The Religious Text that is The Hebrew Bible explores the changing personalities of God. The personalities of God range from an optimistic and creative God in the first creation story in Genesis to a destructive and regretful God during the story of Noah and the ark. God’s personalities are not black and white; he gives tests, such as when he asks Abraham to kill his own son because God was jealous of the possibility of Abraham loving his son more than him. Though Gods personalities can differ in the Hebrew Bible, he always acts on his personality to shape the world and his creations. The changing personalities of God reveal the ever-changing nature of God and signify how human need drives how the Hebrews conceived God. The varying personalities of God fulfill the roles of a creator, a judge and a jealous God.
One role of God is that of a creator of the Earth and its people. This is evident especially in the first creation story where God uses his speech to create the world and then admires his own creation. An example of this is in Genesis 1, “God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.” He then does the same thing with other things he creates such as the sky, vegetation, animals, and etcetera. He continues to view all of his creations as “good.” This clearly shows his role as a creator, and an optimistic one at that. To the Hebrews, this text answers the question of “How was the Earth created?” Which is a vital question to many religions. An optimistic view of the Earth is evident in this passage as God views his creations as good. In Genesis 2 after man has been created God says, ”It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” God then proc...
... middle of paper ...
...y of parents.” Here God is removing the guesswork and blatantly stating that he is a jealous God. He does not want people to worship any idols. This is a key part of monotheism, not to just abstain from worshiping other Gods but idols. This makes one think because it does not draw the line from where admiration turns into idolizing. It can be assumed that the main purpose was that nothing should become close to as admired as God himself.
The different personalities of a creator, judge and jealous God all factor into the Hebrew understanding of God. All of Gods personalities show how Hebrews conceived God in different lights. Though the different personalities of God are different they all show the many ways human naturally explain how things came to be. In order for humans to comprehend something so incomprehensible there cannot simply be one way of understanding.
Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.
In the first chapter of God Behaving Badly, David Lamb argues that God is unfairly given a bad reputation. He claims these negative perceptions are fueled by pop culture and lead many to believe the lie that the God of the Old Testament is angry, sexist, racist, violent, legalistic, rigid, and distant. These negative perceptions, in turn, affect our faith. Ultimately, Lamb seeks to demonstrate that historical context disproves the presumptuous aforementioned. In addition, he defends his position by citing patterns of descriptions that characterize God throughout the Old Testament. “Our image of God will directly affect how we either pursue or avoid God. If we believe that the God of the Old Testament is really harsh, unfair and cruel, we won’t want anything to do with him” (Lamb 22). Clearly, they way Christians choose to see God will shape their relationship with Him.
The Book of Job is one of the three books in the Hebrew bible whose genre is described as wisdom literature.1 Certainly the Book of Job satisfies the literary conventions that qualify a biblical book for such status. 2 Yet Job may be associated with wisdom in a much more literal sense. The Book of Job attempts to deal with a problematic question that confronts suffering humanity: why do bad things happen to good people? The variety and vehemence of commentators' contemporary responses to this chapter of the Bible is testament to the continued relevance of the Book of Job's wisdom thousands of years after it was written. Although the commentators examined herein arrive at differing and sometimes conflicting conclusions after reading the story of "the holy Arab"3, none are left indifferent.
In the days of old -when life could reach more than nine hundred years- “sons of god”(6:2), angels and warriors ruled the earth. One walked the righteous path in the land of the wicked; one saw the grace of the Lord. In these chapters of Genesis, God is seen as an active participant in the story. Through His words and interactions, we can see that His character and relationship towards man is ever-changing and evolving. God is a ruler with expectations. What He had sought out to create in mankind was not being represented, all He saw was evil all the time.(6:5) In Genesis 6:6 we see a God that feels pain from a broken heart. From the grief he has sustained, he demands judgment and justice. His decision and reaction is to destroy all that He has created.(6:7) The Lord’s character here is repentant, judgmental and a potential destroyer. In His grief He finds “favor” for one man: Noah.(6:8) Though it was only one man in an entire generation, we see the grace of God present here. Because of Noah, God finds himself modifying his plans, “the planned destruction becomes a reconstruction” of this earth.(Harper Collins, Study Bible, Notes pp.13)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
In order to make sense of these inherently opposite features, we must seek a higher authority and focus on God’s beauty, mercy, love, and grace. Our God, who is the creator of the world, has a plan for us all and intends for us to seek out His will. When we look around us and see that God created and feeds the sparrow just as he created and feeds us, we can begin to understand God’s will and His purpose for us. The entire enormity of this world and what God created becomes clearer. God seeks a relationship with us. There are times when reading the Bible, a passage or verse may seem too confusing or unrelatable in our current situation, although a God who created nature and everything in it always reveals the truth in His time for His plan for
There is a distinction, a type of separation that exists between God and all other beings. God is unlimited and infinite, where as all other things are limited and finite. Man exists somewhere in between a state of creatureliness and Godliness. Similar to the way that God has given commands to other creatures, he tells man that he should be "fruitful and multiply," (Pagels, xii). Man's purpose is to procreate, according to Genesis. Yet man's function is uniq...
