The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, Benjamin D. Sommer explores the idea of a god’s body and self in antiquated Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He reveals a lost antiquated Near Eastern impression of heavenliness as per which a basic contrast among divine beings and people was that divine beings had more than one body and liquid, unbounded selves. In spite of the fact that the predominant strains of scriptural religion rejected it, a monotheistic adaptation of this philosophical instinct is found in some scriptural writings. Later Jewish and Christian masterminds acquired this old state of mind; thoughts, for example, the sefirot in kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity speak to a late form of this religious philosophy. This book drives us to reevaluate the qualification among monotheism and polytheism, as this idea of celestial ease is found in both polytheistic societies (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (scriptural religion, Jewish otherworldliness, Christianity), while it is missing in some polytheistic societies (traditional Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has critical repercussions for scriptural grant and relative religion as well as for Jewish-Christian dialogue.