The Bodies of God by Sommer

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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andrewcriddle
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The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by andrewcriddle »

Iskander mentioned this book and I have recently read it. It is well worth reading. Thanks Iskander

Here are a few thoughts. The book is mainly about the understanding of God in Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Sommer follows a relatively traditional documentary hypothesis approach to the Pentateuch, his dating of texts is mainstream but maybe slightly early. A minimalist would have problems here.

A genuinely incorporeal doctrine of God involves a certain amount of philosophical sophistication. Only second Isaiah might think of God as incorporeal in that sense. Sommer refers to other work of his (which I have not read) where he argues that second Isaiah does not hold a fully incorporeal doctrine of God. However, his main argument is that, although the Deuteronomic school of writers held that God is for all practical purposes bodiless, most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible is committed to a doctrine of God as having in some sense a body. This doctrine is qualified by emphasising that God's body is very different from a human body, this body must not be depicted etc, but God is still regarded as corporeal.

Sommer discusses the different forms taken by this belief in the corporeality of God in different writers. He claims here something that I found difficult to accept. He claims that the priestly writer believed that after a/ the creation and b/ the construction of the tabernacle God was permanently present above the ark. Not just in the sense that God was present there in a way that he was not present anywhere else on earth, but in the sense that God was permanently present above the ark and hence had ceased to be present in heaven. My problems are that this idea is not explicitly stated anywhere in the Hebrew Bible and would be (as Sommer agrees) a very different idea of God from that found in other Hebrew writers. However, if Sommer is wrong here, then the priestly writer distinguished between the Kabod or Glory of God which dwelt above the ark and God himself in Heaven. If so, then there is a little more basis in the Hebrew Bible for the approach of Maimonides than Sommer would want to admit.

Sommer concludes with a discussion of the relevance of his findings for later Judaism and Christianity. Some of this is a religious meditation which I found thought provoking but will not discuss here. Some of this is about the history of Judaism and Christianity. The idea of God having a body found in some parts of the Hebrew Bible may have influenced early Christianity but not very much. Christianity was from the beginning influenced by Hellenistic ideas similar to those in Philo in which God in himself is definitely incorporeal. Sommer speculates about links between his findings and later Kabbalah but I am not really convinced. Sommer argues that Jewish opposition to the Christian idea of incarnation on the ground that God cannot be embodied is based on a late form of Judaism which is irrelevant to the pre-Islamic period. This is technically entirely true and early Jewish opposition to Christianity does not involve this specific issue. However IIUC Sommer does regard God becoming embodied in order to die as impossible in any form of Judaism so the reconciliation between Jewish and Christian ideas seems very limited.

Andrew Criddle
iskander
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by iskander »

Thank you Andrew ,
In page 76 Sommer writes
The contrast with E's description of the communication that takes place at the tent is telling. In E , both the humans and God come to the Tent, the humans from the camp and God from heavens: " Yhwh called suddenly to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, ' Come out, the three of you, to the tent of meeting!' The three of them went out, and then Yhwh descended the the pillar of the cloud and stood at the entrance to the Tent....
Only in Ezekiel 8-10 does a priest writer tells us that God left God's earthly abode centuries after God's entrance, In spite of the many priestly texts that address the precise whereabouts of the kabod and in stark contrast to other ancient texts, P never locates divinity in heaven once it had come down to earth. The conclusion is clear : For P , God has only one body, and it is located either in heaven or on earth but not in both places.
Sommer is truly the most interesting commentator of the Hebrew bible I have ever read . Is his understanding of P wrong?
andrewcriddle
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by andrewcriddle »

iskander wrote:Thank you Andrew ,
In page 76 Sommer writes
The contrast with E's description of the communication that takes place at the tent is telling. In E , both the humans and God come to the Tent, the humans from the camp and God from heavens: " Yhwh called suddenly to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, ' Come out, the three of you, to the tent of meeting!' The three of them went out, and then Yhwh descended the the pillar of the cloud and stood at the entrance to the Tent....
Only in Ezekiel 8-10 does a priest writer tells us that God left God's earthly abode centuries after God's entrance, In spite of the many priestly texts that address the precise whereabouts of the kabod and in stark contrast to other ancient texts, P never locates divinity in heaven once it had come down to earth. The conclusion is clear : For P , God has only one body, and it is located either in heaven or on earth but not in both places.
Sommer is truly the most interesting commentator of the Hebrew bible I have ever read . Is his understanding of P wrong?
IMHO he is wrong in how he understands P.

