Welcome to the next installment of my book analysis series on Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s book, God: An Anatomy. In this post, I will be looking at “Part 2” of her book, entitled, “Feet and Legs,” which constitutes chapters 2-4, “Grounded” (Chapter 2), “Footloose” (Chapter 3), and “Sensational Feet” (Chapter 4).
As I said in an earlier post, the way Stavrakopoulou structures each chapter is fairly consistent. There is an opening section in which she usually tells about some archeological find, then the rest of the chapter jumps around from biblical passage to biblical passage to ANE myth to something else then back to biblical passage. Again, as I said in an earlier post, it really does resemble the “Gish Gallop” in many ways. When she does touch upon a biblical passage, she rarely tries to explain it within the fuller context of the larger passage, but rather touches upon a specific thing in the passage (namely, a body part) and then argues what it really means when understood against the backdrop of some ANE myth or archeological find. With that, let’s take a look at these chapters.
Chapter 2: “Grounded”
Dr. S begins by telling about what she saw when she visited the ruins of the ancient Hittite temple at ‘Ain Dara in Syria: two giant footprints that represented the feet of the deity of that temple. From that, she begins to contemplate the feet of YHWH as expressed in the OT.
First, there is Exodus 24:9-10: “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.” Dr. S describes this as Moses seeing YHWH standing on a “magical rock.” From there, she notices many places in the OT where we are told that YHWH’s feet “splits mountains,” “shakes the earth,” and “crushes the bodies of his enemies.”
Her conclusion is that all these instances are describing YHWH’s literal feet—sometimes on a “magical rock,” sometimes splitting mountains and shaking the earth, and sometimes crushing heads. Well, I beg to differ. First of all, Exodus 24:9-10 says nothing about a “magical rock.” The description of sapphire is used elsewhere in the Bible (Ezekiel 1, 10, 28; Revelation 21) to denote the abode of God, whether it be Eden or the New Jerusalem. And yes, the description comes from the language of mythology. What we have is this odd combination of a story in which purports to convey history (Moses and the Israelites in the Exodus encountering YHWH), while using some mythological (i.e. poetic, metaphorical) language to try to explain that encounter with YHWH. We need to be okay with that and not try to impose such a wooden literalistic reading on the text as Dr. S seems to be doing. Secondly, the same goes for the descriptions of YHWH’s feet splitting mountains, shaking the earth and crushing the heads of His enemies. I find it hard to imagine that Dr. S is actually suggesting the ancient Israelites really thought YHWH was literally doing these things with His literal feet.
Dr. S also touches upon the connection between certain biblical passages and some ANE myths regarding the defeat of a watery chaos monster, where YHWH defeats Leviathan (Psalm 74; Isaiah 27) or Rahab (Psalm 89; Isaiah 51). Yes, there is absolutely a mythological connection. Ancient Israel used similar myths to describe YHWH’s power over chaos. Of course, as we see in Isaiah 51 (echoing Isaiah 30), the writer connects that mythological story regarding the sea serpent of chaos to the actual historical kingdom of Egypt during the Exodus, with the mythological waters of chaos being associated with the Red Sea.
Mind you, this doesn’t really have anything to do with YHWH’s feet. Still, yes, there is no denying that such ANE mythological imagery regarding the defeat of Leviathan is in the OT.
Dr. S also points out that, just as in other ancient cultures, the God of the Bible is often encountered on mountaintops. As she states, “…divine presence is particularly associated with high points in the landscape and the mythological motif of the cosmic mountain” (45). Again, yes—this is true. Eden itself should be understood to be God’s mountain. Jerusalem on Mount Zion, with the Temple filled with garden imagery, is presented in an “Eden-like” way. Therefore, within the larger context of the Exodus-Conquest story, the Israelites “passing through the waters” and then coming to the Promised Land, where they eventually have a Temple on Mount Zion as YHWH’s house, all can be understood against the backdrop of Genesis 1-2, where God pushes back the waters of chaos, establishes dry ground, and then, on the mountain of Eden, has the man and woman commune with him in the garden of His abode. Simply put, the writers of the OT were explaining the history of Israel against the mythological backdrop of the Creation-Eden stories.
Again, though, the talk of mountains doesn’t really have anything to do with YHWH’s feet, but what Dr. S says about them is true.
