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"When Gods Were Men": The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature
In the texts of Genesis 18 and 32, God appears to a patriarch in person and is referred to by the narrator as a man, both times by the Hebrew word sh. In both texts, God as sh is described in graphically human terms. This type of divine appearance is identified here as the sh theophany. The phenomenon of God appearing in concrete human form is first distinguished from several other types of anthropomorphism, such as divine appearance in dreams. The sh theophany is viewed in relation to appearances of angels and other divine beings in the Bible, and in relation to anthropomorphic appearances of deities in Near Eastern literature. The sh theophany has implications for our understanding of Israelite concepts of divine-human contact and communication, and for the relationship to Ugaritic literature in particular. The book also includes discussion of philosophical approaches to anthropomorphism. The development of philosophical opposition to anthropomorphism can be traced from Greek philosophy and early Jewish and Christian writings through Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas, and into the work of later philosophers such as Hume and Kant. However, the work of others can be applied fruitfully to the problem of divine anthropomorphism, such as Wittgenstein's language games.
201 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Esther J. Hamori
4 books17 followersProfessor Esther J. Hamori earned her B.A. at Sarah Lawrence College with a major in Violin Performance in 1994. She received the M.Div. at Yale Divinity School in 1997, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University in 2004. Before joining the Union faculty she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, and visiting faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.
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April 16, 2023
Esther Hamori’s “When Gods were men: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature” (2008) is an excellent look into the anthropomorphic representations of the God of the Hebrew Bible as well as an examination, although brief, into the ways that gods were depicted among the cultures of the Ancient Near East.
Hamori discusses two main texts: that of Genesis 18.1-15 with Abraham’s experience with three divine beings in the events leading up to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Genesis 32.23-33 where Jacob has a wrestle with a divine being who injures his hip.
Warning: spoilers abound in this review!
Hamori opens up with the discussion of theophanies in the Hebrew Bible (HB). She examines the arguments of Margret Peek-Horn, Gwyneth Windsor, Claus Westermann, Von Rad, Seebass, James Barr, and Speiser (among others). Citing Barr, she lets readers know right where she is going:
In his important work on theophany in the Hebrew Bible, James Barr notes the use of the word “man” in connection with some divine appearances, and states that “there is adequate evidence for a strong tradition in early Israel that Yahweh let himself be seen at times in the form of man.” Yet even Barr, who recognizes the phenomenon of divine appearance in human form, and includes these two Genesis texts in his discussion, offers the visions of Genesis 28:13, Amos 7:7 and Amos 9:1 as primary examples. While he has made an important observation regarding Yahweh’s appearance in the form of a man, he has not distinguished between anthropomorphic form in visions, and what might be called “concrete anthropomorphism,” as in the (ish אִישׁ) texts of Genesis 18:1-15 and 32:23-33.
It is in this area that the most striking similarity between the two Genesis texts may be observed. God does not merely appear anthropomorphically in a vision; he in fact appears in the literal, physical body of a man.12 Both appearances are characterized by this “concrete anthropomorphism”; that is, tangible, physical human form, not in a metaphor, or in a vision, or in a dream, but in a body. Moreover, both appearances will be shown to display a radical degree of what might be called “anthropomorphic realism”—that is, realistic human presentation and action throughout the appearance in human form. The two stories share many other features as well. In each story, God is identified by the narrator as a man, and is also initially believed by the patriarch to be an ordinary man. (When Gods were men, p. 3-4)
Many scholars cited by this author do not read the text the way she does. Most view these anthropomorphic descriptions of God as metaphors. André Caquot sees Genesis 18-19 as an example of common confusion between Yahweh and his angels, arguing that messengers identified themselves with their senders (p. 8), Nahum Sarna describes the encounter as a theophany “mediated… through angelic messengers” (p. 8), while Seebass contends that that the differentiation of the three men into God and his deputies, first into God and two men and then into God and two angels, is done “to stress the mystery of God.” (p. 9). While citing these authors, Hamori will eventually show why she disagrees with them, yet also states that anthropomorphic depictions of God are “extremely uncommon” (p. 10) and that portrayals of God interacting with humas are “extremely rare” (p. 89). I would argue that this is not the case. There are several portrayals of God interacting with humans in Genesis alone. Since her two main texts come from Genesis, and since we can all agree that the HB is an anthology of texts separated by different authors covering several hundred years, I will simply stay here in Genesis. Here are (by my count) places where God interacts with humans:
1. The Elohim and their creation of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:7-25): God created Adam and Eve, the first humans, and interacted with them directly, forming them from the dust of the ground, breathing life into Adam, and placing them in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 1.26 we read “And Elohim (gods- plural!) said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”
2. God's command to Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:16-17): God gave Adam and Eve a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and warned them of the consequences of disobedience.
