National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Reviewed by:
The Bodies of G-D and the World of Ancient Israel. By Benjamin D. Sommer. Pp. xv + 334. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Cloth, $85.00.

Sommer investigates the notion of divine embodiment in the Hebrew Bible in an effort to demonstrate, contrary to the views of most biblical scholars and readers, that G-d has a body. Consequently, this volume has two primary tasks. The first is the historical and descriptive task to demonstrate that in parts of the Hebrew Bible the one G-d has more than one body (and more than one personality). The second is the theological and speculative task to explore the implications of the fact of G-d’s embodiment for a religion based on the Hebrew Bible. By body, Sommer means “something located in a particular place at a particular time, whatever its shape or substance” (p. 2). Despite the common view that G-d lacks a body, Sommer cites Exod 33:20, “a human cannot see Me and live,” to indicate not that G-d lacks a body, but that throughout much of the Hebrew Bible human beings are impeded in perceiving the divine body. He notes, however, that some human beings perceive the divine body without any apparent impediment as indicated in Amos 9:1, “I saw G-d standing at the altar.” Neither statement denies that G-d has a body; each presupposes G-d’s body and expresses the means by which it might or might not be perceived. He rejects theories of metaphor developed by scholars, such as Maimonides, through the centuries to explain away the Bible’s efforts to speak so frequently of G-d in corporeal terms by asserting that such efforts are not mere figures of speech; rather, the ancients who speak of G-d’s body really do think that G-d has a body.

The first two main chapters of the book take up the questions of the fluidity of divine embodiment and selfhood in Mesopotamia and Canaan on the one hand and the Hebrew Bible on the other. By fluidity of divine selfhood, Sommer maintains that although the Mesopotamian gods seem to have distinct selves in the ancient narratives, their selfhood is sometimes cast into doubt. Ishtar, for example, may appear as seemingly different deities with different geographical manifestations in a given text, for example, Ishtar of Arbela, Ishtar of Nineveh, and the planet Venus, in a seventh century treaty between Esarhaddon and Ramataya of Urakazabunu. In each case, the Ishtars in question respond to treaty violations in their own distinctive ways, indicating a discrete divine identity for each. Likewise, when a deity entered an image by means of pīt pî ‘mouth-opening’ and mīs pî ‘mouth-washing’ rituals, the image or statue in question became an embodiment of the deity, but it did not encompass the entirety of the deity. Similar observations are made for Northwest Semitic deities.

Divine fluidity then emerges as a means to express divine embodiment or personality as a sort of divine mask “behind which lie a multitude of contradictory [End Page 390] forces related to each other in inconceivably complex ways” (p. 36). The model of divine fluidity is then applied to the portrayal of G-d in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 18, for example, portrays YHWH’s manifestation to Abraham in human form. Such a temporary, anthropomorphic manifestation of YHWH hardly encompasses the totality of the divine self; it simply represents an avatar by which YHWH might be revealed to and perceived by Abraham in the narrative.

Although such fluid conceptualizations of divine embodiment and selfhood are evident in the JE strata of the Pentateuch, the D and P strata reject such notions in favor of fixed notions of divine selfhood expressed through terms such as shem ‘Name’ for D and kabod ‘Glory’ for P. Both terms function as hypostatizes insofar as they represent the divine Presence in their respective bodies of literature. In the case of D, G-d’s self does not dwell among humans, but the divine Name or words do. In the case of P, Sommer understands the term kabod as a means to express G-d’s body, which is wholly other—like light or fire—and ideally unperceivable in human experience, and yet the term serves as a means to express the immanence of the transcendent G-d on earth. Such terms provided the means to avoid and reject the problems of divine fluidity and fragmentation, namely, the avatars or hypostases of G-d would therefore never threaten to be mistaken for the totality of the divine self.

Subsequent chapters examine the roles played by Tent, Ark, and Temple in the P and D literatures serving as means to express the locative for D or the locomotive for P as well as the utopian aspects of a unique sacred center in Israel and the world at large. P’s sense of such a unique sacred center also displays an underlying fear of G-d’s absence; hence the concerns of pentateuchal law to establish moral and ethical purity, righteousness, and holiness in human life becomes a means to avoid the possibility of the departure of the divine presence from the people of Israel and creation as a whole.

A final chapter explores the implications of these observations and conclusions for modern theology. First, Sommer traces the vestiges of the fluidity of divine embodiment and selfhood in rabbinic, kabbalistic, and early Christian literature in an effort to demonstrate the ongoing influences of these earlier concerns from the Hebrew Bible. An embodied G-d can choose to inhabit the human world of creation or not. Following Michael Wyschogrod, Sommer maintains that the concrete demands for human action made by pentateuchal law and the acknowledgement of sacred space and land provide bases for human relationship with the divine, namely, Jews act in accordance with pentateuchal law in order to maintain the relationship with a wholly other divine who might otherwise depart. Less tangible suggestions from a spiritual deity do not prompt the same sense of commitment to the relationship. [End Page 391]

An appendix examines the concept of monotheism in relation to the Hebrew Bible.

Sommer’s study brings to light some very important dimensions to the portrayal and conceptualization of the divine in the Hebrew Bible, most notably the role that divine embodiment plays in prompting the maintenance of the relationship between the human and the divine through pentateuchal law. But an important dimension of this work demands further thought, namely, to what degree does the expression of divine embodiment in the Hebrew Bible speak to the realities of G-d’s selfhood? Or to the need for human beings to have imagery and language concerning the presence of the Holy Other that we, in our limited capacities to perceive and to express ourselves, can comprehend? In other words, does divine embodiment truly express G-d or does it continue to serve as a more highly developed avatar that gives expression to the limits of human comprehension and expression? Indeed, Maimonides had much more to say on this point, particularly in relation to the laws of sacrifice that could no longer be observed in his own day.

Marvin A. Sweeney
Claremont School of Theology
Claremont, CA 91711
msweeney@cst.edu

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