God's Multiple Personality

Benjamin D. Sommer. The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xv + 334 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-51872-7. Reviewed by Bruce Wells Published on H-Judaic (May, 2011) Commissioned by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion) Many scholars look askance at endorsements tain Israelite traditions that have been preserved promoting a recently published book. The book in the texts of the Hebrew Bible. These are the fu‐ under review certainly comes with its fair share idity traditions. A secondary thesis of Sommer’s is of dust jacket praise. “Innovative,” “audacious,” that two other significant biblical traditions re‐ “very original,” “lucid,” and “incisive” are just a jected the notion of fuidity for understanding the few of the accolades directed its way. But any nature of Yahweh, the Israelite and Judean god. skepticism that one might harbor toward such ac‐ Their rejection, however, was not--and, in fact, claim in this case can safely be shelved. The book could not be--total. Within each of these tradi‐ is a stunning foray into ancient Israelite religious tions, one encounters a powerful ambiguity, an ir‐ traditions that produces new insights and raises resolvable tension. All of the traditions either re‐ critically important questions. While the book sist or have difficulty imposing strict bounds on does not lack for claims that one might wish to the space that their deity inhabits and in which he contest, there is little doubt, in this reviewer’s makes himself manifest. mind, that it will come to be seen as a ground‐ The fuidity model entails two components: breaking work. the fuidity of a deity’s self and the multiplicity of Benjamin D. Sommer’s thesis is that, in order a deity’s embodiments. The frst component re‐ to grasp how divinity was understood in ancient veals itself in three ways. Fragmentation appears Israel, one has to understand what he calls the in “several divinities with a single name who “fluidity model” (rough definition: deities can somehow are and are not the same deity” (p. 13). have multiple personalities and be physically The parade examples are Ishtar (e.g., Ishtar of Ar‐ present in multiple locations at the same time). bela, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Carchemish) and The fuidity model was widespread throughout Baal (e.g., Baal of Ṣaphon, Baal of Aleppo, Baal of the ancient Near East and strongly influenced cer‐ Shamem). Overlap occurs “between gods who are H-Net Reviews usually discrete selves” (p. 16): Shamash becomes that of a human’s--two eyes, a torso, two arms, the face of Ninurta; Marduk takes on the name of two legs, etc.--and one that can be in only a single Ea. Finally, one fnds merger in such deities as Da‐ place at any given moment. But this body does gan-Ashur and Ningal-Ashur--separate deities that not, as in D, sit idly by in the heavens: in P, Yah‐ have combined into a single entity. Hence, divine weh can fy. He arrives in Egypt to slaughter the selfhood, for these societies, was not fxed in any Egyptians’ frstborn sons, among other exploits, particular way, shape, or--and this leads to the and then travels eastward to meet with Moses and second component of the model--bodily form. If a the Israelites at Mount Sinai. If P does not intend deity’s “self” is fuid and subject to the kind of for the reader to imagine a fying Yahweh, then splitting that Sommer describes, then this “self” perhaps P believes that Yahweh moves invisibly can be embodied in multiple objects at the same from one place to another (à la an “aparating” time and in different places. There were, for in‐ Harry Potter). In either case, Yahweh comes down stance, deified statues of the same deity in differ‐ in P, according to Sommer, from the heavens, al‐ ent cities simultaneously. And the objects were no though, as I see it, P is decidedly unclear on Yah‐ mere representations of the deity: each statue or weh’s actual point of departure. Once at Sinai, stela really was the god or goddess. however, Yahweh stays put until the construction Can one fnd the fuidity model in ancient Is‐ of the tabernacle is complete. Only then does Yah‐ rael? Yes, but with qualifications. For example, weh’s kabod (“God’s body ... God’s very self” in P biblical texts do not appear to refer to overlap or [p. 68]) travel once again but, this time, exclusive‐ merger, given their authors’ monotheistic outlook ly in the tabernacle. (more on Sommer’s views concerning monothe‐ All of this raises the issue of sacred space. Cer‐ ism below). Evidence for fragmentation, however, tainly, both P and D believe in a kind of sacred comes from Kuntillet Ajrud (e.g., Yahweh of center: for P, it is