Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rob Barrett <rcbarrett AT gmail.com>]

Peter Kirk wrote:

> On 06/09/2005 02:08, Kevin Graham wrote:
>  
>
> > Ancient Judaism understood God anthropomorphically. He had human form. 
> > Yahweh was enthroned in the temple, and had humanity created after his 
> > image. This eventually took a drastic turn towards the abstract, 
> > however, when Judaism became hellenized. Particularly with Arisobulus.
> >    
>
> I think you would have to work hard to support your thesis that anyone, 
> at least in the theological mainstream which condemned idolatry, 
> believed that Yahweh had literal body parts, that the language about his 
> body parts is to be understood as anything other than metaphorical. 
> Sure, the Hebrew Bible authors could write for example that God had eyes 
> - but also that these eyes run around, 2 Chronicles 16:9 and Zechariah 
> 4:10. This can only be metaphorical language.
>  
I'm currently reading Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit's book 
"Idolatry", which examines the meaning and nature of idolatry (in 
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but mainly in Judaism).  I'm only 
partway through but it looks at idolatry from different angles to 
understand why it is such an unspeakable sin.  There appear to be a 
number of different ways of looking at it within historical Judaism.  
For some, the Lord has no form, so to make a representation is 
fundamentally wrong. For others, the Lord has a form but no one knows 
it, so making a representation is sure to be an erroneous one.  For 
others, an idol always represents a different god and is therefore 
betrayal of the Lord.  (There are more angles.)

They point out that in the mystical "Shi'ur Komah" literature of the 
2nd-3rd c. there are discussions of the sizes of the various parts of 
the Lord's body.  This may be a very fringe part of the Judaisms of the 
period, but is at least one part of the milieu.

I am not expert in these matters and welcome comments from those who 
know more about the various interpretive traditions.

all the best,
Rob