The Primary Biblical Image of God
“The great images of God fashioned by humankind are born not of imagination but of real encounters…” - Martin Buber
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The above quote, written by an exceptional Jewish theologian of the 20th century, is an apt description on how we might best perceive and understand the incredibly diverse and numerous images of God presented to us in the Bible. This is to say that the images of God found in the Bible are not just about who God is or about who God is not. They are about and are derived from the imaginative way in which we give voice to our own experiences of God in the living out of our lives in this world. They are not conceptional in nature. They are not the result of philisophical ponderings. Thus, in essence, they are, perhaps shockingly so to some, not really subject to - as they often have been - doctrinal or dogmatic manipulation. Instead, they are best understood as having sprung out of real-life, out of this-worldy experiences in which people have confronted and wrestled with how God’s voice might be heard in the midst of those experiences. Reflecting continuously on the thoughts and understandings influenced by their experiences, our scriptural forebears fostered a way of being, a way of relating to God in this world and in this life.
It is worth considering and noting how a people, rather adamate about forbidding any “graven” or “sculptured” images of God - as given primacy in the so-called Ten Commandments, were not so shy in developing a plethera of images out of their experiences of God. I beleive the prohibition is best understood, not as a diatribe against images, but as a means to keep us honest with our tendancy to paraslyzingly attribute a misguided and, thus, a misguiding absolutely supreme importance to these images, whether we sculpt them from stone or wood or even from the imgination of our own hearts and minds. Simply put, the images are not God; and, there is something dangerously foolish in our attempts to capture and definitively claim understanding of God in any image.
That said, over the course of twelve articles (derived from twelve conversational forums), we will consider just a few of the images of God found in the Bible. We will consider how and why they may have developed, the possible meanings attributed to them by those who produced them, and what questions such may raise for our own experiences of God.
Among the many ways in which these images may have been generated, my studies have led me to identify at least three general ways by which we can gauge our understanding of their initial development.
1) There are images which seem to have evolved from questioning developing loyalties to personal allegiances which compromise our abilities to be faithful to God’s greater call to us in life.
2) There are images developed to address some very real longings we all possess for genuine love in life;
and,
3) There are images which evolved as a means to keep us continuously honest with ourselves in our capacity to “use” God to acheive little more than our own ends.
Keeping these in mind will prove invaluable as we wrestle with the importance of these images of God and how we come to terms with our own experiences to the presence and activity of God in our own lives and in the world around us.
On to the first and, dare I say, primary biblical image for God.
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As images go, the first biblical image we will inverstigate is not really much in the way of being an image at all. In a sense, again, for a people who inscribed in their own laws a prohibition to create and/or form any images for God, this should not surprise us. This image is composed of four Hebraic letters which, transliterated into English, are Y, H, W, and H. In English (as ancient Hebrew had no vowels), the word would be transliterated as Yahweh but is often translated as “Lord” which, because lordship is derived from and is associated with kingship - and Yahweh holds no such associations, is very misleading. So, what are we to make of this particular biblical image for God?
First, the oldest reference we currently possess for use of this word actually predates any and all biblical writings by perhaps as much as 500 years. There is an Egyptian document, written about 1500 years before the Common Era, attributing Yahweh as a reference made by non-Egyptian people to the God they claimed allegiance. There is no reason not to surmise that these folk were very likely the ancestors of the people of Israel who would be freed from slavery under Moses nearly 250 years later. This word, appearing nearly 7000 times in the Jewish scriptures, is the most commonly used biblical reference for God (the nearest competitor appears just over 2500 times). Just as the Harry Potter series possesses a character of such renown that he is often referred to as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”, so do most Jews - throughout history to our own day - have maintained the practice of never granting pronunciation for this four letter word. When they do come across this word in their reading of scripture, they consistently substitute other names of God for it. However, Yahweh is not really a name either. So what is going on here? How might this have all come about? And what could it all possibly mean for us today?
