that the absence might lead to the conclusion that the term only originated after the destruction of the temple in 70AD, but notes 2 Maccabees 14:35 "a temple for your habitation", where the Greek text (naon tes skenoseos) suggests a possible parallel understanding, and where the Greek noun skenosis may stand for Aramaic shekinta.[6]
Even after seeing McNamara's comment, one might still reasonably conclude that the term originated after the destruction of the temple.
Leonard Nimoy might have gone too far with this in his book Shekhina -
http://www.amazon.com/Shekhina-Leonard- ... nard+nimoy
dedicated to Jewish PAWGs (Phatass white girls)
I've been very slowly reading Peter Schaffer's The Origins of Jewish Mysticism -
http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Jewish-My ... er+schafer
The index is probably the worst part of the book but it doesn't mention Shekhina.
Schafer (who isn't Jewish) writes extensively on Jewish Christian relationships - for example -
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Jesus-Juda ... er+schafer
The evolution of Shekhina was analyzed by Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah -
http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Shape-Go ... om+scholem
Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship -
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Mysticism- ... n+insights
has a chapter - Gender in Jewish Mysticism by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
The Kabbalah is quite sexual -
... the kabbalistic worldview revolves around sex, sexuality, and gender. Indeed, kabbalistic theosophy, anthropology, psychology, ethics, and religious praxis are all expressed through gendered symbolism, pertain to the mysteries of creation and procreation, and are imbued with erotic energy carried out within the institution of marriage.
Dr. Tirosh-Samuelson has to throw a wet blanket on things with the last seven words there.
The feminist critique of Western culture in general and of patriarchal Judaism in particular compelled scholars of Kabbalah to place sex and gender at the center of their approaches to Kabbalah. The French postmodernist variant has made the most impact on the study of Kabbalah, perhaps because its critique was directed against the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan and their understanding of the role of sexuality in the individuation and maturation of the Self. Under the sway of French feminists, especially Luce Irigaray, Elliot R. Wolfson has offered a comprehensive, well-documented theory that the God of the Kabbalist was a male deity with feminine characteristics rather than a deity that comprises two separate principles, one male, the other female. According to Wolfson’s reading of Kabbalah, the female aspect of the divine, the Shekhinah, was but an extension of the male God. Wolfson’s powerful interpretation of Kabbalah has not been endorsed by all, and several alternatives were proposed by other scholars of Kabbalah. This chapter surveys the major interpretations of gender in Kabbalah, highlighting the interplay between historicism, feminism, and psychoanalysis.
This is probably right. But, as I commented on grave humping in the names of God thread, the Baal Shem Tov did a lot to remove the overt sexuality of Lurianic Kabbalah in the 18th century. Still one has to wonder if the two methodologies yield the same results.
As we have seen, all discussions of new directions in Kabbalah scholarship must begin with the legacy of Gershom Scholem, since he shaped the modern study of Kabbalah. His essay, “The Feminine Element in Divinity,” is still a seminal study of the main literary motifs of Shekhinah symbolism.4 The essay originated in the lecture that Scholem delivered in the Eranos Society in Ancona, Switzerland, in 1952.
As a historian of ideas, Scholem was primarily preoccupied by the attempt to explain “the emergence of the female Shekhina.”7 Although Scholem structured the essay chronologically and provided the ancient sources of the medieval concept, he insisted that in medieval Kabbalah “a new concept of the Godhead begins to be developed … this new concept often takes up old themes of the rabbinic tradition, combining them rather peculiarly into a new understanding, reinterpreting them and placing them in unexpected contexts.”8 The novelty of the kabbalistic concept of the Shekhinah was twofold: first, the fact that the Shekhinah was not identical with God but was a female entity, and, second, that the Shekhinah was identified with the national symbol of the Congregation of Israel (Knesset Yisrael).
Quotes are from Questia.
My impression is that the Shekhina is mostly medieval and later.
That's not to say that Christianity and Judaism don't have similarities, etc. I tend to regard Christianity as non-monotheistic, but maybe that's just prejudice. Of course, it's possible to argue that Judaism also pushes the envelope with Kabbalah. I wonder if it is significant that Yoshke died; we don't see any godly aspects doing that in Kabbalah.