3. The "Fall" of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-24): God confronted Adam and Eve after they sinned by eating from the forbidden tree. He pronounced curses upon them and expelled them from the Garden of Eden.
4. God's communication and protection of Cain (Genesis 4:1-16): After Cain killed his brother Abel, God confronted Cain and pronounced a curse upon him, but also placed a mark on him to protect him from harm.
5. God's covenant with Noah (Genesis 6:9-22; Genesis 9:8-17): God communicated with Noah, instructing him to build the ark to save his family and animals from the flood. After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants, symbolized by the rainbow.
6. God's call to Abram (Genesis 12:1-9; Genesis 15:1-21; Genesis 17:1-22): God called Abram (later renamed Abraham) to leave his homeland and promised to make him into a great nation. God made several covenants with Abraham, promising him descendants, land, and blessings.
7. God's visit to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:1-15): God appeared to Abraham in the form of three visitors and told him that Sarah would bear a son, despite her old age.
8. God's testing of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19): God tested Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. At the last moment, God provided a ram for the sacrifice and reaffirmed his covenant with Abraham.
9. God's interaction with Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 26:1-6; Genesis 28:10-22; Genesis 32:22-32): God appeared to Isaac and Jacob, reaffirming the covenant he made with Abraham and promising to bless them and their descendants.
10. God's confrontation with Jacob (Genesis 35:1-15): God instructed Jacob to return to Bethel and reaffirmed his covenant with him, changing his name to Israel.
11. God's interaction with Joseph (Genesis 37:5-11; Genesis 39:2-6; Genesis 41:1-45; Genesis 45:1-15): God gave Joseph prophetic dreams and interpreted dreams for Pharaoh and his officials, leading to Joseph's rise to power in Egypt.
Here are also a few depictions of the God of the HB (understanding that this itself is a complicated argument i.e. El Shaddai, El Elyon, Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai to name a few). I will cite only depictions in Genesis with a couple from Exodus for good measure:
1. Walking in the Garden of Eden: In Genesis 3.8, it is described that after Adam and Eve sinned, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
2. God's physical appearance to Abraham: In Genesis 18.1-3, God appears to Abraham as three men and engages in a conversation with him.
3. God’s personal wrestling with Jacob: In Genesis 32.22-32, Jacob wrestles with a "man" who is later identified as God. Jacob refuses to let the man go until he blesses him. This story depicts God as engaging in a physical struggle with Jacob, which is anthropomorphic in nature.
4. God speaking to Moses "face to face": In Exodus 33.11, it is mentioned that God spoke to Moses "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." This depiction uses human-like language to describe the intimacy and closeness of God's communication with Moses.
