The Three Bodies of God in the Hebrew Bible

Considerable attention has been devoted to God's body in the Hebrew Bible, but its widely differing representations have not been addressed. This article sketches out a typology of three types of divine bodies, based on different scales, locations, and settings in life: a natural "human" body; a superhuman-sized "liturgical" body; and a "cosmic" or "mystical" body.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)I. INTRODUCTION TO GOD'S BODIESIn recent years, several scholars have discussed the anthropomorphism of God's body in the Hebrew Bible. This has been the subject of three books, not to mention the topic of several articles.1 Generally, authors (myself included) have lumped together the biblical references to God's body2 or have focused on a limited segment of these references.3 To date, there is no general typology for understanding biblical references to God's body in the Hebrew Bible. Before beginning, it is important to acknowledge the contributions made to this topic by other scholars, most notably Esther J. Hamori, Benjamin D. Sommer, and Andreas Wagner,4 without which this essay would not be possible. Most of the elements in the discussion below appear in these works.This essay sketches out a typology of God's body according to size or scale, which can be correlated to location and material. According to these categories, the Hebrew Bible presents not one but three sorts of divine bodies. The first involves a human-scale body manifest on earth. It is physical like a human body. The second entails a superhuman-sized body manifest on earth that is not physical like a human body.5 The third body likewise lacks the physicality of a human body6 and is located at or above the heavens. After surveying instances of these three types of divine bodies, I examine their backgrounds. Each case entails what may be called a double Sitz im Leben, namely, a traditional setting as well as further elaboration in a scribal context.7Before proceeding, it is important also to define the word body, as it is a critical term for this discussion. In his important study The Bodies of God, Sommer defines a body as "something located in a particular place at a particular time, whatever its shape or substance."8 In his definition, Sommer includes priestly kabod (...) in the Pentateuch as a divine body. Sommer's definition seems broader than either the word's modern usage or the biblical sense of human or divine bodies. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a body is "the physical or material frame or structure of man or of any animal."9 According to the American Heritage Dictionary,10 a body entails "the entire material structure and substance of an organism, especially of a human being or an animal." A definition of "body" for biblical material without reference to the human body would not account for the central role that the human body plays in biblical anthropomorphism generally and in biblical representation of God's body in particular. Given these considerations, kabod in Priestly passages of the Pentateuch does not qualify as a divine body.11 The concept of kabod is important, however, for the topic of God's bodies, and so this essay concludes with how it fits into the larger picture.II. GOD'S NATURAL "HUMAN" BODY IN GENESISGenesis 2-3 is the first passage that endows God with a body.12 In this story, God "breathed into his [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life," perhaps in the manner of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.13 In Gen 2:8, God plants a garden, a rather physical, human activity. There is also "the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day" (Gen 3:8 NJPS). Here God seems like a great king in his royal garden,14 and the description perhaps conjures up depictions of kings not uncommonly represented in ancient Near Eastern art as taller than their royal subjects.15 This divine body would seem to be on the scale of human bodies, only somewhat taller. …