Let's Get Physical

[SallyF]

Anonymous biblical mythographers write of a physical, anthropomorphic Jehovah, who has number, gender, fingers, a face, a voice, a backside and possibly other physical features I can't remember.

Certain folks claim that the biblical version of "God" is some sort of abstract, unknowable, poetic, figurative, transcendent whatever. This only works if you pluck out the bits you like, and tuck the physicality of the mythological Jehovah away where hopefully no one remembers it.

But some of us DO remember:

Jehovah appeared to Abraham near the large trees of Mamre. Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent. It was the hottest time of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.

The mythographers have Jehovah and two sidekicks appear in human form. The mythographers also have the possibly fictional Abraham character recognise the god - so gods fluttering down and visiting the floor of the Firmament was no surprise to him - and the physical apparitions consumed a beefburger and a grail of milk (in violation of a later law of "God").

Can we agree that CERTAIN of the mythographers imagined the Jehovah deity as a PHYSICAL god ?

[SallyF]

Just so we're all singing from the same hymn book .

(We shall overlook the clear commandment this image breaks, and understand the physical presence of "God".)

[Jagella]

Can we agree that CERTAIN of the mythographers imagined the Jehovah deity as a PHYSICAL god ?

Yes, Jehovah was often observed to manifest himself physically or so we are told in the Hebrew Bible. As you say, God started out much like a physical man. Later on he was reinvented to be more remote in space and time which had the advantage of his being difficult to disprove.

With the advent of Jesus, we see a reversal of this process of making Jehovah more abstract. According to what the Christians said, God was literally brought down to earth as a man born like the rest of us (but unlike us was conceived without all that dirty sex). But even this very human version of God was snatched away from us to return to a place in which we cannot see him.

So why do the Bible writers vacillate from God as man to God as spirit to God as man and back to spirit? I think that the Bible writers simply believed that the way they presented God changed with the times. A particular view of God may wear out in the popular imagination and need to be replaced with a newer, fresher view.

[SallyF]

A very physical Jehovah went for a walk in the Garden of Eden.

And the mythological god used its voice to play hide and seek with the mud-man and his rib-woman

After the encounter with the Talking Serpent.

I suggest the mythographers imagined a physical Jehovah; as did the artist who created this image, and as did/do the people who take the image at face value.

[JehovahsWitness]

QUESTION Did God really appear physically to Abraham at Genesis 18:1 ?

GENESIS 18:1

Afterward, Jehovah appeared to him [ Abraham] among the big trees of Mamre - NWT

There are scriptures in the bible describing supernatural visitations where individuals are addressed as "Jehovah". This can be understood to mean that materialised angels appeared and acted as God's representatives or special envoy speaking for God.

To illustrate: Even in English, for example, one might read in a newspaper that "President Trump says sat down with Putin for peace talks" when in fact the actual offer was worded to Putin via the Secretary of State or some other high official.

In a similar way Abraham interacted with was a physical manifestation of God through an encounter with his (God's) angels. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, refering to a similar encounter in scripture, sayjng : "He that looked on the Angel saw the Presence of Jehovah." Evidently Abraham called this envoy "Jehovah" in recognition of who was behind the encounter.


ANGELS AS GOD'S ENVOY

Supporting this reading, we have two parallel verses speaking of Moses' encounter at the burning bush:

Exodus 3:4, 6 God called unto him out of the midst of the bush...
Exodus 3: 2 the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

Evidently the account here refers to the angel as God.

CONCLUSION: On occassions materialized angels representing Jehovah (YHWH), are recorded as having appeared to humans. Abraham on one such occassions addressed one such special envoy as "Jehovah" in recognition that the angel spoke in Gods name.

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[SallyF]

[Replying to post 5 by JehovahsWitness]

I suggest the mythographers imagined a physical Jehovah; as did the artist who created this image, and as did/do the people who take the image at face value.

The mythographers write of a physical Jehovah.

If they had meant envoys, they were perfectly capable of writing of representatives of Jehovah - as they indeed did do.

I suggest that trying to pass off what is clearly written of as a physical Jehovah as something that is not Jehovah, is denying the anthropomorphic, mythological, ethnic god Jehovah as written.