5. God's hand and finger: In Exodus 8.19 and Exodus 31.18, there are references to God's hand and finger.
6. The term "back parts" or "backside" is mentioned in Exodus 33.23 in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. In this passage, God is speaking to Moses and tells him, "And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen" (Exodus 33:23, KJV). (Hamori does address this passage on page 30, as well as Exodus 33.9, stating “Yahweh cannot be both concretely anthropomorphic and also in the cloud, as if standing guard at the door for himself, in a double theophany; rather, he speaks to Moses from the cloud, as he does in other texts within the Pentateuch, as well as in Job. The phrase in verse 11 must refer not literally to the face or physicality of God, but to the intimacy of how he speaks with Moses, “as a man to his friend.” (p. 30) So although she makes this statement, conceding that it exists in the text, she also denies an embodied God here because she sees God unable to both have a body and stand in the cloud, something that I could argue!)
7. In Exodus 24.10, there is a mention of the "feet" of God in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.
8. God eats and interacts with Moses and over 70 leaders in Exodus 24.
Citing these examples would lead one to perhaps argue with Hamori that these events are not “extremely rare,” but that they occur often enough to remove them from this category and at least say that they are rare in the overall scope of the HB but rather common in the early literature. But I know some will argue this point.
After opening up her argument, Hamori shows how many interpreters avoid any anthropomorphic concessions, whether it is Sarna’s take that the man (ish) in the text is Esau’s alter ego (p. 19), or Barthes assumption that the person is someone (p. 20), or “an angel” or a “man” (p. 21). Hamori explains why interpreters will not allow the text to speak for itself:
The most straightforward reading of each of these two texts is that God appears to the patriarch in theophany, just as we see in myriad other texts, and that in these two cases, the form of theophany is human. Before addressing the nature of anthropomorphic theophany in more detail, it will be helpful to examine the range of types of anthropomorphism evident in biblical texts, as well as a number of deeply ingrained philosophical and theological reasons why some might be disinclined to read these texts as depicting the appearance of God to a patriarch in concretely embodied human form… Problems relating to anthropomorphism have always been of great concern to scholars of philosophy and theology (p. 25-26).
Hamori then goes on to make the distinction between anthropomorphism (an embodied God) and anthropopathism (God thinking and feeling as humans do).
Philosophical Systems of Thought
Why do interpreters not read the text the way it is laid out? Hamori gives one possible answer: philosophy. The philosophers of the ancient world were repulsed by the idea of an embodied God:
The view of anthropomorphism as a philosophical weakness has been pervasive at least since the time of Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570– ca. 478 B.C.E.), who wrote:
But mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have their own (mortals’) raiment, voice and body. But if oxen (and horses) and lions had hands or could draw with hands and create works of art like those made by men, horses would draw pictures of gods like horses, and oxen of gods like oxen, and they would make the bodies (of their gods) in accordance with the form that each species itself possesses. Aethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair.” (Xenophanes, frgs. 14-16, in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 22.)
Xenophanes did not find a way to characterize the divine without use of anthropomorphism. Even while stating that the one god was “not at all like mortals in body or in mind,” he explained that “he always remains in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to change his position at different times.” In his attempt to argue against one form of anthropomorphism, he utilizes another (p. 35).
Another objector of divine embodiment was Empedocles. Hamori explains:
Empedocles of Acragas (ca. 495–ca. 435 B.C.E.) attempts to describe God in non-anthropomorphic terms as “equal in all directions to himself and altogether eternal, a rounded Sphere enjoying a circular solitude.”4 This reflects a rejection of anthropomorphism similar to that of Xenophanes, with no apparent concern for problems relating to depiction or limitation of the divine (p. 36).
After these philosophers, Hamori shows how Plato and Aristotle also objected to divine embodiment (p. 37). Building on this foundation of thought came the Christian thinker Augustine (354-430 CE), whose study of Neoplatonist philosophy led him to interpret the scriptures’ discussion of an embodied God and read them all as metaphors. Hamori then went to the great Jewish thinkers through the ages and their views as well, leading to a discussion of Thomas Aquinas:
“Aquinas’ systematic articulation of the tenets that God is immaterial, immutable and atemporal has had lasting influence on the interpretation of biblical anthropomorphism.” (p. 44) She summarizes the arguments:
Together with influences ranging from Plato’s concept of Form and Xenophanes’ rejection of Greek mythology, to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers who opposed various kinds of attribution of traits to God, these philosophical definitions of God as non-anthropomorphic have come to form the core of classical theism. In the opening line of his classic work, The Coherence of Theism, Richard Swinburne offers this representative definition: “By a theist I understand a man who believes that there is a God. By a ‘God’ he understands something like a ‘person’ without a body (i.e. a spirit)…” He expands later, “By a ‘spirit’ is understood a person without a body, a non-embodied person… That God is a person, yet one without a body, seems the most elementary claim of theism.” Ian Crombie’s summary is similar: “To know that God may not be identified with anything that can be indicated is only the first step in theology.” (p. 44-45)
The Unsophistication of Anthropomorphism
Hamori explains that because of these philosophical arguments, the idea of an embodied God has come to be seen as unsophisticated. She explains:
The evaluation of anthropomorphism as unsophisticated is evident in various methodologies, subfields and approaches, from Feuerbach to Freud and from Piaget to Flew. In a recent evaluation of the nature of anthropomorphism, Stewart Guthrie argues that anthropomorphism is not a category within religion, but rather that religion itself is a type of anthropomorphism. In other words, the mere notion that there is a living heavenly being is nothing more than one example of the human tendency to anthropomorphize… the core of classical theism includes the doctrine that God is immaterial and the doctrine that God is immutable (thus is not embodied, and cannot become embodied), and includes the idea that the prevailing model of all language about God is necessarily analogical. In some circles it is thus understood as a given that biblical passages describing God in such terms must be interpreted metaphorically. The influence of this standard framework (the philosophically “orthodox” view) in modern biblical interpretation is radical and pervasive, even among those who would not think themselves influenced by Xenophanes, Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas. Specifically, this has led to a preponderance of biblical scholars accepting the all-or-nothing framework: either Genesis 18 and 32 are not meant to contain anthropomorphic portrayals of God (because they are angels, or men, or something intentionally mysterious), or they are in fact anthropomorphic portrayals of God, and are thus theologically unsophisticated. (p. 45-46)
The Problem
To the author, the problem lies in how we mortals conceive of God. We use anthropomorphic language to talk about God, and a divine being who cannot be conceived in this manner makes it difficult for humans to even have a religious discourse. She explains:
All theism is anthropomorphic, and there is no escaping it. The rejection of anthropomorphism is a bungled endeavor from the start, because at best one can oppose a certain point along the spectrum of anthropomorphism, but never the phenomenon outright—at least, if one should remain a theist… Without any kind of anthropomorphism, there can be no religion as we know it. Positing a deity with a mind or a will at all is excluded. Turning one’s will over to something without a will is senseless, and worshiping a thing without a mind is idolatry. Prayer is certainly out of the question.
The classic philosophical arguments for the existence of God assume anthropomorphism. To cite a couple of examples, according to the cosmological argument for theism, the answer to the question “Why does anything exist?” is God. Whether framed as the abstract philosophical concept of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, as Aquinas’ First Cause, or otherwise, God as the source of anything is anthropomorphic. According to the argument from design, Paley’s watchmaker God is necessarily characterized as having a mind and a will, not to mention an aesthetic sense. Likewise, the three primary philosophical challenges to theism— the concept of the natural history of religion, the problem of evil, and the impossibility of religious language—all relate to the difficulty of anthropomorphism… Anthropomorphic portrayals of God are problematic, but without them we cannot express or claim to know anything about God, and if we cannot know anything about God, religion is pointless or uninteresting. (p. 46-47, 49)
Other arguments
Hamori uses logic to tackle other theological issues with this idea. Ideas include the immutability of God when seen through the lens of theophany, Stump and Kretzmann’s arguments regarding how a divine being can exist both in and outside of time, the relational aspect of an uninvolved deity (a contradiction in her terms), and the either-or binary approaches to understanding an anthropomorphic God.