His argument is based on implication, (since P concentrates so heavily on God's presence in the holy of holies P must have regarded God as no longer present in heaven although this is never made explicitly clear), and the position he attributes to P is not only a surprising one for us, (which might be our problem), it is a very different position from that of any other major Hebrew Bible source, (except maybe Ezekiel).

It is clear that the position attributed by Sommer to P is very different to that of D (the Deuteronomic school) and one issue is whether P in the Pentateuch should be considered as writing to oppose D or supplement D.

Andrew Criddle
iskander
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by iskander »

Thank you .There is no explicit statement supporting the conclusion.

The book informs on the different traditions that make up the Hebrew Bible. Sommer's conclusion , " P never locates divinity in heaven once it had come down to earth" is based on what he found in the text , and that finding would indicate that residing in the midst of his first begotten children is preferable to the company of angels in heaven. God is the same God everywhere .

In general, one problem to solve when reading a composite text is to decide whether to harmonise and smooth the contradictions and differences in the text, or split the narrative into its independent sources.

His conclusion is that P always locates the kabod in only one place at a time and it would appear from this that heaven was not a better place for God than the Tabernacle/Temple: ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)
andrewcriddle
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by andrewcriddle »

iskander wrote:Thank you .There is no explicit statement supporting the conclusion.

The book informs on the different traditions that make up the Hebrew Bible. Sommer's conclusion , " P never locates divinity in heaven once it had come down to earth" is based on what he found in the text , and that finding would indicate that residing in the midst of his first begotten children is preferable to the company of angels in heaven. God is the same God everywhere .

In general, one problem to solve when reading a composite text is to decide whether to harmonise and smooth the contradictions and differences in the text, or split the narrative into its independent sources.

His conclusion is that P always locates the kabod in only one place at a time and it would appear from this that heaven was not a better place for God than the Tabernacle/Temple: ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)
One issue here is whether for P the kabod is the presence of God i.e. does P believe that God is where his kabod is and nowhere else.

The alternative (which is similar in some ways to Maimonides' position) is that the kadod represents the presence of God within the created world while God continues to be present in the eternal heavens beyond the created world. In this scenario God, during the tabernacle and first temple period, was only present within the created world above the ark but was still also present in highest heaven.

Andrew Criddle
iskander
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by iskander »

andrewcriddle wrote:
iskander wrote:Thank you .There is no explicit statement supporting the conclusion.

The book informs on the different traditions that make up the Hebrew Bible. Sommer's conclusion , " P never locates divinity in heaven once it had come down to earth" is based on what he found in the text , and that finding would indicate that residing in the midst of his first begotten children is preferable to the company of angels in heaven. God is the same God everywhere .

In general, one problem to solve when reading a composite text is to decide whether to harmonise and smooth the contradictions and differences in the text, or split the narrative into its independent sources.

His conclusion is that P always locates the kabod in only one place at a time and it would appear from this that heaven was not a better place for God than the Tabernacle/Temple: ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)
One issue here is whether for P the kabod is the presence of God i.e. does P believe that God is where his kabod is and nowhere else.

The alternative (which is similar in some ways to Maimonides' position) is that the kadod represents the presence of God within the created world while God continues to be present in the eternal heavens beyond the created world. In this scenario God, during the tabernacle and first temple period, was only present within the created world above the ark but was still also present in highest heaven.

Andrew Criddle
Priestly Theology: God Dwells in the Tabernacle

According to the Priestly source in the Torah, the Tabernacle has that name because that is where YHWH Himself (not his name!) dwells ;Num 35:34, I dwell in it… for I YHWH dwell among the Israelites; Exod 40:34, The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of YHWH filled the Dwelling Place

From the Priestly perspective, God is immanent—immediately present amid our own world of ordinary matter, and housed in the Tabernacle/Temple. The tradition of P locates God among people and, for them,' heaven/ sky ' means nothing more than ' God is no longer with us'.

God is here now , not there , is what kabod means to P.

http://thetorah.com/in-the-presence-of-god/
andrewcriddle
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by andrewcriddle »

iskander wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote: One issue here is whether for P the kabod is the presence of God i.e. does P believe that God is where his kabod is and nowhere else.

The alternative (which is similar in some ways to Maimonides' position) is that the kadod represents the presence of God within the created world while God continues to be present in the eternal heavens beyond the created world. In this scenario God, during the tabernacle and first temple period, was only present within the created world above the ark but was still also present in highest heaven.

