Could a human being literally shake hands with God? If so, then God must have at least one hand – and one would think, not only a hand, but a complete humanoid body. While sophisticates have long scorned the idea that God could in any sense have a body, as Dr. Benjamin Sommer points out in his The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, the authors of the Jewish Bible (what Christians call the “Old Testament”) all seem to assume that God has a body. After all, God walks in a garden (Genesis 3:8) and is literally seen by Moses and the elders of Israel (Exodus 24:9-11).
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But in this book Dr. Sommer argues that some ancient Jews, like other Near Eastern peoples, believed that their god (the LORD) had multiple bodies and also multiple personae. Others, though, disagreed; thus Dr. Summer says we can discern an ancient argument behind the texts as they have come down to us.
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As Jewish theology evolved, which side “won” in this dispute, and what did this discussion have to do with concerns about the sin of idolatry? Moreover, what would these ancient authors have thought was involved in God having a body? Would this make God a limited and vulnerable being? Would one in principle be able to starve, imprison, or physically harm such a being?
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The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel- Dr. Sommer’s home page
- Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition
- A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66
- Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction
- Saadia Gaon
- Maimonides (aka Rambam), his Guide to the Perplexed
- Genesis 18
- The 10 Commandments: Exodus version, Deuteronomy version
- Idolatry
- Kabbala
- Moses de Leon and the Zohar
- Trinity
- Idealism in western Philosophy
- A scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation: S3E21-Hollow Pursuits featuring the Holodeck.
Bonus audio: Comparing Maimonides’s view on God’s “body” with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Holodeck.
One comment on “S1 E9 Benjamin Sommer on God’s Bodies”
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To me a body has to do with functionality in an environment. My legs sustain my weigh against gravity and make me move in the ground, my hands are for manipulating objects around me, and every other organ interacts with the environment according to its function. That’s why it’s difficult to image God always having a body, because to me it presupposes an environment to interact with and to be adapted to, and so it should be co-eternal with God’s eternal body. And then God is not the creator of all things.