After looking into these other arguments, Hamori explores the views of God that Israel's neighbors had and finally concludes with some statements regarding "the spectrum of anthropomorphism." In her conclusion, I find that she works to find a middle path in this spectrum, working for a space away from classical theists but also revealing her desire to also stay away from the other extreme of viewing God as having a human form.
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a brief overview of the arguments that have set the framework for the arguments for and behalf of divine embodiment. There are certainly other works that deal with this issue, but Hamori’s effort here incorporated many of the viewpoints from a long history of tradition in a tight space (only 155 pages – a quick read). I also appreciated her brief examination of the literature of Israel’s neighbors, as well as her bringing together so many insights from other biblical scholars as well.
Hamori discusses two main texts: that of Genesis 18.1-15 with Abraham’s experience with three divine beings in the events leading up to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Genesis 32.23-33 where Jacob has a wrestle with a divine being who injures his hip.
Warning: spoilers abound in this review!
Hamori opens up with the discussion of theophanies in the Hebrew Bible (HB). She examines the arguments of Margret Peek-Horn, Gwyneth Windsor, Claus Westermann, Von Rad, Seebass, James Barr, and Speiser (among others). Citing Barr, she lets readers know right where she is going:
In his important work on theophany in the Hebrew Bible, James Barr notes the use of the word “man” in connection with some divine appearances, and states that “there is adequate evidence for a strong tradition in early Israel that Yahweh let himself be seen at times in the form of man.” Yet even Barr, who recognizes the phenomenon of divine appearance in human form, and includes these two Genesis texts in his discussion, offers the visions of Genesis 28:13, Amos 7:7 and Amos 9:1 as primary examples. While he has made an important observation regarding Yahweh’s appearance in the form of a man, he has not distinguished between anthropomorphic form in visions, and what might be called “concrete anthropomorphism,” as in the (ish אִישׁ) texts of Genesis 18:1-15 and 32:23-33.
It is in this area that the most striking similarity between the two Genesis texts may be observed. God does not merely appear anthropomorphically in a vision; he in fact appears in the literal, physical body of a man.12 Both appearances are characterized by this “concrete anthropomorphism”; that is, tangible, physical human form, not in a metaphor, or in a vision, or in a dream, but in a body. Moreover, both appearances will be shown to display a radical degree of what might be called “anthropomorphic realism”—that is, realistic human presentation and action throughout the appearance in human form. The two stories share many other features as well. In each story, God is identified by the narrator as a man, and is also initially believed by the patriarch to be an ordinary man. (When Gods were men, p. 3-4)
Many scholars cited by this author do not read the text the way she does. Most view these anthropomorphic descriptions of God as metaphors. André Caquot sees Genesis 18-19 as an example of common confusion between Yahweh and his angels, arguing that messengers identified themselves with their senders (p. 8), Nahum Sarna describes the encounter as a theophany “mediated… through angelic messengers” (p. 8), while Seebass contends that that the differentiation of the three men into God and his deputies, first into God and two men and then into God and two angels, is done “to stress the mystery of God.” (p. 9). While citing these authors, Hamori will eventually show why she disagrees with them, yet also states that anthropomorphic depictions of God are “extremely uncommon” (p. 10) and that portrayals of God interacting with humas are “extremely rare” (p. 89). I would argue that this is not the case. There are several portrayals of God interacting with humans in Genesis alone. Since her two main texts come from Genesis, and since we can all agree that the HB is an anthology of texts separated by different authors covering several hundred years, I will simply stay here in Genesis. Here are (by my count) places where God interacts with humans:
1. The Elohim and their creation of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:7-25): God created Adam and Eve, the first humans, and interacted with them directly, forming them from the dust of the ground, breathing life into Adam, and placing them in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 1.26 we read “And Elohim (gods- plural!) said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”
2. God's command to Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:16-17): God gave Adam and Eve a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and warned them of the consequences of disobedience.