Andrew Criddle
Priestly Theology: God Dwells in the Tabernacle

According to the Priestly source in the Torah, the Tabernacle has that name because that is where YHWH Himself (not his name!) dwells ;Num 35:34, I dwell in it… for I YHWH dwell among the Israelites; Exod 40:34, The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of YHWH filled the Dwelling Place

From the Priestly perspective, God is immanent—immediately present amid our own world of ordinary matter, and housed in the Tabernacle/Temple. The tradition of P locates God among people and, for them,' heaven/ sky ' means nothing more than ' God is no longer with us'.

God is here now , not there , is what kabod means to P.

http://thetorah.com/in-the-presence-of-god/
It is an interesting link. IIUC it does not explicitly deal with whether P regarded God as absent from heaven while his kabod is present in the tabernacle/temple.

According to the link, (which I broadly agree with), P and D differ in that for P God can only be contacted at the place where his kabod is present, while D believes that the faithful worshipper can contact God wherever he is due to God's presence in heaven. This is IMO rather different from attributing to P an explicit doctrine of God's absence from heaven.

There is a general problem here of attributing to writers without formal philosophical training, positions which they do not make explicit but which may seem to be implied by what they do explicitly state.

Andrew Criddle
iskander
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by iskander »

andrewcriddle wrote:
iskander wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote: One issue here is whether for P the kabod is the presence of God i.e. does P believe that God is where his kabod is and nowhere else.

The alternative (which is similar in some ways to Maimonides' position) is that the kadod represents the presence of God within the created world while God continues to be present in the eternal heavens beyond the created world. In this scenario God, during the tabernacle and first temple period, was only present within the created world above the ark but was still also present in highest heaven.

Andrew Criddle
Priestly Theology: God Dwells in the Tabernacle

According to the Priestly source in the Torah, the Tabernacle has that name because that is where YHWH Himself (not his name!) dwells ;Num 35:34, I dwell in it… for I YHWH dwell among the Israelites; Exod 40:34, The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of YHWH filled the Dwelling Place

From the Priestly perspective, God is immanent—immediately present amid our own world of ordinary matter, and housed in the Tabernacle/Temple. The tradition of P locates God among people and, for them,' heaven/ sky ' means nothing more than ' God is no longer with us'.

God is here now , not there , is what kabod means to P.

http://thetorah.com/in-the-presence-of-god/
It is an interesting link. IIUC it does not explicitly deal with whether P regarded God as absent from heaven while his kabod is present in the tabernacle/temple.

According to the link, (which I broadly agree with), P and D differ in that for P God can only be contacted at the place where his kabod is present, while D believes that the faithful worshipper can contact God wherever he is due to God's presence in heaven. This is IMO rather different from attributing to P an explicit doctrine of God's absence from heaven.

There is a general problem here of attributing to writers without formal philosophical training, positions which they do not make explicit but which may seem to be implied by what they do explicitly state.

Andrew Criddle
It is not a doctrine about the importance of the sky in religion, but only a telling of how God was understood by one tradition.

There is an echo of P in the reported behaviour of the ancient Israelites in this video. See attachment
http://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-cheski-e ... 4cfb8.html

The complete list
http://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-cheski-e ... 9ae20.html
http://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-cheski-e ... 68428.html
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temple 1-6.PNG
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iskander
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Re: The Bodies of God by Sommer

Post by iskander »

I feel the need to add an explanatory note to my last post.

Sommer writes in page 74, " there is no indication that the kabod merely visited the sanctuary for brief periods" . See attached file.

The question , in this case, is to decide whether the uninterrupted visit of about 910 years is compatible with his presence in another place at the same time; the Shekinah speaking to God , as in this post as one example of ' fluidity'; and God speaking in the presence of Jesus, as in Mk 1:11 is another example of fluidity.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1828&p=59952#p59952
Nathan wrote:iskander, I don't know if you ever got to see the text from Midrash Mishle mentioned in your original post, from last year; but in case you didn't and are still interested, here it is:

"[W]hen the Sanhedrin sought to include Solomon among the three kings and four commoners [to whom the Mishnah denies a place in the world to come], the Shekinah stood up before the Holy One, praised be He, and said to Him, 'Master of both worlds, have You ever seen anyone as diligent in doing Your work? And yet they wish to count him among those consigned to [eternal] darkness!' At that moment a heavenly voice came forth, saying to them, 'He shall attend upon kings; he shall not attend upon those consigned to [eternal] darkness (Prov. 22:19)."

(The translation is from Burton L. Visotzky's The Midrash on Proverbs.)

Sommer says that P does not provide one single example of fluidity .
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