In any case, Dr. S also claims that King Solomon made giant furniture for the Temple in Jerusalem, and that showed that the ancient Israelites viewed YHWH as having a giant body. If we go to I Kings 6, where the furnishings of the Temple are described, here is what we find (cubits converted to feet: 1 cubit = 18 inches):
- The Temple itself was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high
- The vestibule in front of the nave was 30 feet by 15 feet
- The portion of the Temple in front of the Holy of Holies was 60 feet long
- The Holy of Holies was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high
- The two cherubim in the Holy of Holies stood 15 feet high, with wingspans of 15 feet
Also, to take information from Exodus 25:
- The Ark of the Covenant was 3.75 feet long, 2.25 feet wide, and 2.25 feet high
- The Table for the Bread of the Presence was 3 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, and 2.25 feet high
I did not find any mention of giant-sized furniture. Dr. S claims that the two 15-feet high cherubim functioned as the throne of YHWH, but I didn’t find that said anywhere in the description of Solomon’s Temple.
At the end of Chapter 2, Dr. S says this, “When the God of the Bible had declared the Jerusalem temple to be the place for the soles of his feet, he meant it literally” (49). I don’t know what to say to that, other than no—I can’t believe anyone really thinks ancient Israelites thought the Jerusalem Temple was a literal footstool for YHWH’s literal feet.
Chapter 3: Footloose
Chapter 3 begins with a description of a monument for the Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser III that celebrates his divine-mandated mission to stamp out all rebellious forces that threaten the order of, as Dr. S puts it, “hierarchical power structures.” In a similar way, Dr. S claims that is how YHWH is presented in the OT, as trampling down rebellious forces that threaten His rule. She mentions Isaiah 14:13-14, where the “Day Star, son of Dawn” ascends the cosmic mountain to try to unseat YHWH from His role of “the enthroned Elyon, the title inherited from El.” Of course, as I pointed out in my previous post, Dr. S admitted that how YHWH supplanted Elyon is “frustratingly unclear.” Nevertheless, she’s certain it must have happened, and so she is confident to read that into Isaiah 14:13-14.
After this, Dr. S discusses the story in I Samuel 4 regarding how the Israelites brought the Ark of the Covenant into the camp before a battle with the Philistines, and subsequently let the Ark be captured by the Philistines. This story, she claims, shows that the ancient Israelites defied the Ark as “the weaponized pedestal of YHWH,” where YHWH’s feet were fixed and was effectively “the cult statue of YHWH.” Therefore, she argues that the description of the Ark as the place where Moses placed the two tablets of stone (Exodus 25; I Kings 8) was an attempt by later biblical writers to “disempower” and “demythologize” what the Ark was really thought to be. She goes so far as to say that those passages that state the Ark was where the covenant tablets were kept “read like special pleading” and are a “relatively early theological assault on the body of God, whose material presence, once manifest in the Iron Age temples of ancient Israel and Judah as a divine statue or cultic object, would gradually come to be replaced in ritual by the Torah” (58).
I’m going to be kind and say that is quite a stretch. The biblical text says the Ark contained the stone tablets and it brings up the story in I Samuel 4 to show how treating the Ark as a magical object was idolatrous and wrong. Yet Dr. S sees that and comes to the conclusion that the exact opposite is true. I’m sorry, but I just have to say it: This is not Biblical Studies—it is an intentional subversion of Biblical Studies.
From there, Dr. S mentions a number of biblical passages that say either Jerusalem is YHWH’s footstool, or better yet, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool! What is the house that you would build for me and what is my resting place?” (Isaiah 66:1). She then claims that “several Jewish and Christian communities clearly embraced the divine corporeality presented in Isaiah, and quite reasonably assumed that God’s body was so gigantic it reached from earth to heaven” (65). Mind you, she does not actually say who any of these “Jewish and Christian communities” who believed God had a giant body were—she cites nothing on this point.
Finally, at the end of Chapter 3, Dr. S touches upon how many early Christian theologians attempted to explain those parts of the OT where God was seemingly mentioned with a corporeal body by saying such passages were metaphorical or allegorical, and weren’t to be taken literally. Her take? “It was a convoluted, theological abstraction that would influence Christian interpretation of this biblical text and others like it for centuries to come, reflecting an increasingly powerful conceptual shift away from an old-fashioned mythological imagination to a world in which the symbolic and the abstract were granted the highest cultural and theological status” (67).