3. The "Fall" of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-24): God confronted Adam and Eve after they sinned by eating from the forbidden tree. He pronounced curses upon them and expelled them from the Garden of Eden.
4. God's communication and protection of Cain (Genesis 4:1-16): After Cain killed his brother Abel, God confronted Cain and pronounced a curse upon him, but also placed a mark on him to protect him from harm.
5. God's covenant with Noah (Genesis 6:9-22; Genesis 9:8-17): God communicated with Noah, instructing him to build the ark to save his family and animals from the flood. After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants, symbolized by the rainbow.
6. God's call to Abram (Genesis 12:1-9; Genesis 15:1-21; Genesis 17:1-22): God called Abram (later renamed Abraham) to leave his homeland and promised to make him into a great nation. God made several covenants with Abraham, promising him descendants, land, and blessings.
7. God's visit to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:1-15): God appeared to Abraham in the form of three visitors and told him that Sarah would bear a son, despite her old age.
8. God's testing of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-19): God tested Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. At the last moment, God provided a ram for the sacrifice and reaffirmed his covenant with Abraham.
9. God's interaction with Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 26:1-6; Genesis 28:10-22; Genesis 32:22-32): God appeared to Isaac and Jacob, reaffirming the covenant he made with Abraham and promising to bless them and their descendants.
10. God's confrontation with Jacob (Genesis 35:1-15): God instructed Jacob to return to Bethel and reaffirmed his covenant with him, changing his name to Israel.
11. God's interaction with Joseph (Genesis 37:5-11; Genesis 39:2-6; Genesis 41:1-45; Genesis 45:1-15): God gave Joseph prophetic dreams and interpreted dreams for Pharaoh and his officials, leading to Joseph's rise to power in Egypt.
Here are also a few depictions of the God of the HB (understanding that this itself is a complicated argument i.e. El Shaddai, El Elyon, Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai to name a few). I will cite only depictions in Genesis with a couple from Exodus for good measure:
1. Walking in the Garden of Eden: In Genesis 3.8, it is described that after Adam and Eve sinned, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
2. God's physical appearance to Abraham: In Genesis 18.1-3, God appears to Abraham as three men and engages in a conversation with him.
3. God’s personal wrestling with Jacob: In Genesis 32.22-32, Jacob wrestles with a "man" who is later identified as God. Jacob refuses to let the man go until he blesses him. This story depicts God as engaging in a physical struggle with Jacob, which is anthropomorphic in nature.
4. God speaking to Moses "face to face": In Exodus 33.11, it is mentioned that God spoke to Moses "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." This depiction uses human-like language to describe the intimacy and closeness of God's communication with Moses.
5. God's hand and finger: In Exodus 8.19 and Exodus 31.18, there are references to God's hand and finger.
6. The term "back parts" or "backside" is mentioned in Exodus 33.23 in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. In this passage, God is speaking to Moses and tells him, "And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen" (Exodus 33:23, KJV). (Hamori does address this passage on page 30, as well as Exodus 33.9, stating “Yahweh cannot be both concretely anthropomorphic and also in the cloud, as if standing guard at the door for himself, in a double theophany; rather, he speaks to Moses from the cloud, as he does in other texts within the Pentateuch, as well as in Job. The phrase in verse 11 must refer not literally to the face or physicality of God, but to the intimacy of how he speaks with Moses, “as a man to his friend.” (p. 30) So although she makes this statement, conceding that it exists in the text, she also denies an embodied God here because she sees God unable to both have a body and stand in the cloud, something that I could argue!)
7. In Exodus 24.10, there is a mention of the "feet" of God in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.
8. God eats and interacts with Moses and over 70 leaders in Exodus 24.
Citing these examples would lead one to perhaps argue with Hamori that these events are not “extremely rare,” but that they occur often enough to remove them from this category and at least say that they are rare in the overall scope of the HB but rather common in the early literature. But I know some will argue this point.