If believers don't like Jehovah as written by the mythographers, I suggest believers need to consider binning their beliefs rather than distorting "scripture".

[Elijah John]

Can we agree that CERTAIN of the mythographers imagined the Jehovah deity as a PHYSICAL god ?

I think we can...Otherwise, why (even in early Christian times) the distinction between the Father and the Holy Spirit? I mean, if as the Evangelist John says, that "God is Spirit..." then why the distinction between Father and Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian formulation? Especially if only one God is claimed, and that God is "Spirit". How many Spirits are posited?

It seems that originally Father YHVH was understood in anthropomorphic terms, as a sort of superhuman being. Then, theologians (including some Bible authors) got a bit more sophisticated. As in the prohibition against graven images, and of course John's Jesus declaration that "God is Spirit..."

So on this matter too, the Bible seems a bit contradictory. And those contradictions seem evidence of an evolving understanding/portrait of God.

And as a side note, I believe the Mormons understand God the Father as having physical form, and once being a human who evolved to superhuman Divine status. But I may be mistaken on this. But if this is accurate, Mormons didn't pull this doctrine out of thin air.

[JehovahsWitness]

Continued from post #5 by JehovahsWitness



QUESTION Does Genesis 3:8 mean God was in physical form in the Garden of Eden?

GENESIS 3:8

Later they heard the voice of Jehovah God as he was walking in the garden about the breezy part of the day - NWT

Firstly we note that at no point does the Genesis account say Adam and Eave saw God. Further regarding the reference to God walking in the Garden, STRONGS Concordance, notes that the Hebrew word halak translated into the English "to walk" is used "in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively. Indeed, as in English, the Hebrew " hlak does not have to mean literally walking. The study website studylight.org points out the following...

Enoch is positively described as "walking with God" (Genesis 5:22,24) before being taken to be with God. Noah, also, is similarly noted as being righteous and perfect and one who "walked with God" (Genesis 6:9). In Genesis 17:1 God commands Abraham also to "walk" with him and be perfect. So, whilst the word is basically a practical term it has idiomatic overtones, in this case, of fellowship and a right relationship with God.
source https://www.studylight.org/language-stu ... rticle=557

CONCLUSIONS Genesis 3:8 may well be understood to be speaking figuratively, ie that God made his presence manifest in some way in the Garden.

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[SallyF]

Can we agree that CERTAIN of the mythographers imagined the Jehovah deity as a PHYSICAL god ?

I think we can...Otherwise, why (even in early Christian times) the distinction between the Father and the Holy Spirit? I mean, if as the Evangelist John says, that "God is Spirit..." then why the distinction between Father and Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian formulation? Especially if only one God is claimed, and that God is "Spirit". How many Spirits are posited?

It seems that originally Father YHVH was understood in anthropomorphic terms, as a sort of superhuman being. Then, theologians (including some Bible authors) got a bit more sophisticated. As in the prohibition against graven images, and of course John's Jesus declaration that "God is Spirit..."

So on this matter too, the Bible seems a bit contradictory. And those contradictions seem evidence of an evolving understanding/portrait of God.

And as a side note, I believe the Mormons understand God the Father as having physical form, and once being a human who evolved to superhuman Divine status. But I may be mistaken on this. But if this is accurate, Mormons didn't pull this doctrine out of thin air.

I agree, to a point.

I hypothesise that when the ancestors of the people known as Jews were still part of the wider Canaanite community, the idea of "God" for them was the multiple Elohim - translated as "God" in English. The Elohim are the "Us" in Genesis.

I suspect the Abram tale is ancient and involved a visitation by three of the Elohim gods.

Tales of the newer Jehovah god have been interwoven with the older tales in and doctored and tinkered and "re-understood" to produce the contradictory melange that passes for the "Word of God".

Which all goes to suggest that "God" can be just whatever believers imagine "God" to be.

The numerous biblical instances of a human-like god or gods, demonstrates that imagining the biblical versions of "God" as only an unknowable, abstract, transcendent concept or whatever are plain false.

The numerous human hands that wrote the biblical "scriptures" imagined their gods in many, many ways.

As believers still do.

[Mithrae]

The numerous human hands that wrote the biblical "scriptures" imagined their gods in many, many ways.

As believers still do.

And as we still do of the Universe