God

November 1, 2021
A biblical scholar sets out to recover the Bible's clear image of God as a corporeal being, with a physical form both resembling the human body yet also magnificently superior to it. Stavrakopoulou, a professor of ancient religion and the Hebrew Bible at the University of Exeter, argues that Judaism and, later, Christianity spiritualized the God of ancient Israel through the centuries. In so doing, once clearly anthropomorphic passages of Scripture were given completely allegorical meanings. As the author notes in the conclusion, "the real God of the Bible was an ancient Levantine deity whose footsteps shook the earth, whose voice thundered through the skies and whose beauty and radiance dazzled his worshippers." The author presents a lengthy and well-researched tome that draws on multiple ancient sources and archaeological findings to rediscover the physicality of ancient gods and especially the bodily nature of the God of Israel. Stavrakopoulou explores this God one part at a time: feet and legs, genitals, torso, arms and hands, and, finally, head. She explores a remarkable range of Scripture in which Israel's God is described in fully anthropomorphic terms--and often with attributes of character and action more akin to a god of Olympus than the God of modern Abrahamic religions. The God Stavrakopoulou reveals is a warrior and a lover who lives in close proximity to his people. At times, the author's rejection of allegorical interpretations of this God is unyielding--e.g., her treatment of scriptural descriptions of God fathering his believers through his lover. Nonetheless, Stavrakopoulou provides a refreshing look at ancient Scripture and the people behind it, reminding readers that the concept of "God" in the 21st century is a world away from that of the earliest people of Israel. A challenging, engaging work of scholarship that sheds new light on ancient Hebrew conceptions of the divine.

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Starred review from November 29, 2021
Biblical scholar Stavrakopoulou convincingly argues for understanding the Christian God as an embodied being in this fascinating comparative mythology. Despite encountering “broad assumption” among Jewish and Christian insistence that God is “formless,” Stavrakopoulou found “ancient texts conjured a startlingly corporeal image of God.” She demonstrates this through biblical appearances, alongside the mythologies of an embodied God from the ancient Hebrews’ neighbors. Stavrakopoulou starts with the feet and moves upwards, using body parts as jumping-off points to explore cultural and theological issues. She considers genitals (including Ezekiel’s vision of God’s genitals filling the temple); the torso and organs (with a section on the heart as the seat of cognition); and arms, hands, and head (including an eye-opening exploration of the power of scent in rituals). She moves into what those parts can do, as, when discussing hands, she considers the ancient power invested in writing. By placing Hebrew stories in their local context, she explains what body parts meant to the original writers of the Bible, and offers insights into the reasons and methods that later theologians employed to diminish God’s corporeality. Stavrakopoulou writes with the fluidity of a seasoned storyteller, using ample footnotes, but never getting weighed down by academic jargon. This is a provocative tour de force.

January 1, 2022

Were the biblical authors being literal or literary in their anthropomorphic (and andromorphic) depictions of God? Drawing parallels between ancient Israel and Israel's neighbors, biblical scholar Stavrakopoulou (religion, Univ. of Exeter; Reading the Hebrew Bible), concludes that YHWH was more the cosmic character drawn in the image of his people than the transcendent spirit of a more abstract theology. Working through various anatomical features of God provided by the text of the Bible, archaeological artifacts, and texts of related ancient cultures, Stavrakopoulou places Israel and Israel's God in a larger cultural context. In doing so, she presents a larger-than-life but all-too-human deity who rose from being a minor member of a large pantheon to being its sole and all-encompassing occupant. From there YHWH undergoes the inexorable process of fading into the ineffable. Some of Stavrakopoulou's assumptions are--although perfectly respectable--not unassailable, namely that there was nothing particularly distinctive about Israel's pre-exilic religion and that ancient Israel's neighbors had a naively literal view of the depictions of their own deities. Regardless, Stavrakopoulou has drawn a masterful line from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to that of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. VERDICT Stavrakopoulou demonstrates scholarly acumen and popular flair.--James Wetherbee

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