I find this quote fascinating. Again, as I mentioned in the previous post, as Joseph Campbell points out, mythology, by its very nature, is symbolic, poetic, and metaphorical. Yet Dr. S is criticizing early Church theologians for shifting these passages away from the “mythological imagination” to the more symbolic—that makes no sense. Now, it is true that many Church Fathers were very much influenced by Greek Philosophy, but that is another topic altogether. But if she honestly thinks that verses like Isaiah 66:1 were originally understood literally, with God having a literal giant body, and that early Church theologians were guilty of putting a kibosh on such thinking, I’m at a loss for words.
Chapter 4: Sensational Feet
Much of Chapter 4 is along the lines of what Chapters 2-3 cover: YHWH was thought to have a literal, gigantic body, with literal feet that crunched bones and skulls, and felt hot blood of enemies in the process.
I want to focus on just one thing Dr. S mentions in this chapter that acts as a segway to Part 2 of her book, where she talks about God’s genitalia. Here, she first mentions the story of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them off with her hair in Luke 7. In the actual passage, the pharisee is shocked because the woman was “a sinner,” and in response Jesus tells the parable of a creditor with two debtors. After that, he tells the woman her sins are forgiven. Dr. S, though, feels that this scene communicates a certain “eroticism.” She says, “It is a scene emphasizing the overwhelming sensuous excesses of her body. By using her flowing hair, wet skin, and the repeated actions of her mouth and hands to caress Jesus’ feet, her actions take on the characteristics of sexual stimulation and erotic play” (84).
And why is this erotic? Because “feet” is sometimes used in the Bible as a euphemism for genitalia. For example, in the Book of Ruth, she goes to Boaz at night and lays down at his “feet.” Now, in that instance, an argument can be made that “feet” is a euphemism, because after all, Ruth is trying to convince Boaz to marry her—a little bit of female seduction, if you will. In the context of that story, I think that is probably the right interpretation. Of course, that doesn’t mean everywhere feet are mentioned, that it must mean a penis.
Dr. S apparently thinks otherwise. Not only does she view the story in Luke 7 as erotic play, she then suggests that it should make us reconsider how we read the story in John 13, where (yep, you guessed it!) Jesus washes his disciples “feet.” She writes, “Against this backdrop, the story in the later Gospel of John, describing Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, looks rather more suggestive” (84).
Sorry, no—it doesn’t. It’s a silly interpretation. It’s not even offensive, as it is more adolescent. As it stands, though, Dr. S thinks these passages suggest as “sexualized Christ.” And, as we’ll see in Part 3 of her book (Part 5 of this series), she sees penises everywhere in the Bible.
Scholars like Sommer (and others) seem to take a more…”middle ground”?
It is likewise clear that the presence of the deity could exist in heaven
and earth simultaneously and that the deity’s presence on earth could
be in multiple locations at the same time, with no priority given to any
one representation as being a more valid manifestation of the presence
of the god than any other.
-Herring, Divine Substitution
Mark Smith also has a paper (its free somewhere, I forget where, but I read it a few weeks back) describing the 3 “bodies of God” in the HB. One is physical, the other is very large and quasi-physical and the third is…cosmic? I guess?
My point is, this does not seem to be a fully cut and dry matter. Not necessarily an either-or, but a “both-and” type of deal perhaps.
I was wondering wether, in this whole discussion about antropomorphic features, scholars consider the “two powers in heaven” theology that was known in pre-christian Judaism? It seems to me that it resolves some of the scriptures where YHWH is described antropomorphic (outside of poetric descriptions).
(I got this from Dr. M. Heiser here: https://drmsh.com/the-naked-bible/two-powers-in-heaven/)
“Dr. S claims that the two 15-feet high cherubim functioned as the throne of YHWH, but I didn’t find that said anywhere in the description of Solomon’s Temple.”
What did throne structures throughout the Ancient Near East look like, Joel? (I will even give you a hint …) in ANE iconography where do we most commonly see cherubim?
Bottom line, scholars are divided on the intent of these ANE authors. Until there is a clear majority consensus, I suggest that we non-experts withhold judgment.
Question: Gary, what will you do when the majority of scholars are evangelicals? The largest seminaries in the US are now evangelical. Will you still accept majority consensus scholarly opinion when evangelicals are the majority?
