God's body in the news

DIVINE ANATOMY: Is God circumcised? How people in ancient times viewed the Heavenly Body. In new book, Francesca Stavrakopoulou displays God as portrayed by His early worshipers: with genitals, passions, powers – and a penchant for the monstrous (Rich Tenorio, Times of Israel).

The book touts itself as an “astonishing and revelatory history” that “represents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers — with a distinctly male body, superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.”

“By mapping God’s body, rather than the Bible itself, we can better navigate the transformation of this ancient southern Levantine deity into the God with whom we are now culturally more familiar,” Stavrakopoulou writes.

The article also touches on Asherah and the goddess tradition in ancient Israel.

The book is God: An Anatomy (Picador, 2021).

For another recent book edited by Professor Stavrakopoulou, see here. For more about her work on Asherah, see here.

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