TY - BOOK ID - 74562594 TI - The bodies of God and the world of ancient Israel PY - 2009 SN - 9780521518727 0521518725 9780511596568 9781107422261 9780511596162 0511596162 0511593015 9780511593017 0511699166 1107191807 1107422264 1282303112 9786612303111 0511596561 0511592086 0511594941 0511591152 051159576X PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - God KW - God (Judaism) KW - Monotheism. KW - Polytheism. KW - Dieu KW - Dieu (Judaïsme) KW - Monothéisme KW - Polythéisme KW - Corporeality KW - History of doctrines. KW - Biblical teaching. KW - Corporéité KW - Histoire des doctrines KW - Enseignement biblique KW - Monotheism KW - Polytheism KW - 221.08*01 KW - Pantheism KW - Religion KW - Religions KW - Theism KW - Trinity KW - God (Christianity) KW - 221.08*01 Theologie van het Oude Testament: God--(Godsleer) KW - Theologie van het Oude Testament: God--(Godsleer) KW - History of doctrines KW - Biblical teaching KW - Arts and Humanities UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:74562594 AB - Sommer utilizes a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which a god has more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in Kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue. ER -