Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Irene Riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>]

The tendency to abstract the deity, to "de-personify" or
"de-materialize" or to distance the deity is found in the Hebrew
bible itself.  In addition to "adonai," which was already
mentioned,  the deuteronomist refers to the deity as "the name,"
(ha-shem).  The temple is the dwelling place of "THE NAME of god"
rather than the dwelling place of god.  A name is an arbitrary sign
tacked onto something but is not the thing itself---thus a sign of
the deity dwells in the temple but not the deityh himself---compare
to Exodus and Numbers where the tabernacle was thought to be the
dwelling place of the deity.
    In his vision of god,  Ezekiel is careful to say that he saw the
"appearance" of Yaweh rather than Yaweh, himself.  (This pronoun is
not meant to be a sexist designation but rather is used to indicate
that this is a masculine god.)
    I suspect that the de-personalization of the deity develops
with/ and is related to the development of a conceptualization of
the deity as a universal being.

irene riegner