Images, names and words of God

[Mithrae]

As a theist-leaning agnostic, there are still some things from ancient Hebrew religious tradition which I find quite interesting or even profound, at least in concept. For example in the story of how Jacob got the name Israel, after wrestling with God Jacob asks for his name and is rebuffed (Genesis 32), and eventually in the story of the burning bush when Moses asks God what his name is the answer is simply "I am who I am" (Exodus 3), offered as an explanation for the divine 'name' Yahweh. Similarly in the ten commandments and elsewhere we see prohibitions against both using any kind of image to represent God and against misusing the name Yahweh (Exodus 20). As with images and names, associating God with words or commands falsely was treated as deadly serious: "any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speakthat prophet shall die" (Deuteronomy 18).

Real or not, the idea of a creator god is one of the grandest and loftiest things we could ever try to conceive, and as such can have incredible power over individuals and societies at large. The idea of God can and has been used as the basis for people
- selling all their possessions to give to the poor, or
- slaughtering neighbouring peoples down to the last woman and child, or
- devoting their lives to fighting injustices and oppression, or
- sacrificing their own children in offering or appeasement, or
- committing mass suicide to be closer to God....
At the same time however, if God actually does exist, how could our tiny brains come even remotely close to comprehending her? Genesis 1 claims that humans were created in the image of God, but surely we have pretty good reasons for suspecting that most if not everything that humans have said since then has been more a case of creating God in our own image, or at best bringing him down to our own meagre level of understanding!

The prohibition of images and coyness surrounding the 'name' of God may well have been intended (at least at some point in the development of the Torah) to offset that inclination; to at least mitigate people's tendency of bringing God down to our level and thinking that we know what he is like. If so that seems like a very wise idea to me. It hasn't been very successful of course: The Tanakh records that use of images in worship was more or less commonplace throughout pre-exilic history, and Christians for the most part have been more than happy to portray God as a big old man in the sky extending a fleshy appendage down to Adam. Ancient Jews invented all kinds of different names for God which Christians have upheld, and some Christian sects even make the supposed 'name' of God one of their key points of focus.

The most miserable failure however hasn't been in the area of assigning images or names, but in assigning words and commands to God; that is where the real consequences are to be found, the sacrifices and bigotry and oppression and wars and genocides. And the good things too, the uplifting or inspiring things; but what good things do we really need taught to us as commands from God? According to the apostle Paul, only one thing; "the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"" (Galatians 5). The apostle John agreed; "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4). Hillel the Elder - the grandfather of Paul's purported mentor Gamaliel and an older contemporary of Jesus - reportedly put it a little differently but more clearly "That which you hate do not do to your fellow, this is the whole of the law; the rest is commentary, go and learn." And of course in his own, positive formulation of the golden rule, Jesus is reported as saying "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7).

What do we really need beyond those words, even for those convinced that God is watching and judging their every move? Or more to the point, what is the threshold of certainty or evidence we should require before assigning words or commands to God? That passage in Deuteronomy 18 offers one disqualifying criterion - if a 'prophet' says things which aren't true then they are not speaking for God - but it seems that many Christians and Jews don't bother applying that standard even in the most blatant cases, such as Ezekiel's false predictions that Nebuchadnezzar would conquer Egypt and destroy Tyre for all time (Ez. 26-29, notably 29:18 where the 'prophet' even admits his own failure!). It seems that religious believers are happy to assign words to God even when they are brazenly and obviously false, as this and plenty of other biblical examples show. But even if that were not the case, surely the low bar of just avoiding disqualifiers like obviously false claims would not be enough to be confident that a command comes from God.


Given what a serious issue some passages in the Torah treat it to assign images, names and words to God - and that of these, assigning words to God can and historically has had the most devastating real-world consequences, by far - surely anyone with even a smidgeon of respect for the reality or even just the idea of God would demand a very high bar before assigning words to him!

> If you believe (contrary to Paul, John etc.) that we need something more from God than "love one another," what kind of proof do you require before taking that deadly serious step of publicly assigning words to him?

> If we see people assigning words to God based on flimsy pretexts - even such vile accusations as genocides and eternal torture - does that tell us anything about their respect for God, relative to human institutions and traditions?

> Do the Hebrew or Christian canons suggest any other way of seeking or receiving guidance from God?

[Mithrae]

Now you seem to be saying that some things in the bible are from mere humans, or even from Satan himself!

I can't help what it seems like to you, your conclusions are your own and I take no ownership of them. If you have any questions about anything I've written, feel free to ask.

I did ask, and of course you could have helped further clarify your views by answering, if clarity were your intention:

"Daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
Blessed will be one who repays you
With the retribution with which you have repaid us.
Blessed will be one who seizes and dashes your children
Against the rock." (Psalm 137:8-9)

Is this a genuine revelation from God, that killers of children in the service of retribution will be blessed?

Or is it an outpouring of very human grief and anger, words spoken/written by humans as you've suggested? And if so, is there any reason to suppose that stuff like Paul's epistles for example are anything more than an equally-human expression of his own thoughts and theology? (As pretty strongly suggested by the fact that only on a few occasions does even Paul himself claim to be offering more than his own views, most notably in 1 Cor. 7:10-12, 17, 25.)

But to be fair, a little banter and some genuine concerns notwithstanding I do appreciate that you and bjs are at least willing to put your views out there to some extent. Doing so in the face of sound biblical objections/alternatives to reverencing the written word could conceivably be even more daunting than doing so in the face of purely negative atheist attacks: Given how seriously some verses in the Torah treat it to assign images, names or words to the deity, we might have expected many Christians here eager to show what threshold of evidence is required to accuse a loving God of genocide, eternal torture and so on, but so far it's been mostly just you explaining that it's okay long as someone wrote "Yahweh said this and you can't prove it wrong." (And more importantly as long as historical popularity contests ensured its inclusion in the JW canon, so much so that they really didn't even need to write "Yahweh said this" and it's still okay even when it can be proven wrong!)

In that context it's commendable that you are responding at all, even if those responses suggest an unwillingness or inability to really continue the discussion

[Clownboat]

Assigning words to God - from the Book of Mormon, to the Quran, the New Testament , ...

ARE ALL THE WORDS IN THE BIBLE "ASSIGNED" TO GOD?

No, I dont believe so. The bible contains words spoken by Almighty God and words spoken by humans and words spoken by Satan the Devil. I do not claim to "assign God all the words in bible". For example, we read in scripture that the Devil said the following words "All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me." As read in The New World Traslation that makes 19 words, the writer does not "assigned" to God but "assignes" to SATAN. I believe that To be accurate.

Thus I have demonstrated that all the words in the bible are not as you put it "assigned to God". The writer of Matthew attributes some words in the bible to Satan. I do not believe all the words in the bible were spoken by God, and have never claimed that I do.



JW

Without a mechanism that shows which words are assigned to a god in the Bible and which are not, all is mere speculation anyways.
Faith does allow a person to choose which scripture they want to assign to a god. Being allowed is not a mechanism though obviously.