Page 8 - Boca ViewPointe - April '22

Page 8, Viewpointe April 2022
Book Review

Revealing The Physiognomy ethical laxities like for example their stealing the vineyard

Of God rightfully belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; and also with
serving strange gods which brought about divine punishments
like withholding of rain. Just as Moses had vanquished the false
“Smoke went up from his nostrils/ and devouring fire Egyptian prophets. Elijah vanquishes the false prophets of Baal.
from his mouth; Judaism definitively rejected the power of the feminine deities.
glowing coals flamed forth from him./ He bowed the Dr. Matt further notes how the account of Elijah the
heavens prophet in the Bible drew upon tropes and parallels that were
and came down/ thick darkness was under his feet. earlier associated with Moses, and later came to be associated
He rode on a cherub, and flew,/ he came swiftly on the with Jesus and Muhammad. Like Moses, Elijah received
wings of the wind…. the calling from Yahweh, and both spoke directly to God at
And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them,/ he Mount Horeb, like John the Baptist, he forecast the coming
flashed forth lightnings and routed them. ” Psalm 18 of the Messiah, like Jesus and Moses, he spent forty days in
“Sometimes Elijah clothes himself in a person’s mind, the wilderness, like Jesus, he performed stunning miracles
revealing to him hidden matters. To the person, it seems ancient Samaritan tribe which continues till this day to engage like feeding the multitude and reviving the dead. He was
as if he pondered these thing on his own, as if that in sacrificial offerings to Yahweh. The notion being that represented in the Qu’ran as a wise adviser to the Prophet,
innovations suddenly entered his mind. This may relate these deities enjoy ingesting and imbibing the sacrifices and and like Muhammad, he ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.
to matters of Torah or to worldly matters, with Elijah furthermore could be bribed to bring victory, fertility, rain, Like Jesus, he is believed to have returned to earth and has
informing him what will and will not happen.” Moses happiness. Dr. Matt, a renowned scholar of The Book of the played a role in Jewish history of guiding Jewish notables like
Cordovero, Sixteenth Century Kabbalist Zohar, identifies the attempt of the prophet Elijah to reform the the Talmudic scholar Yochanan ben Zakkai to the Kabbalist
Daniel C. Matt. Becoming Elijah, Prophet of Transformation. Jewish religion and excise its pagan aspects. author Moses de Leon.
New Haven, Yale University Press, 2022. Like the Greek power couple Zeus and Hera, inhabitants The matter of God’s corporality became diminished with
Francesca Stavrakopoulou. God: An Anatomy. New York: of Olympus, the Levantine El was wedded to Athirat and, she the advent of Platonism, Christianity, and Rabbinic Judaism, all
Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. argues, Yahweh was linked with his consort Asherah. This of which affirmed the dichotomy of body and spirit, regarding
accords with Dr. Matt’s representation of the conflict between the sinfulness of the body as inferior to the purity of the spirit.
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers of Ahab and Elijah in the Book of Kings. What was not new Professor Matt in his majestic translation of The Zohar recounts
was the struggle between crown and prophet, which was how the duality of male and female found its way into medieval
Approaching the spring represented in earlier history with the rebukes by the prophet theological discourse. The corporeality of God was reimagined
holy days season of Passover, Nathan over King David’s improper wooing of the married in Kabbalistic thinking and the couplehood of male Deity and
Easter, Ramadan, we have Bathsheba, and centuries later in the policy disagreement female Shekinah was restored and celebrated.
two fascinating books that between Jeremiah and King Hezekiah, which led to the exile As some of us prepare for Passover, others for Easter and
offer profound insights into of the prophet. In the Book of Kings, Ahab married Jezebel of Ramadan, the personhood of Elijah remains harbinger of peace
the corporeal presence of God Tyre, a Phoenician Princess who brought with her the gods and in the world and better times to come.
in ancient Israel and Judah. goddesses of her religion. Elijah whose name itself incorporated
Francesca Stavrakopoulou, the tetragram, the veritable name of God, zealously opposed Dr. Ronald J. Meyers, a resident of La Paz, is an Emeritus
Professor of Comparative such contaminations, and challenged the power couple with Professor of English. rmeyers@esu.edu. 
Religion at the University of
Exeter, suggests that the physical anatomy of God was replete
in the evolution of Judaism, as it was in neighboring cultures
of Sumeria, Assyria, Babylonia and the better known Greek
Pantheon. “God’s body is nowhere denied in the Bible,” she My purpose is for you to be so outrageously
writes, rendered in archaeological remnants, artifacts, surviving
written incantations; also emended in the evolving Bible text HAPPY with the service that I give you that you
composed between the eighth and second century B.C.E.
that reflected the interactions of Israel with contemporaneous gladly introduce me to people that you care about,
cultures and religions. The chapter headings of her Anatomy because you know that they will benefit.
render the physicality of foot, face, arm, leg, heart and inhaling
nostril. In the neighboring religions, there was no denial of the Prudence J. (PJ) Carswell
sexual prowess of the Levantine Gods; the prolific El shooting
his arrows and seed and fructifying the earth with “phallic REALTOR EMERITUS
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Yahweh not only inspired the armies of Judah in battles
from within the tabernacle of the ark, but also was seen as
a beautiful being, the handsome bridegroom rendered in the
Song of Songs. Dr. Daniel Matt, in Becoming Elijah: Prophet Norbert Graber, R. Ph.
of Transformation, presents a vivid depiction of the prophet and Lynn Graber, R. Ph.
Elijah in the historical context of what we can glean about the
history of the northern kingdom of Israel in the ninth century
B.C.E. Happily each book advances our understanding and
moreover complements the findings of the other; while there
is clear historical accuracy in the account of Book of Kings, it
also invokes folklore and fantasy.
Professor Matt has drawn on diverse literary sources for
his study while Professor Stavrakopoulou presents a much
larger canvas, tracing the evolution of God among the earlier
renditions beginning with stone statues which suggested in
their permanence the semblance of divinity that could be
accessed and understood. The statues would then evolve
into anthropomorphic likenesses whose ambitions, lusts, and
desires for maintaining power mimicked our own; like the
28,000 year old Venus of Willendorf stone figurine thought
to be the goddess of fertility and impetus for reproduction.
Professor Stavrakopoulou has trotted the globe to discover
such archaeological remnants, like the ancient “Ain Dara” FREE
temple near Aleppo with the representation of god in two Family Owned & Operated LOCAL DELIVERY
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