When the gods are looked at as larger versions of specific facets of ourselves and our personalities the gods are fulfilling their most useful purpose- allowing us to better understand ourselves. In the same way a specialty doctor may have a model of human lungs or a gynecologist may have a model of the female reproductive system in their office it helps to have a model of what we are looking at (preferably larger, so that it can be examined closer) that we can take apart and put back together, so too have we created larger archetypal versions of the various hats we put on. The larger than life, archetypal gods and their children help us look into the different components of ourselves, so that we may better understand
Many people know the Christian God as happy, forgiving, and accepting of others. In the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards’ sermon completely shocks and scares people by claiming that the Christian God is the only God, and if you weren’t to believe in him, you would burn in Hell and be destroyed. The tone of this piece in the eyes of Edwards is dedicated, passionate, and pro-Christian God. Edward achieves his purpose by using metaphors, repetition, personification, and visual imagery numerously throughout the sermon.
God interacts with the world in a very unique way. He works by using people as conduits with whom He will ultimately achieve His goal of the Divine Plan. Throughout the Book of Genesis, many cycles of protagonists appear with whom God chooses to interact. In one such cycle, the Jacob Cycle, God influences, molds, and guides Jacob in increasingly personal ways. God influences Jacob throughout his childhood, his journey to Haran, his journey from Haran, and finally, with one last test of will. Throughout the guidance, God’s increasing trust in Jacob allows for an eventual transformation of the relationship, where Jacob morphs into God’s Israel.
...f the divine world but the kings were in charge of vocalizing god’s wishes on earth. The most famous of these law codes was Hammurabi’s law code. The Hebrews tried to establish order by using Yahweh’s Ten Commandments and the Torah. Mesopotamian deities were hard to please and easily angered. The Mesopotamians constantly felt they were letting their gods down and usually didn’t even know the reason behind it. Hebrews had a much more forgiving god. Through texts like “The Book of Job”, it is apparent that Yahweh was a tough god but always forgiving and fair in the end. He had few demands of his people and all of them were ethical and easy to adhere to. As long as his devotees followed Yahweh’s laws, they were all capable of receiving his blessings. Through it all, it seemed that God and religion was at the center of every aspect of life in the ancient civilization.
Every author depicts information in light of purposes and themes. Sometimes these themes are moral issues, emotions, or existential concepts. In the case of the Old Testament, the authors wrote books that highlighted various ideas such as love, obedience, and suffering. Despite various subtopics, the Old Testament clearly demonstrates the theme of God’s faithfulness to his followers.
In the year of 2003 there are many types of religions that are practiced in the United States, which involves a God, or a divine power. My personal preference of religion is Christianity. I believe in Jesus Christ and the all mighty God Jehovah. The characteristics of a God varies from religion to religion, but all leading up to love, an everlasting peaceful life, and salvation; therefore, giving strength to all human beings that believe in them and has faith in them.
...ed a part to him. First we see God as omnipotent then we see God asking where Adam and Eve are hiding (Not being omnipotent). With the creation of mankind God loses some part of his Godliness and he gains some humanity. God has a little human in himself and we have a little God in us. But the main point still is the same, God is the authority over man and will remain this way. I also feel that the God in the bible is truly no different than the Gods of Greece for example. The God of ancient Greece acted just like humans, the only difference was that they were immortal. The God of the bible seems to act just like humans, shows love, anger, regret, learns from mistakes and so forth. So in the end God shows flaws and learns from mistakes. God is like humans, maybe this is why we don?t understand God sometimes because we can?t understand other people and their actions.
In the Holy Bible, the book of Genesis starts by saying “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth…” (The New American Bible, Gen. 1.1). These powerful words layout the base to the entire Bible which tells readers to accept God as the powerful creator, our heavenly father, and remind us the fact that we exist because of God. In fact, the book of Genesis is the most important book in the Bible because it simply tells the story of God’s creation of the universe and how God created man and woman. Moreover, God teaches life lessons throughout in the book of Genesis by explaining different concepts of obeying, punishing, and forgiving others as well as the consequences that can come about if one goes against God’s will. As I read the