There
are other contexts as well that mention human and divine beings “face to face.”
Jacob wrestles with a divine “man” (Gen 32:30). And when he prevails in the
morning and asks for a blessing, the being blesses him in Hebrew language that
is ambiguous. The text can be read as either “you have striven with beings
divine and human” or you have striven “with Gods and humans.” Jacob then names
the place “Peniel” (פני אל, literally “face of God”) and says, “I have seen a
divine being [or God] face to face (פנים אל פנים), yet my life has been
preserved.” Here we seem to be dealing with what is portrayed as an actual face
to face sighting, not a metaphor, although it still takes place in a literal
dream. But this time we do not know if it is God or an angel. (Howard Schwartz,
“Does God Have a Body? The Problem of Metaphor and Literal Language in Biblical
Interpretation,” in Bodies, Embodiment, and the Theology of the Hebrew Bible,
ed. S. Tamar Kamionkowski and Wonil Kim [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Studies 465; London: T&T Clark, 2010], 221)
One
could argue as some interpreters so, that God simply take the form of a human
body on this occasion but does not really have a form, an understanding that
allows the interpreter to both preserve the conception of a formless being (in
fact) but one that can take a human form (for various purpose). But that
interpretation raises other problems. For if God only “takes” a human form, why
could no one gaze on the divine face that God only took on temporality? If the
purpose of assuming human form was to be visible to human sight, why would God
need to turn the divine back, unless the visible form was in some sense divine
too. (Howard Schwartz, “Does God Have a Body? The Problem of Metaphor and
Literal Language in Biblical Interpretation,” in Bodies, Embodiment, and the
Theology of the Hebrew Bible, ed. S. Tamar Kamionkowski and Wonil Kim
[Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 465; London: T&T Clark,
2010], 225)
While noting that some anthropomorphic language in the Bible “can easily be describing divine activities in language that is drawn from human life and that makes sense in human terms,” Howard Schwartz then notes that:
And
yet this language raises two interesting questions that intersect with our
larger interpretive question. First, how do we know that all of this language
is metaphoric or figurative? If there are conceptions of God in a human form in
some parts of the Bible, might these allusions to a body of God be more than
just figurative? Could they presuppose a King like God who sits on a throne,
appears in clouds, whose image is seen by Moses and in whose image humans are
made? Maybe the biblical God does have ears, hands, fingers and a mouth of some
sort. Moreover, even if we decide these other passages are figurative language,
as most translations presuppose, can we necessarily conclude that the biblical
text envisions God without a form? As we know, metaphors drawn from the human
body are used to describe human activity as well. Clearly, the use of similar
metaphors to describe human activity does not imply that humans have no bodies.
On the contrary, it is because humans have a body that images of ears, eyes,
hearts all serve as metaphors for other conceptions such as “obeying,”
“listening,” “paying attention” and so forth. The same is possible in the
case of Bible’s conception of God, though most interpreters have not taken this
view. The point, then, is that the use of bodily images to describe God does
not solve our interpretive puzzle by itself. We can take the images
metaphorically and still be left wondering whether the underlying conception of
God is in a form that resembles the human one. The answer to that question
has to rely on the other texts we have already reviewed and discussed,
and the interpretive position that shapes how they are understood.
This
ambiguity thus brings us to a second related issue having to do with the
problem of translation itself. In passages describing God with bodily images,
should such language be translated literally or metaphorically? In other words,
is there a conceptual difference worth capturing between a more literal
translation that “God inclined the divine ears to listen” and simply “God
listened”? Or, to cite another example, is there a significant difference
between “God getting incensed with Israel” and “God’s face getting hot with
anger?” The answer depends in part on the purpose of translation. And yet, the
favoring of idiomatic language seems already tied into the interpretive problem
of whether God is imagined in human form. To put the question another way: Should
a faithful translation use literal translation or figurative language?
Indeed, can we even answer the translation question without already making a
decision on the larger question of whether the Bible thinks of God in human
form? Apparently not. (Howard Schwartz, “Does God Have a Body? The Problem of
Metaphor and Literal Language in Biblical Interpretation,” in Bodies,
Embodiment, and the Theology of the Hebrew Bible, ed. S. Tamar Kamionkowski
and Wonil Kim [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 465; London:
T&T Clark, 2010], 234-35, emphasis in original)
Commenting on throne theophanies
(e.g., Isa 6:1-5; Ezek 1:26-28) in the Old Testament, Amy C. Merrill Willis
noted that:
It
is one thing to conceptualize God’s relational activities by using ordinary
human body parts as figures of speech, but it is quite another to claim to have
seen that God has a human face and ears and body. (Amy C. Merrill Willis, “Heavenly
Bodies: God and the Body in the Visions of Daniel,” in Bodies, Embodiment,
and the Theology of the Hebrew Bible, ed. S. Tamar Kamionkowski and Wonil
Kim [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 465; London: T&T Clark,
2010], 15)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment