The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion

2. I Am Who May Be

20 two I Am Who May Be The epiphany of the burning bush provides my first example of religious transfiguration. I start with a brief account of this dramatic encounter between Moses and his Lord, before proceeding to a hermeneutic retrieval of several decisive readings of this passage—rabbinical, exegetical, and philosophical. My aim is to identify and address the hidden crux of this enigma: the extraordinary phenomenon of a deity which appears and disappears in a fire that burns without burning out, that ignites without consuming, that names itself, paradoxically , as that which cannot be named, and that presents itself in the moment as that which is still to come. *** In Exodus 3:14 Moses meets his maker. Leading his flock to the desert mountain of Horeb, he happens upon a voice speaking from the midst of a flaming thornbush. From this transfiguring fire which flares up without being extinguished, the voice of an angel calls and Moses answers ‘‘Here I am.’’ The voice bids him to stand back and remove his sandals. And revealing himself as I Am Who May Be 21 the Lord of his ancestors—of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—God says he has heard the cry of his people and has come to deliver them from bondage. But it’s not enough for Moses. Standing there under the midday sun, he wonders if this is not some mirage, some hoax. Perhaps the voice is an inner demon prompting him to a fit of madness. After all, wasn’t it just such a strange angel who appeared to Jacob late one night and shattered his hip, before disclosing the name of Israel? And wasn’t it another elusive voice which summoned Abraham to Mount Moriah to murder his own son? That was a cruel command. A trick of course. Only a test of faith. He must tread carefully. Moses wasn’t quite sure he wanted to do business with such a mercurial God: one who sent visitors to maim you in the middle of the night and commanded blood sacrifice (even if he wasn’t really serious). Every angel was terrible in a way, wasn’t it? Moses longed for a God of justice and liberty. Someone who’d remain faithful to his people. But who was he to question God—if this really was God and not some counterfeit conjured by his dizzy mind? He would have to proceed cautiously. So instead of asking straight out: Who are you? Moses puts it another way, the other way around: ‘‘Who am I?’’ ‘‘Who am I,’’ he inquires, that I should go unto Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt? To which God replies, with a second, though still indirect revelation of himself: ‘‘I will be with Thee.’’ The ancestral God is now declaring himself a constant God—one who will stand by Moses as he embarks on his mission to a promised land. Not only is the bush transfiguring itself but so too is the God who speaks through it (per-sona). And it threatens to transfigure Moses too. Still Moses is unsure; but he is beginning to like the sound of things. There is maybe more to this deity than meets the eye? Something more than the tribal divinity of his forebears? A hint of something new? Not just a God of ancestry, it seems, but a God of advent: a promise for the future. Emboldened by this surmise, Moses asks God, one last time, to reveal himself, to say who he truly is, to disclose his name. Feet still bare on the hot sand, Moses takes a small step forward. He wipes perspiration from his forehead , and addresses the burning bush: ‘‘When I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say to them?’’ (Exodus 3:13). To which God responds, bolder and brasher this time—his third and final reply: ‘‘ ’ehyeh ’asher ’ehyeh.’’ The New Jerusalem version reads: ‘‘God said to Moses, ‘I am he who is.’ And he said, ‘This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ’’∞ So there we have it. Holy Moses, a tired shepherd with a price on his head, dusty and parched after days of wandering about with his father-in-law’s sheep in...