Answer: I will disregard the scholarship of any scholar who has signed a statement of faith or statement of belief, promising that he or she will not publish any scholarship which conflicts with the doctrinal position/belief system of the institution which employs him or her. In so doing, you will eliminate most evangelical scholars from the sample group.
In addition, I will disregard the scholarship of any scholar who publicly states that he (or she) can perceive the presence of a ghost/spirit dwelling within him; a ghost which communicates with him in an inaudible form of communication; a ghost which he identifies as Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived and died 2,000 years ago. Such a scholar is not dealing with a full deck. He is delusional and hopelessly biased. This criteria will eliminate any remaining evangelical scholars in your sample group.
So I will still accept majority scholarly opinion…with the two caveats above.
“John 13, where (yep, you guessed it!) Jesus washes his disciples “feet.” She writes, “Against this backdrop, the story in the later Gospel of John, describing Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, looks rather more suggestive” (84).”
I agree with you, Joel. Dr S. is allowing her 21st century radical feminism to influence her interpretation of ancient Near East texts. However, as far as the question of whether ancient Hebrews viewed Yahweh as having body parts, that remains in question. We have evidence from the first century that even in the first century some Jews viewed God as having body parts:
“When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.[a] 55 But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 58 Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.[b]”
This text from Acts if very informative on the topic of this post. Did the first century Christian author of Luke/Acts, whom most conservative Christians assume was Jewish, believe that the story of Stephen’s stoning was an historical account or was this story a theological allegory? Answer: We will never know! However, the story does tell us things about what first century Christians believed about Yahweh, the topic of this post. The first century Christian author of Acts describes Yahweh with anthropomorphic features! Let’s look at two more English translations of Acts 7:56:
“And [Stephen] said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” KJV
” And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” ESV
Did the author of this passage believe that Yahweh has a right hand?? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he was speaking figuratively. Maybe he simply meant that the Son of Man (Jesus) was standing to the right of Yahweh. Could be. However, even if that is the case, the author of Acts is inferring that Yahweh was located in a specific location in space! This author did not imagine Yahweh as some amorphous void in another dimension. Yahweh occupied space!!! Is that an anthropomorphic inference?? Maybe.
Another interesting item to note. The first century Christian author of this passage differentiates between “God” and “the Son of Man” (Jesus). He sees both of them and describes them as two separate beings, both occupying space! Fascinating! This first century Christian either believed that Jesus was not God or believed that he was seeing two Gods! Sorry, Trinitarian Christians, but if two separate beings occupy two separate locations in space, they are not the same entity. They are not the same beings. They are not two (or three) persons in one God. This first century Christian description of God is describing the sighting of one God and one man or TWO GODS! This is clear evidence that at least some early Christians did NOT believe in the concept of a “Trinity”.
Lastly, look where the author of this passage indicates the abode of God is located: in the heavens! The idea that God’s abode, heaven, is in another dimension is an invention of post-enlightenment Europeans (and Americans)!
Juvenile is right. Cue Bevis and Butthead:
“Hu-uh, hu-huh, Bevis . . . she said “feet” . . . hu-uh . . .”
These kinds of interpretations (reading eroticism into a text), in my mind, say much more about the particular scholar making them than they do the subject matter they’re discussing. Dr. Anderson’s right: sometimes feet are just feet.
Pax.
Lee.
Or—and I know this is absolutely crazy, but hear me out, here—maybe the texts that are thousands of years old, and stemming from a completely foreign culture actually do say these things, and it is us, reading them from a perspective of post-Victorian modernism, that are projecting “eroticism” back on to them.
Yeah, sometimes feet are just feet, but many times they actually are genitals. Isa 6:2 seems most likely to be one of those instances. Hell, the translator of tg.Jon.—writing some time around the first/second century—clearly thought it was just that.
But Stavrakopulou is claiming Isaiah 6:1 is describing YHWH’s penis. You find that convincing?
Directly? Somewhat.
But, what I do find convincing is how a few scholars have worked through this specific verse and the especially problematic noun שולים to demonstrate that there is a hell of a lot more going on in this scene than so suggested by the quite unsophisticated translation “train of his garment.”
