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...
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...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.
The first eleven chapters of Genesis teach us several things about the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization. The Bible’s significance and teachings are pretty straightforward beginning with Genesis and all of the chapters that follow. We can use Genesis to find solid ground in a stance on tough world issues such as the death penalty, abortion, and assisted suicide to name a few. Seeing as how we are all God 's children, made in His image, it is important to understand the necessity to love and respect one another while glorifying Him in the
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
One of the main themes in Chapter Fourteen is that of morality. Cari Barney defined morality as “conformity to the rules of right conduct” (lecture). Man is “a moral being” obligated “to act according to moral principles” (McDonald, 2007, p. 165). Deep down within man’s conscience, there is the sense of knowing right from wrong and knowing God’s requirements (Romans 2:14-15). This awareness should cause all humans to strive to adhere to what God requires of us. The moral consciousness of man is within the heart (Proverbs 4:23). McDonald (2007) stated, “So man is in himself a moral being with moral obligations and responsibilities (p. 165). Man’s lifestyle should resemble biblical principles that have been instructed by God.
...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.
The Book of Nahum is a prophetic book concerned with pronouncing judgment upon the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, and with detailing its coming destruction at the hands of Yahweh. In light of this concern, it is not surprising that the primary image and expression of Yahweh in this piece is one of a vengeful and wrathful deity, expressing judgment in the form of destruction and desolation. These images combine to portray the character of Yahweh within the book of Nahum as a angry and judgmental God, bent on the destruction of all those who stand against Israel, a reality that readers struggle to comprehend in light of other texts, especially among the prophets, which depict Yahweh as gracious and merciful. What this essay will argue is that it is this larger textual context of the exploration of divine character, especially among the Twelve, through which Nahum should be understood, as well as through comprehension of the mythical allusions made by the author in Yahweh’s theophany. To show this, we will focus in on Nahum 1:2-3, exploring how it describes Yahweh, especially in relation to its use of Exodus 34:6-7, as well as how this compares to other prophetic texts and Jonah in particular. We will then explore the mythic qualities of Yahweh, particularly in Nahum 1:4, and how they relate to our reading of Nahum.
Repetition is also the concept that the Hebrew Creator-God uses throughout the story of Genesis to educate Abram about God's purpose and His nature. God is aware of the doubtful and cynical nature of Abram. Over time, God uses Abram's own repeated mistakes to build a conceptual understanding of Himself for Abram. This model provides Abram with a relevance for God in Abram's own life. Though the classic view depicts the patriarch Abraham as blindly, obedient, there is significant evidence within the story of Abraham to show that he was not so naturally submissive. The text often depicts Abram as doubtful, indignant, and sarcastic to a fault. Taking this side of the text in context illustrates Abraham as the antagonist in a battle against God. In this struggle with God, Abraham achieves excellence by learning, through repetition of his own errors and the reinstatement of God's promise, that it is in his best interest not to fight against his own personal idea of God, but to recognize, respect, and accept the true will of God.
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
At the early stage of novel, God is used as narrator’s scapegoat for failures that resulted from his actions. Narrator mentions God multiple times in the passage that usually talks about his failure. The views on God seem to be neutral as Narrator slightly mentions that “…God only knows if there’s any sense in my looking for a job any longer! All these refusals, these partial promises, simple noes, hopes built up and knocked down, new tries that ended each time in nothing” (Hamsun 5). Narrator believes that God is omnipresent and confess that only God understand what he is going through. But narrator’s view on God turns into anger as more misfortunes befall upon him and he states that “I came on the weightiest objections against the Lord’s arbitrariness in letting me suffer for everyone else’s sins” (Hamsun 20). The narrator suddenly changes his attitude toward God and goes into delusion like thought that God has chosen him to suffer and he thinks the God is the root of problem and that he is the problem for all his unfortunate ends regarding his living conditions and job status.
In this essay I will take the position that the book of Jonah was intended to follow the unfinished journey of a prideful christian, and to show the involvement of an altruistic God. One of the major themes found in the book of Jonah is the relationship between God and Jonah. First, Jonah flees from God’s will, then he turns back to God, and finally, Jonah preaches God’s message of repentance to the people of Nineveh, but sadly, it doesn’t end there. Jonah was called as a prophet for God, but he had a detrimental problem in his character; Jonah was prideful. This causes Jonah to lose sight of his mission, and thus the unfinished journey of Jonah’s life is left in the hands of the reader.
The book of Genesis 1-11 gives us a teaching and lays a foundation for the truth that is expressed later in the bible as it makes an assumption that God is the creator of the universe and all it holds. The scriptures in this books gives an expression of God as being just, love, wrath, holy and grace. This scripture enables us to understand how we should view the world and God’s part in the creation and the recreation of the whole universe.
The book of Genesis reveals the mystery of how the universe, human and all the creatures are originated. From the beginning, God has his plan for the whole world. This book tells us a story about how God chose Abraham and his descendants as his people and why he made a covenant with them. Through the story of creation and Abraham’s family, it clarifies that God is the Creator, Governor and Preserver of all things. The main units of Genesis will be traced with the outline below.
From the very beginning of the book, Fee and Stuart seek to explain the importance of proper biblical interpretation. The authors provide hermeneutical approaches for the study of the different ...
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.
Many people state that they do not believe in any kind of god, that the world simply came into existence. However, this belief cannot hold true. Simply by examining nature and all of its intricate details, people stand unable to deny the presence of a Creator. Deep down, people cannot help but to feel that something greater than themselves exists. A Supreme Being- a god, but what kind of god exists? A god similar to Ares, the war-god of the Greeks? One who lusts for blood and destruction? Or a placid god, one parallel to Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace? Fabricated by mankind, these so called “gods” all bear flaws. The Bible, the Word of the Lord, remains the only book on earth that gives an account of the true God and His attributes. Through examination of the Word, readers will come to the realization that a just God exists, that He sends trials to his followers to develop their faith, and that He remains sovereign.
...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.