The biblical story of the eventual deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in the land of Egypt more or less begins with Moses encountering in the wilderness an experience which warrants his attention. the narative informs us that Moses is drawn aside to the marvel of a bush all ablaze with fire but which is not being consumed by the flame. We might well question the factual accuracy of such a report, but I do not think such was the point of the story and any attempts to defend such only further misses the point. Most of us, if not all, have at some point in our lives felt a burning concern deep within us and marveled at how, for all its intensity, demanded our attentioin without fully consuming us in its fire. Moses turned aside in such a moment and heard the voice of God. That voice compels Moses to pursue the practically inconceivable task of liberating the people of Israel from the oppressive slave-inducing policies and practices of the then extremely powerful Egyptian empire. Have we ever felt such an inner compulsion albeit for what we might consider less risky endeavors?
As the story goes, Moses, before he sets out to try his hand at this now burning compulsion, turns back to the voice and inquires of the voice, “When I initiate this undertaking with the Israelites, who shall I say is sending me? What is your Name?” Herein, I beleive, lies the keys to a better understanding of this biblical image of God we are considering here.
To possess the Name of somebody is to possess power. At times some of us participate in what is called “Name-dropping” through which, by connecting ourselves to those of some greater renown, we attempt to capitilize on their more powerful “Name” for something we might not be able to gain on our own. In a similar vein, as happened to me in younger years on a crowed rush-hour street in New York City, whenever we hear our name called, we are instantly caught in the thrall of the one calling out to us. For me, walking in a large crowd outside of Madison Square Garden, the sound of my name froze me in my tracks, turned me around to give my full attention to the one calling my name. It just so happened they were calling out to somebody else who happened to share my name. But, for a moment, they had me hook, line, and sinker as we say. And, today, we are all keenly aware of the fact that our names are out there on the information highway and avaiable for the taking by all sort of scam artists intent on taking advantage of knowing our name. Identity theft begins with the power of knowing a name. So, yes, there’s power in a Name. And Moses knows it. But so does God, and God ain’t having any of it. God doesn’t reply with a name much less a social security number. We are not granted - because we can’t responsibly handle such - that kind of information.
God replies with YHWH. “Tell the folk YHWH has sent you.” Now, what’s interesting about YHWH is that, linguistically, it is not a noun. It does not depict (as we all probably learned about nouns in elementary school) a person, place, or thing. In Hebraic circles it is considered to be a word akin to being a verb suggesting that God is best experienced and understood though action, through acting. In our Sunday morning forum, it was suggested that, instead of using “God” when we speak of such, we use the phrase “Godding” to convey the sense that we are tuned in to an experience of activity. The Godding is “speaking.” The Godding is “creating.” The Godding is “greiving”. The Godding is “inspiring”. The Godding is “loving.” Personally, I love the concept of “Godding”.
So, in Hebrew, what might YHWH mean? As a verb, it conveys a sense of “being whatever one is being.” It is as if God is saying to Moses, “Don’t you dare try to box me into the confines of some name by which you wish to define me. I will be whoever I will be. I will become whatever I will become. Like Popeye, I Yam what I Yam. So keep your eyes open. And while you’re at it, keep the eyes of your heart and the eyes of your mind open for however I will choose to appear among you!” The truth is, we’re not very good at that. We seem to be so continuously intent on defending the God we name - as if God needs defending - that we rather unwittingly and unfortunately end up fighting against the One who is trying to open us up to whatever this God can be and become among us.
YHWH. I AM. I AM WHATEVER I WILL BE. I WILL BECOME WHATEVER I WILL BECOME. Afterall, I AM free to to that because I AM GOD.
This, I believe, is the primary and most definitive biblical image we in the Judaic-Christian tradition have for God. The influence of this one image will play out in the ways in which we engage every other image we ascribe to God. To hold to the primacy of this image cannot but help have signigicant implications for how we experience and relate to God and, indeed, to one another and the world in which we live.