Stavrakopoulou is not just pulling this idea from thin air. It has merit, and you laughing at and hand-waving in her general direction only suggests that you have rather carelessly (lazily?) opted not to explore the arguments that have been in print about this since the mid-nineties.
Can you share where else in the OT this word is used to indicate a penis? If not, then, contrary to your claim, such an interpretation doesn’t have merit.
1) What do you think שולים means?
2) How do you know what שולים means?
3) How do actual scholars know what שולים means?
The exact same construction in Isaiah 6:1 is found in Exodus 28:33-34 and 39:24-26. Are you suggesting that priests had penises on their garments? Please, try to give a direct and coherent reply.
Sure thing. And then you can come back and answer my three questions.
The constructions in Exodus may appear exact, but you will notice that each occurrence of the noun שולים is suffixed with the 3ms ו. Can you tell me what the referent of the suffix is in each of these instances? It is the same word in each case. I suppose I could be more direct, but in truth, I am not convinced that you know Hebrew all that well, and I am admittedly checking to see if you can handle this most basic of grammatical tasks.
But, this is fairly important, I think, because we must also then ask what the referent is for the 3ms ו suffixed to שולים in Isa 6:1. Can you spot it? What do you think it is? So, if you can identify the crucial differences between these seemingly identical constructions, then you will understand why I do not think that the priests had penises on their garments.
As for the word שולים itself, I should credit my good friend—and fellow biblical scholar—Matthew P. Monger for suggesting that the best translation of this word is “dangly bits.” I quite like that myself, since it very clearly communicates the most general sense of the word in all of its usages.
So, now. I await your responses to the three questions I posed above.
Oh okay, you’re going to keep up with this condescending attitude and insist on acting like an arrogant teenager who has an over-inflated ego. It seems to be a pattern with you. Instead of engaging in direct conversation, you insist on trying to insult and belittle anyone who disagrees with you. I’ve watched you do it to others. Clearly, you are compensating for something and are a very insecure person who yearns for his teenage years. I’d suggest you grow up, give yourself a trim, and try to start looking and acting like an adult for a change.
Oh, and Stavrakopoulou’s interpretation certainly does have merit, which is why it was first proposed and published back in the 1990s, and why Mark S. Smith has much more recently published that the reading is perfectly plausible, even though he does not personally find it convincing. In case you had not noticed, not all scholars agree about everything, but part of what makes the discipline so fun is the ongoing discussion of such matters as this.
Uh oh. You appear to be stumped by my questions about very basic Hebrew grammar.
You’re a scholar, Joel. Here is your chance to work through a problem in the biblical text. You know, like scholars do.
No, I just have no time for a–holes. You’re more interested in belittling anyone you don’t agree with than just giving straight answers.
Besides, you are a full-time professor, and I am a part-time adjunct, in addition to teaching full-time in high school. You are obviously going to be more steeped in the academic world at this point. So please, stop stroking your own ego to make yourself feel important more important than you really are.
It is a very basic question of Hebrew grammar that you should have no trouble answering—this is second-year level stuff that you should have learned before leaving TWU. (And, I am not a full-time professor, by the way.)
I am happy to engage with you on this issue, but I am pretty sure I know precisely why you are avoiding the discussion, and I do not think it is a good look. I think you owe it to your readers to know whether they should be listening to you or me, or whether they should not. After all, you are the one claiming to dispense knowledge and correction from your expertise in biblical studies. So, defend it, already. Otherwise, perhaps no one should be taking your pearl-clutching reactions to Stavrakopoulou’s book seriously? I mean, if you cannot even walk through with another colleague the minutiae of the language?
…and if the idea of YHWH having a penis was so ridiculous as you suggest, Joel, one then must wonder how and why it was a feature of discussion amongst the Taanaim and the Amoraim in their contemplations about the biblical texts.
It has nothing to do with “the idea of YHWH having a penis.” It has to do with whether or not there is any use of the word in question anywhere else in the OT that indicates it means “penis.”
A simple answer to the question of whether this word, שולים, means “penis” in any of its other usages in the Hebrew Bible is “no.” However, the more nuanced response is that the word itself is ambiguous enough to be uncertain of what it lore precisely means. And, moreover, the manner in which ancient readers and interpreters handled this word pretty strongly suggests that at a minimum, a euphemistic interpretation of the word in Isa 6:1 is certainly plausible.
