by Bret Stalcup

Created on: February 18, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

The Changing Faces of God

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differing views of God in the Hebrew Bible. These changes, from highly anthropomorphic images to remotely transcendent conceptions and from henotheism to monotheism, provide an interesting look into the relation between history and theology, of the cyclical dance between the actual and the theoretical.

The Yahwist texts are the earliest texts in the Hebrew Bible, dating from the 10th century BCE. The Yahwist texts provide examples of the anthropomorphic views of God, in which God was considered to either possess or be able to assume human form. God was seen as being experientially immanent, he was able to directly and physically interact with whomever he desired, though he tended to limit his interactions to extraordinary (and "chosen") people and circumstances. The anthropomorphic view may be seen as a reflection of the human focus on the immediacy of existence; concerns were focused upon here and now, and thus the conception of God, too, was oriented around physical existence.

Examples of Yahwist text representations of God include the story of the first sin and its punishment. In this myth, after Eve and Adam ate the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and crafted clothing for themselves, "They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden" (Gen. 3:8). After cursing the serpent and the unfortunate duo he banishes them from Eden, though after "the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21). Besides anthropomorphic representation, with this myth we have a display of henotheistic belief; in Genesis 3:22 God says "See, the man has become like one of us (italics mine), knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." Here we have not only a passage dealing with the potential to transcend humanity into a state of godhood, but a reference"one of usto the divine council, which Coogan defines as "The assembly of gods, over which the high god presides. In the Bible Yahweh is described as the head of the divine council". I will address the transition from henotheism to monotheism below.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of anthropomorphic representation occurs in the story of Jacob wrestling at Peniel. The story contains

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