Abstract
After briefly describing my epistemological approach to God as a version of soft perspectivism and philosophical realism in which one comes to know God not so much by reasoning about the Eternal but rather by interacting with God in speech and action, I note one central problem of describing God – namely, the danger of limiting God to our descriptions and possibly even becoming idolatrous. I then explore how our images of God gain their meaning, how we can assess the truth or falsity of our images of God, and how images of God gain authority within a religious community like that of the Jews, all in a way that can avoid intellectual and religious idolatry.
The following abbreviations apply to all endnotes below:
M. = Mishnah (edited by Rabbi Judah, the President of the Sanhedrin, c. 200 C.E.).
B. = Babylonian Talmud, edited by Ravina and Rav Ashi c. 500 C.E.
M.T. = Maimonides’ law code, the Mishneh Torah, completed in 1177 C.E.
S.A. = Joseph Caro’s law code, the Shulhan Arukh, completed in 1565 C.E.
The books ending in the word Rabbah (the great, or expanded) series – e.g., Genesis Rabbah, Numbers Rabbah, Song of Songs Rabbah – follow the order of the biblical text, but they contain rabbinic interpretations and expansions of the Bible. Citations of those books are to the chapter and subsection of the midrashic text, not to the biblical verse on which they are a commentary.
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- 1.
Prohibitions against idol worship conforming to pagan rituals: Exodus 34:14; Deuteronomy 12:30; cf. B. Sanhedrin 61b. Prohibitions against bowing down to an idol and against paying homage to an idol in other forms: Exodus 20:5. Prohibition against offering a sacrifice to another god, including those represented by an idol: Exodus 22:19.
- 2.
Deuteronomy 12:31.
- 3.
That making idols is prohibited: Exodus 20:4, 20. That this applies only to objects used for worship: cf., for example, Lev. 26:1.
- 4.
I have used here the categorization found in Faur (2007), 8:1231.
- 5.
Sifra 7:1, end.
- 6.
B. Rosh Hashanah 24b; B. Avodah Zarah 43b.
- 7.
Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1; 9:6.
- 8.
M.T. Laws of Idolatry 3:10, 11; S.A. Yoreh De’ah 141:4–7. They follow the Talmud (B. Avodah Zarah 43b), although Mekhilta, Yitro, Ch. 6 on Ex. 20:4, seems to prohibit indented representations too. Cf. Hagahot Maimoniyot on M.T. Laws of Idolatry 3:10.
- 9.
A face: e.g., Exodus 33:20, 23; Numbers 6:25, 26.
A nose: e.g., Exodus 15:8; 2 Samuel 22:9, 16 = Psalms 18:9, 16.
A mouth: e.g., Numbers 12:8; 14:41; 22:18; 24:13; Deuteronomy 8:3; Isaiah 1:20; 40:5; 45:23; Jeremiah 9:11; Psalms 33:6.
Eyes: e.g., Genesis 6:8; Deuteronomy 11:12; 32:10; Isaiah 43:4; 49:5; Psalms 17:8; 33:18.
Ears: e.g., Numbers 11:1; 14:28; 1 Samuel 8:21; Ezekiel 8:18.
Hands: e.g., Exodus 3:20; 15:6; I Samuel 5:6; Psalms 8:7; Job 12:9.
Fingers: e.g., Exodus 8:15; 31:18; Deuteronomy 9:10.
An arm: e.g., Exodus 6:6; Deuteronomy 4:34; 5:15; 26:8; 33:27; Isaiah 40:11; 51:9; 52:10; Jeremiah 21:5; 27:5; Psalms 77:16; 79:11; 89:22.
Feet: e.g., Exodus 24:10; 2 Samuel 22:10 = Psalms 18:10; Nahum 1:3; Habbakuk 3:5; Isaiah 60:13; 66:1; Psalms 99:5; 132:7.
- 10.
God plaits Eve’s hair and serves as best man for Adam: B. Berakhot 61a. God wears phylacteries and wraps Himself in a prayer shawl: B. Berakhot 6a; B. Rosh Hashanah 17b. He prays to Himself and studies the Torah during 3 hours of each day: B. Avodah Zarah 3b. He weeps over the failures of His creatures, visits the sick, comforts the mourner, and buries the dead: B. Haggigah 5b; B. Sotah 14a; Genesis Rabbah 8:13.
- 11.
Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part One, esp. chs. 1, 26, 28, 31, 35, 46, 50–60.
- 12.
Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah, Introduction to Sanhedrin, Chapter 10 (Ha-Helek), Section 5, Fundamental Belief 3.
- 13.
Song of Songs Rabbah 7:8; cf. B. Yoma 69b.
- 14.
See Chapter Seven of Dorff (1992), which is an earlier formulation of what I am wrestling with in this paper. There I discuss the differences between images, creeds, and symbols, but I have eliminated that section here due to limitations on space.
- 15.
Tillich (1957), Vol. 2, p. 9. Cf. Vol. 1, pp. 237–86 passim.
- 16.
Urban (1951), p. 238.
- 17.
- 18.
See Barbour (1974), Chapter 4, for a discussion of how religious language is analogical in its meaning, and see Chapter 5 there for a discussion of how conflicting images can complement each other without negating the quest for a unified, coherent, integrated model.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
Emmett (1957), p. 4.
- 22.
Cf. McClendon and Smith (1975), esp. ch. 1.
- 23.
Deuteronomy 6:5. This is part of the Shema, one of the core prayers of Jewish liturgy.
- 24.
See Holbrook (1984), pp. 202–11. I have been greatly influenced by chapters 4 and 14 of his book, especially pp. 61 and 192–198, in writing this section of this paper.
- 25.
I make this point most explicitly with regard to God’s words in Chapter Four of Dorff (1992), but it carries over also to human actions (Chapter Three), human words (Chapter Five), and divine actions (Chapter Six). See also an earlier expression of this thesis in Dorff (1976–77), pp. 58–68, although there I did not acknowledge that actions in accordance with communal laws and customs can be revelatory.
- 26.
Numbers Rabbah 14:4.
- 27.
Even Richard Rubenstein, who denies a God who acts in history, has trouble with the imagery of God as dead because it is, in his eyes and those of all other Jewish writers, much too Christian; see his 1966, ch. 14, with further references to this point in ch. 13.
- 28.
Holbrook (1984), p. 223. See also p. 218.
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Dorff, E.N. (2013). Jewish Images of God. In: Diller, J., Kasher, A. (eds) Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_10
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