Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Graham" <kevlds AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

== First of all, there are those who claim that your reading that posits 
physical attributes to the deity is reading the text through the eyes of 
Hellenistic philosophy, not Hebraic thought.

Who? What is their argument? Hengel disagrees. Smith disagrees. To attribute 
the Ancient view of literal anthropomorphism on hellenism, light years 
before Judaism experienced any influence frem hellenized socities, is quite 
an argument to make.

== And don't forget that even as the LXX translated Tanakh to Greek, they 
too were influenced by Hellenism, even if only not to mention some of the 
anthropomorphisms to avoid arguing with Hellenists.

But this simply undermines your statement above. If hellenism is truly 
pro-anthropomorphism, then you'd expect the LXX to contain more 
anthropomorphisms, not fewer. Your comment might hold water if we first 
presume the Alexandrian Jews were rebelling against this Hellenistic 
influence, as opposed to giving in to it. The account of Aristobulus, 
however, only reinforces my case.

==  It was openly stated that what is usually called "Biblical cosmology" 
really is medieval cosmology which was formed by looking at Biblical 
passages through Hellenistic eyes.

But my argument is not dependant on the Shiur Quomah. While influence of 
hellenism might explain some of the cosmic anthropomorphisms in Rabbinic 
materia, it has virtually nothing to do with the texts in question.

== Your attribution of physical attributes to God follows the Hellenistic 
pattern.

To which hellenistic "pattern" do you refer? According to Wand,

"It is easy to see what influence this school of thought [Neoplatonism] must 
have had upon Christian leaders. It was from this that they learnt what was 
involved in a metaphysical sense by calling God a Spirit. They were also 
helped to free themselves from their primitive eschatology and to get rid of 
their crude anthropomorphism which made even Tertullian [A.D. 160-220] 
believe that God had a material body."(J.W.C. Wand, A History of the Early 
Church to A.D. 500, (London: Routledge, 1937, reprint 1994), p. 140)

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "The God of Philo, owing to the 
influence of Platonism, is not only essentially different from man and the 
world—an idea which also coincides with the teaching of the Pharisees of 
this period—but He is entirely devoid of attributes. Philo opposes not only 
the literal understanding of the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic passages 
in the Bible, but also the doctrine of God as an active worker, inasmuch as 
activity can not be predicated of a Being devoid of attributes."

Third centery Church Father Origen attributed the concept of incorpreality 
to the Greek philosophers, and in fact fell back on them, not scripture, in 
making his case for the Christian concept of God.

"We shall enquire, however, whether the thing which Greek philosophers call 
asomaton, or 'incorporeal,' is found in Holy Scripture under another name. 
For it is also to be a subject of investigation how God himself is to be 
understood - whether as corporeal, and formed according to some shape, or of 
a different nature from bodies - a point which is not clearly indicated in 
our teaching." (Origen, De Principiis, Preface 9, in ANF 4:241. see also, 
Robert P. Casey, “Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian 
Platonism,” Harvard Theological Review 18 (1925): 39-101,  p 82, referring 
to contra Celsum 7.27, and Commentary on John 13.22.  “Origen's development 
of Clement (of Alexandria's) thought is characteristically thorough and 
systematic. He acknowledges that the doctrine of God's immateriality is, at 
least formally, new, and asserts that the word asomatos ('no body') has been 
unknown alike to biblical writers and to Christian theologians before his 
time.”)

So to the point, you'll have to do better than merely assert "the 
Hellenistic pattern" requires an anthropomorphic understanding of God. This 
is simply not true.

== Tanakh emphasized function over form.

Unlikely, but if so, the form remained. It wasn't replaced.

== Thus when Genesis 1:26-7 mentions that man was made "in the image of 
God", Hellenists look for physical attributes,

Which is belied by all the evidence (unless you're relying strictly on story 
of Mt. Olympus) as I indicated above. The Platonic tendency was to striop 
God of any anthropomorphic attribute. I recommend, David Paulsen, Harvard 
Theological Review  “Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and 
Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses,” Vol. 83 ,1990.

== while ancient Hebrews looked for functional actions,

What do you mean they looked for "functional actions"?

== how man acts like God while fulfilling his role as God's representative 
as a created being in charge of the created universe.

It is true that as the image of God, man serves as God's representative, 
having dominion over the earth. But scholars are generally in agreement over 
the fact that dominion is merely a consequence of the image, not its 
defining element.