the tabernacle; for D, the city of Samaria, Yahweh of Teman) and biblical refer‐ Jerusalem. Sommer seeks to demonstrate, howev‐ ences to “Yhwh at Hebron” (2 Sam 15:7) and er, that both sources possess a sense of ambiguity “Yhwh at Zion” (Ps 99:2). Moreover, at least some around their beliefs about space. To illustrate, Israelites, says Sommer, believed that Yahweh Sommer compares P’s “tabernacle” with E’s “tent could be present in physical objects, such as wood of meeting.” For P, on the one hand, the taberna‐ (’asherah) and stone (maṣṣebah), and in multiple cle resides in the center of the Israelite encamp‐ objects at the same time. Sources J and E and texts ment and functions as “the site of an unceasing with a likely northern provenance seem especial‐ and ever-accessible theophany” (p. 81). In E, on ly influenced by the fluidity model. the other hand, the tent lies outside the camp and But, alas, fuidity was not for everyone. is home only to occasional appearances by and Deuteronomic theology (or D--both Deuteronomy communiqués from Yahweh. Sommer compares P and the Deuteronomistic history) rejects it. In and E with what Jonathan Smith calls the locative deuteronomic texts, the shem (name) of Yahweh, view and the utopian view, respectively. E is merely a name or symbol in D, might dwell on utopian, “in the basic sense of the word: lacking earth in the temple, but Yahweh himself--that is, place” (p. 83). It emphasizes the periphery and his one and only body--dwells in the heavens and omits any notion of a center. This means that P nowhere else. Priestly theology (or P; this includes has to be locative (the divine has been fxed in the Holiness Code) also rejects the fuidity model. place), right? Yes and no. Sommer claims that P is In this tradition, too, Yahweh has only one body both (see pp. 83 and 121): locative when com‐ (the “image of God” in Gen 1:27). It is a body like pared with E but utopian when read in compari‐ son with deuteronomic theology (Yahweh is in the 2 H-Net Reviews heavens) or with what Sommer calls Zion-Sabaoth there were likely polytheistic worshippers in an‐ theology (Yahweh is in the Jerusalem temple). In cient Israel, but his most controversial claim is contrast to these views, P’s god is not attached to a that the literature of the Hebrew Bible (with es‐ permanent location. Yahweh may dwell in the sentially no exceptions) “exemplifies monotheism tabernacle, but the tabernacle and, therefore, Yah‐ and not merely monolatry” (p. 172). weh are both mobile. Two criticisms of Sommer on this last point D’s theology, like that of P, contains inherent are in order. First, he reads Deuteronomy 32:8-9 tensions as well. While promoting the Jerusalem as if the god named Elyon (“Most High”) there is temple to the pinnacle of sacred space, it also de‐ Yahweh, without acknowledging that many other prives the temple of any real sacred presence. As scholars see the text as making Yahweh out to be noted, Yahweh never descends from heaven in D. merely one of many subordinate deities under the The tension in D, then, is between a locative theol‐ rule of Elyon. Second, he contrasts the biblical ogy (there is and can be only one shrine) and a view of Yahweh (Yahweh is the supreme deity) theology of transcendence (capturing the deity’s with Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Greek concep‐ presence is beyond the shrine’s reach). tions of divinity. Against this background, Yahwis‐ In his concluding chapter, Sommer waxes tic religion stands out as unique. But he does not rather theological (“as a committed Jew” [p. 125]). say anything about Israel’s neighbors Ammon, He traces the persistence of the fuidity model Moab, and Edom. When one considers these na‐ into rabbinic and Kabbalistic traditions and even tions and their religions, another hypothesis into Christianity (e.g., the trinity). He is bothered emerges. It seems quite possible that, for each of by those traditions that seek to maintain the abso‐ these societies, its own god was the supreme de‐ lute otherness of “God” by denying “God” a body. ity: Milcom for the Ammonites, Kemosh for the They do so, he claims, “at the cost of the personal Moabites, and Qaus for the Edomites. If this is cor‐ God.” It seems that, for Sommer, his god has to rect (it is certainly open to debate), then what have a body so that the god can be one who “ex‐ Sommer has recognized is not a religious view perience[s] joy and pain, loneliness and love.” But, unique to ancient Israel but a phenomenon char‐ to transcend the limitations that having a body acteristic of the Iron Age nation-states of the imposes, this god has “many bodies” and, thus, southern Levant.

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