After opening up her argument, Hamori shows how many interpreters avoid any anthropomorphic concessions, whether it is Sarna’s take that the man (ish) in the text is Esau’s alter ego (p. 19), or Barthes assumption that the person is someone (p. 20), or “an angel” or a “man” (p. 21). Hamori explains why interpreters will not allow the text to speak for itself:
The most straightforward reading of each of these two texts is that God appears to the patriarch in theophany, just as we see in myriad other texts, and that in these two cases, the form of theophany is human. Before addressing the nature of anthropomorphic theophany in more detail, it will be helpful to examine the range of types of anthropomorphism evident in biblical texts, as well as a number of deeply ingrained philosophical and theological reasons why some might be disinclined to read these texts as depicting the appearance of God to a patriarch in concretely embodied human form… Problems relating to anthropomorphism have always been of great concern to scholars of philosophy and theology (p. 25-26).
Hamori then goes on to make the distinction between anthropomorphism (an embodied God) and anthropopathism (God thinking and feeling as humans do).
Philosophical Systems of Thought
Why do interpreters not read the text the way it is laid out? Hamori gives one possible answer: philosophy. The philosophers of the ancient world were repulsed by the idea of an embodied God:
The view of anthropomorphism as a philosophical weakness has been pervasive at least since the time of Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570– ca. 478 B.C.E.), who wrote:
But mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have their own (mortals’) raiment, voice and body. But if oxen (and horses) and lions had hands or could draw with hands and create works of art like those made by men, horses would draw pictures of gods like horses, and oxen of gods like oxen, and they would make the bodies (of their gods) in accordance with the form that each species itself possesses. Aethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair.” (Xenophanes, frgs. 14-16, in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 22.)
Xenophanes did not find a way to characterize the divine without use of anthropomorphism. Even while stating that the one god was “not at all like mortals in body or in mind,” he explained that “he always remains in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to change his position at different times.” In his attempt to argue against one form of anthropomorphism, he utilizes another (p. 35).
Another objector of divine embodiment was Empedocles. Hamori explains:
Empedocles of Acragas (ca. 495–ca. 435 B.C.E.) attempts to describe God in non-anthropomorphic terms as “equal in all directions to himself and altogether eternal, a rounded Sphere enjoying a circular solitude.”4 This reflects a rejection of anthropomorphism similar to that of Xenophanes, with no apparent concern for problems relating to depiction or limitation of the divine (p. 36).
After these philosophers, Hamori shows how Plato and Aristotle also objected to divine embodiment (p. 37). Building on this foundation of thought came the Christian thinker Augustine (354-430 CE), whose study of Neoplatonist philosophy led him to interpret the scriptures’ discussion of an embodied God and read them all as metaphors. Hamori then went to the great Jewish thinkers through the ages and their views as well, leading to a discussion of Thomas Aquinas:
“Aquinas’ systematic articulation of the tenets that God is immaterial, immutable and atemporal has had lasting influence on the interpretation of biblical anthropomorphism.” (p. 44) She summarizes the arguments:
Together with influences ranging from Plato’s concept of Form and Xenophanes’ rejection of Greek mythology, to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers who opposed various kinds of attribution of traits to God, these philosophical definitions of God as non-anthropomorphic have come to form the core of classical theism. In the opening line of his classic work, The Coherence of Theism, Richard Swinburne offers this representative definition: “By a theist I understand a man who believes that there is a God. By a ‘God’ he understands something like a ‘person’ without a body (i.e. a spirit)…” He expands later, “By a ‘spirit’ is understood a person without a body, a non-embodied person… That God is a person, yet one without a body, seems the most elementary claim of theism.” Ian Crombie’s summary is similar: “To know that God may not be identified with anything that can be indicated is only the first step in theology.” (p. 44-45)
The Unsophistication of Anthropomorphism
Hamori explains that because of these philosophical arguments, the idea of an embodied God has come to be seen as unsophisticated. She explains:
