The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel - Softcover

Sommer, Benjamin D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107422264 ISBN 13: 9781107422261

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Synopsis

In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, Benjamin D. Sommer investigates the notion of a deity's body and self in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He uncovers a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which an essential difference between gods and humans was that gods had more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue.

About this title

About the Author

Benjamin D. Sommer is Professor in the Department of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1107422264
• ISBN 13: 9781107422261
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352