The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

by Benjamin D. Sommer

In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel , Benjamin D. Sommer investigates the notion of a deity's body and self in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He uncovers a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which an essential difference between gods and humans was that gods had more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Genres: Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Old Testament, Biblical Studies, Christian

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Benjamin D. Sommer is professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He lives in Teaneck, NJ.

Reviews

[Joshua Pearsall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though there are many good insights into this book, as with many Jewish scholars I find their approach to Scripture repugnant at times. However, Sommer does a great job looking at Scripture and the history of Judaism to demonstrate the clear thought that the LORD did appear in creation physically, despite many modern Post Christian Jewish objections who have rejected their ancient traditions to make as large a gulf as possible between Christianity and Judaism. Sommers also notes here as well as other works that the Angel of the Lord is seen as "an extension" of the LORD, as Divine Himself. Though the conclusions he draws may not be mine, he notes how Trinitarion theology is an ancient form of Jewish monotheism. Alongside scholars like Daniel Boyarin and many others.

[Enkidu_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly epic about the Jewish and Biblical perception of "monotheism" : contrarily to atavistic pontifications about an elusive "uniformed" vision of YHWH as "essentially" - or as Maimonides would like, "simply" - One, the author, Benjamin D. Sommer (professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary) shows that the Jewish/Biblical relation with Godhood has been complex.

Basing himself on the "polytheisms" of Mesopotamia/Canaan - from which Israel can't be dissociated -, on wider archaeological evidences and even the Bible (he says that his surprised that no real scholar unearthed it something that "obvious"), he comes to the conclusion that, far from being "pure monotheists", Jews from the ancient times up to first millennium of our era embraced a "fluid" idea of God, categorized by "embodiment" as much as an atomization of the divine Self in all these receptacles ; like in Mesopotamia/Canaan - and apparently contrarily to ancient Greece -, YHWH could decide to "incarnate" Himself into a lot of corporeal entities (angels, objects, ...), all these beings really being Him but without compromising His Unicity (he stresses that we shouldn't confuse it with pantheism, where God is not "really" incarnated in all these individual objects, but these are part of Him ; here, he *really* is).

Of course, such idea is easily perceptible from a purely inter-religion polemical point of view : it basically justifies the Christian vision of monotheism, so much criticized by Jews as implicit paganism, namely the Trinity.

Thus the author basically shows that not only that the Trinity is "defensible" from a Bibilical perspective, but he says to the Jews that they themselves never really got away from this "fluidity of YHWH", whether the Rabbinical elaborations on the Shekhinah or, even more prominently, the Kabbalistic sephiroth.

All in all a good little book for a very large public - as the author consciously address in his introduction -, and which is a definitive contribution on the generic idea of "monotheism", at least in its Abrahamic emanation.

[samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
• Introduction
o The God of the HB has a body.
o Rather: God has many bodies located in sundry places in the world that God created
o References to God’s form or shape.
o Some verses of “nonmaterial anthropomorphism,” others “material anthropomorphism”
o DEF BODY: st a particular place at a particular time. 2
o At times safe to see, at times not. 3
o “Not a single verse” that refutes his having form and shape. 5
o God’s body and self have a mysterious fluidity and multiplicity
o Some verses attempt to resist that!! 10
o Moves unto postbiblical Judaism implications.
• 1. Fluidity of Divine Embodiment and Selfhood: Meso and Canaan
o For ancient Near Eastern religions, gods could have multiple bodies and fluid selves. 12
o Fluidity: fragmentation 13
 Ishtar of Arbela acts independently of Ishtar of Nineveh, and both of them act independently of Venus—yet ther independent actions are completely parallel to each other. Something like Indian AVATARS 15
 PARTIAL MANIFESTATIONS.
 he doesn’t mean her personality contradicts itself.
 He doesn’t mean this is all syncretism and contradictions
o Fluidity: overlap 16
 Ninurta’s parts haze into various other gods’ parts in hymns
 Merger of gods never implies that they no longer exists as individuals (Enuma Elish)
o Multiplicity
 Unity of divine statue and divine being
 mīss pî or pīt pî rituals. MOUTH OPENING RITUALS
 the salmu was the god.
• In short, a distinction existed between two types of salmus: those that carried a divine being’s presence and those that merely portrayed some being, whether human or divine. The real presence of divinity in the former type of salmu is indicated in other ways as well
 STATUE IS NO MERE SIGN POINTING TO REALITY OUTISDE ITSELF
 ILU COULD ENTER OBJECT, ILU COULD LEAVE IT
o Fragmenting of Baal
 these gods show no individuation of personality, character, or function, and they are always mentioned alongside each other Scholars have spent an extraordinary amount of effort essaying the relationship or various Baals to each other 25
o Greece polytheism doesn’t have this multiplicity. It’s not synonymous w polytheism
o Mesopotamian gods are essentially (or began as) natural forces endowed with personality:
 If a particular aspect of nature irrupted as Ishtar in Arbela, then the same aspect could irrupt as Ishtar in Nineveh 36
o fluidity and multicplicity of immortal selfhood not at home in all polytheistic 38 systems.
o
• 2. Fluidity Model in Ancient Israel
o YHWH OF SAMARIA VS YWHH OF TEMAN
o OR EVEN IN THE BIBLE: YHWH AT HEBRON VS YHWH AT ZION EMPHASIZE THAT YOU HAD TO GO TO DIFF SETTING TO FIND GOD. WHATS THERE IF NOT SOME FETISH
 CF McCarter, P. Kyle. “Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data.” In Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, eds. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride, 137–55. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.
o The mal’akh, messengers!
o GODS PRESENCE IN WOOD ASHERAH
o IN STONE/STELE
 In light of the biblical evidence indicating the validity of stone pillars in the cult devoted exclusively to Yhwh, it is not surprising that archaeologists have found stelae in many Israelite cult sites.
• 3. Rejection of Fluidity Model in Ancient Israel
o PRIESTLY HAND
o Re: shem and kabod
 Priestly and deuteronomic traditions, however, each use one of these terms in a strictly circumscribed way. In so doing, these traditions reject both the notion of fluid divine selfhood and the concept of multiple divine embodiment.
 Priesttly/deut emph: God dwells in heaven and nowhere else
 According to the deuteronomic Name theology, then, the shem is not God, it is not a part of God, and it is not an extension of God

[J. W. Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has listened to the Lord of Spirits podcast would relish this book, as would anyone interested in why the Old Testament so frequently depicts God "anthropomorphically". As Sommer demonstrates, it is rather man who is "theomorphic", in that the God of the Old Testament is beyond doubt embodied. Indeed, Sommer's main concern is how God is embodied, according to a Near Eastern model of 'fluidity' or to a uniquely Jewish conception.

Especially interesting is how he ties this discussion to the notion of sacred space and sacred geography, concluding that the mixed sources of the Old Testament suggest a third position that is neither 'locative' nor 'utopian' in his terms, but 'locomotive'. That is, the mobile tabernacle suggests the existence of a sacred centre which is not fixed to any particular place.

Some weaker points of Sommer's argument concern his attempts to tie the ancient Near Eastern fluidity model to Rabbinical and Kabbalistic Judaism - to trace a literal continuity between them seems dubious. Nevertheless, there are definite similarities that are worth the investigation. Likewise, an attempt to reinterpret the fall from Eden falls flat and doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But these are minor criticisms of a book that is well researched and cogently argued.

[Charles Meadows · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some places in the Hebrew Bible God appears on earth as a "man", but in other places He is depicted as up in heaven and without a physical body. This study goes through God's different manifestations in the different books of the Bible, particularly in the different sources of the pentateuch, where the author adopts the JEDP framework. There's also interaction with Christian doctrines of the incarnation and trinity based on the author's thesis. Essential reading.

[Matthew Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book that shows some of the benefits of source criticism and presents a fantastic analysis of how the Bible and ancient Israelites perceived God and God's presence. I especially appreciated his closing chapter and how this scholarship is still useful for modern Christians and Jews. Likewise, Sommer's Appendix was fascinating and very helpful in describing the ancient context's references to monotheism and polytheism.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sommer's primary argument is that many of the ancient Israelites, though not all, believed not only that God has a physical body but God is able to take on different bodies and even multiple bodies at once.

It's a fascinating and persuasive read.

[wyclif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating exploration of ANE and theistic themes.

[William Sharp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. If you are interested in seeing God throughout the Old Testament and how God is portrayed through Jesus, this is the book. It is a very scholarly book.