The evaluation of anthropomorphism as unsophisticated is evident in various methodologies, subfields and approaches, from Feuerbach to Freud and from Piaget to Flew. In a recent evaluation of the nature of anthropomorphism, Stewart Guthrie argues that anthropomorphism is not a category within religion, but rather that religion itself is a type of anthropomorphism. In other words, the mere notion that there is a living heavenly being is nothing more than one example of the human tendency to anthropomorphize… the core of classical theism includes the doctrine that God is immaterial and the doctrine that God is immutable (thus is not embodied, and cannot become embodied), and includes the idea that the prevailing model of all language about God is necessarily analogical. In some circles it is thus understood as a given that biblical passages describing God in such terms must be interpreted metaphorically. The influence of this standard framework (the philosophically “orthodox” view) in modern biblical interpretation is radical and pervasive, even among those who would not think themselves influenced by Xenophanes, Averroes, Maimonides and Aquinas. Specifically, this has led to a preponderance of biblical scholars accepting the all-or-nothing framework: either Genesis 18 and 32 are not meant to contain anthropomorphic portrayals of God (because they are angels, or men, or something intentionally mysterious), or they are in fact anthropomorphic portrayals of God, and are thus theologically unsophisticated. (p. 45-46)
The Problem
To the author, the problem lies in how we mortals conceive of God. We use anthropomorphic language to talk about God, and a divine being who cannot be conceived in this manner makes it difficult for humans to even have a religious discourse. She explains:
All theism is anthropomorphic, and there is no escaping it. The rejection of anthropomorphism is a bungled endeavor from the start, because at best one can oppose a certain point along the spectrum of anthropomorphism, but never the phenomenon outright—at least, if one should remain a theist… Without any kind of anthropomorphism, there can be no religion as we know it. Positing a deity with a mind or a will at all is excluded. Turning one’s will over to something without a will is senseless, and worshiping a thing without a mind is idolatry. Prayer is certainly out of the question.
The classic philosophical arguments for the existence of God assume anthropomorphism. To cite a couple of examples, according to the cosmological argument for theism, the answer to the question “Why does anything exist?” is God. Whether framed as the abstract philosophical concept of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, as Aquinas’ First Cause, or otherwise, God as the source of anything is anthropomorphic. According to the argument from design, Paley’s watchmaker God is necessarily characterized as having a mind and a will, not to mention an aesthetic sense. Likewise, the three primary philosophical challenges to theism— the concept of the natural history of religion, the problem of evil, and the impossibility of religious language—all relate to the difficulty of anthropomorphism… Anthropomorphic portrayals of God are problematic, but without them we cannot express or claim to know anything about God, and if we cannot know anything about God, religion is pointless or uninteresting. (p. 46-47, 49)
Other arguments
Hamori uses logic to tackle other theological issues with this idea. Ideas include the immutability of God when seen through the lens of theophany, Stump and Kretzmann’s arguments regarding how a divine being can exist both in and outside of time, the relational aspect of an uninvolved deity (a contradiction in her terms), and the either-or binary approaches to understanding an anthropomorphic God.
After looking into these other arguments, Hamori explores the views of God that Israel's neighbors had and finally concludes with some statements regarding "the spectrum of anthropomorphism." In her conclusion, I find that she works to find a middle path in this spectrum, working for a space away from classical theists but also revealing her desire to also stay away from the other extreme of viewing God as having a human form.
I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a brief overview of the arguments that have set the framework for the arguments for and behalf of divine embodiment. There are certainly other works that deal with this issue, but Hamori’s effort here incorporated many of the viewpoints from a long history of tradition in a tight space (only 155 pages – a quick read). I also appreciated her brief examination of the literature of Israel’s neighbors, as well as her bringing together so many insights from other biblical scholars as well.
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