Dr. Kipp. I apologize if you have answered this question previously, but do you believe that the author(s) of Genesis believed that Yahweh had physical features (feet, hands, penis…)?
Secondly, your teaching institution was established by the Evangelical Free Church, an evangelical Christian denomination. Were you forced to sign a Statement of Faith as part of your hiring process? I ask, because I am interested into learning more about your research. Thanks.
Hi, Gary.
1. There were multiple authors in the book of Genesis, and some of them clearly believed that YHWH had physical features. He is depicted using his hands to literally shape the first man like a clay vessel; he walks in the garden; hell, he sits in Abraham’s tent and eats a meal.
2. I haven’t taught at TWU for a few years, although I am presently supervising a MA thesis there. At present, I am not required to sign the “Community Covenant,” but that is also a special dispensation they have granted under special circumstances. The last time I taught there, I was still a professing Christian, and every faculty member was required to sign the Covenant. However, the faculty version is different from that which students signed, and was effectively open-ended enough that I could manage to sign it while holding my nose.
Any bets on whether Joel will deign to respond to my questions?
I think I understand what Dr. Kipp Davis is sort of explaining about the word from Isaiah 6:1 being a euphemism for a male private part. He seems to think that when the word is used with another word like “robe” or “garment” it means the hem of a robe or a garment, but when the word is used in other quotes by itself, it means a male or female private part. Also, he explained in a video on Youtube that the word is plural or dual when it is used in other quotes by itself, which is how body parts are often written in Biblical Hebrew.
Usually, this word is translated as a hem of a robe or as skirts when it is used by itself in the plural.
I tried to point out to him the word kanaf “wing” which is used the same way as a hem of a robe or by itself it means “a skirt” or “skirts.” This word is used as a singular or a plural word when it is used as a garment by itself without the word “robe.” He said the word is not related to the word in Isaiah 6:1, but it seems almost identical in meaning to me.
If you look at this video, starting around 28:45, Dr. Kipp Davis explains the word in Isaiah 6:1 in more detail. If you look for my name in the comment section, you can see a discussion I had with him about the word.
KIPP DAVIS: There were multiple authors in the book of Genesis, and some of them clearly believed that YHWH had physical features. He is depicted using his hands to literally shape the first man like a clay vessel; he walks in the garden; hell, he sits in Abraham’s tent and eats a meal.
LEE: Aren’t the authors of Genesis allowed some figurative leeway to anthropomorphize God to make their larger point?
And in the case of Abraham there are actually THREE “men” who eat a meal with Abraham. Are we meant to understand by this that the author of Genesis 18 thought that all three are YHWH? Did YHWH clone himself? Or were they all angels? Were two of the “men” angels and one was God? The way the text is worded in most modern translations Abraham addresses all three collectively as YHWH. Are there shades of the Trinity here? Because it’s curious to me that there were THREE “men” and not twelve (the number of the future tribes of Israel), or seven (the number for completeness) or fifty.
Could this not be a theophany of YHWH taking human form to interact with humans? I can’t see how this HAS to mean the authors of Genesis thought God *in his very nature* literally had a body. They weren’t Mormons were they? Was/is YHWH simply a more highly spiritually-evolved human being, as in LDS theology? Or was this a vision and YHWH simply *appeared* to have a body? Or did YHWH literally incarnate as three “men.”
For myself I’d be interested to read some academic reviews of Dr. Stavrakopoulou’s book to see what academic scholars think about her book. Anybody know of any?
Pax.
Lee.
I’m concerned about Kipp’s Hebrew skills. He makes so many mistakes in the video. For example:
• He misread the word for robe.
• שולים isn’t used as an adjective. It’s a noun in the construct state.
• Kipp’s claim that body parts are always in the dual or plural is rubbish. Many body parts appear in singular. Things like hand, finger, leg/foot come to mind.
Hi Joel
Can you please correct the last bullet point?
“Kipp’s claim that body parts are not always in the dual or plural is rubbish. Many body parts appear in singular, dual and/or plural. Things like hand, finger, leg/foot come to mind”
I the word “not” in the first sentence is obviously a typo and should correctly read:
• Kipp’s claim that body parts are always in the dual or plural is rubbish. Many body parts appear in singular, dual and/or plural. Things like hand, finger, leg/foot come to mind.
Thank you,
Ian