Monotheism, anthropomorphism and the personality of God - the introduction to the book The Personality of God

A new book: The Personality of God - Biblical Theology, Human Faith and the Image of God was published by: Yohanan Moffs, published by the Hartman Institute in collaboration with Keter. From English: Or Sharaf

Below is an announcement published by Keter Publishing:

In a new book in Hebrew, 'The Personality of God', which is being published these days in the Jewish series of the Hartman Institute in collaboration with Keter, Yohanan Mofes, one of the leading biblical scholars in the world today, reveals to the reader a fascinating and refreshing interpretation and a new angle of view on the theological dimension of the biblical narrative and the worldview of the Bible .

From its inception, religious thought had to overcome the obstacle posed to it by expressions of the fulfillment of God found in the Bible for the most part. For skeptics and critics of religion, the physicality of the biblical God is used as a prime example of the absurdity of faith.

In this book, Yohanan Moffs diverts attention from the question of God's physicality to a much more significant aspect: God's personality, its complexity and the multitude of emotions in which it is expressed. Mofes shows that this personality cannot be understood at all outside of his loving and complicated relationship with the people of Israel.

Moffs lays out for us an overwhelming framework for a sensitive reading of the Bible, from this reading the image of God emerges as having a personality full of life, involved in the world and striving for a relationship with human beings. This is how she stands out in her difference from the other gods of the ancient East, and allows us an opening to understand the world of imagination and thought of the authors of the Bible.

Dr. Yochanan Moffs taught for more than forty years at JTS (Jewish Theological Seminary of America), published many articles on the Bible, Semitic languages, history of the ancient Middle East and Jewish thought. His previous book published in Hebrew is Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in the Bible and Sage Literature (Magnes Publishing House)

Introduction: Monotheism, Anthropomorphism and the Personality of God
by Yohanan Moffs

The anthropomorphic description of God in the Bible was a source of pleasure for Midrash scholars and mystics on the one hand, and for cynicism in the eyes of philosophers and theologians on the other hand. The philosophers felt offended by the immorality of the image presented in the Bible, which attributes human qualities such as form and personality to the primordial principle. But the devout and naive believers found no fault in God's apparent humanity. In fact, they saw her as his very glory. God is not an abstract principle but a real personality involved in the human condition. Christians and Jews alike, believers of every religion in their own way, even accepted without fear the physical titles of God. Some Jewish mystics delighted in the sight of the divine "Soma" (literally "body"), and Christians have always seen the incarnation of God in a human body as a clear symbol of his involvement in the world. The Christianity of the New Testament went so far in the somatization of the Deity to the point of trivializing the attributes of God's soul. In the case of certain Jewish mystics, attributing sexuality to God ended in outbreaks of religious nihilism in the social sphere. Pre-philosophical Jews and Christians accepted both mental and somatic anthropomorphism as a root principle of their faith.

In contrast, most modern theologies - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - adapt the old anthropomorphic traditions to some of the demands of philosophy: God still has a personality, but this personality is emptied of any somatic content. God, in the three religions, has been reduced - or elevated, according to each one's personal taste - to an impersonal principle: omniscient, omnipotent, good and benevolent, infinite and so on. The interpersonal drama - about the tension, the absurdity and the humor in it - was blurred in favor of complying with the dictates of the doctrine. Therefore, neither the philosophy nor the myth got what they wanted: in fact the wings of both were clipped. Philosophy has lost its radical doubt (God is still committed as a personality), while myth has lost the fire that feeds it (God does not have a highly developed personality).

Since the Bible records the dramatic story of the relationship between God and Israel, it is to be regretted that this subject is not studied according to its inner logic, as literature or as drama. Every drama is a clash between working souls. To understand the drama one must understand the personalities of the actors. Therefore, every good literary critic is expected to be an intuitive psychologist. When I use the term psychology, I do not mean a specific analytical school, but rather the intuitive understanding of human nature, the wisdom and common sense regarding human affairs which stood for all wise men - especially writers and poets - even a thousand years before Freud. Therefore, in order to understand the nature of the drama, we must penetrate the souls of the actors. Since their personality is expressed in their words and actions and is not always clearly expressed, we are required to read between the lines - I mean, read the lines themselves in depth without arbitrarily creating new lines.

Most modern religious studies begin with man: man's attitude towards God, towards the world, towards himself. This is certainly a proper direction for modern theology, but it is not necessary for the phenomenology of biblical religion where, according to the plain meaning of the scripture, God is more important than man. God is the one who initiates the process of creation, he is the one who summons man and makes a covenant with him, and so on. Therefore, in our study of the biblical record, the personality of God - and not that of man - is at the center of our concern.

Concepts such as immanent and transcendent often lead to the blurring of the problem: God is clearly not part of the world to the extent that the concept of immanent suggests, nor is he outside the world as the concept of transcendent might imply. God is near and far at the same time. Although God is not close in the sense that he is identified with the world, derived from it or subordinate to it, he is intensely busy with the people living in the world, especially with the people of Israel. There is no doubt that God appears in the Bible as a personality with a variety of emotions: worry, joy, sadness, regret, eagerness and many others.

In the various Mesopotamian writings there is a tendency to gather all the gods and contain their corresponding functions in a single supreme god. For example, Enlil was the supreme god: Shamash the sun god was in his eyes, Ishtar in his hands, Ea at his feet, and so on down the hierarchy. This is a type of mystical monotheism which can be compared to the Jewish mystical teachings of the ancient man. God is described as having a human image, and his various moral qualities - mercy, justice, truth, glory, glory - are linked in the various parts of his body. God, as expressed in the living body of an ancient man, is a being with a wide spectrum of moods, abilities and powers.

In a way, these models shed light on the relationship of biblical religion and Mesopotamian civilization, at least as it is described in the Bible. It is possible that God, the one God, eliminated all his competitors and ruled alone, but he did not get rid of their various functions (titles), with the help of which the universe was managed. The natural order had to continue. It was necessary to provide rain for the sky, to nourish the earth and humanity, and embryos had to be formed in order for children to come into the world. A person had to be cared for from birth to old age and beyond.

Since there was now only one god left, he had to assume all - and I emphasize the word all - the powers, roles and responsibilities of the old multi-god pantheon. Since he merged and concentrated old powers, he could perform these duties with a sublime ease and simplicity the like of which had never been seen. At least that's what he claimed to his hard-back nation, Israel.

He was a whole pantheon in himself. He was not only God the father, God the husband, the king and the ultimate lord, but was also God the maker of spices, the architect, the designer of the interior of the tabernacle, a wise craftsman. God the teacher, God the writer; God the gynecologist, God the midwife, God the veterinarian. God the companion, God the debtor, God the dramatist, God the sublime chess player who derives pleasure from the moral games with his Son, man, who was created in his image. God sometimes laughed and often wept; He is comforted by prophets, and his nostrils are cooled by prophets and zealots. He walked, rested and slept, and was ever awake. God put on a hat and put on a suit of clothes that he called Israel; His arms are tattooed with the same name. He puts on tefillin on which it is written "Who is like the people of Israel, one nation in the land?"

God was a king who in his youth behaved one way and in his old age, so to speak, behaved differently. Having learned from his mistakes, he has now allowed his mercy - the love of man that is contained in him (his creation, his student and his partner) - to prevail over the measure of judgment. Man could worship God because he was so like him. He appeared again and again in many and varied roles lest he freeze and become the silent photographers he so despised. God was a multifaceted personality who, by reflecting his many faces to man, provided the model that man so desperately needed to survive and thrive.

This is God's true humanity.