Forms of God, Forming God: A Typology of Divine Anthropomorp...

The goal of this project is threefold: a) to further disprove an evolutionary theory of divine anthropomorphism in ancient Israel as reflected in the compositions of the Pentateuch; b) to show the specific manifestations of the phenomenon in the Pentateuchal sources while exhibiting the unreliability and inaccuracy of using divine anthropomorphism as a means of either distinguishing between authors or dating the sources; and c), to provide a template for analyzing divine anthropomorphism in the Hebrew Bible through the development of a typology of the phenomenon in the Pentateuch. Taking a source critical approach to the Pentateuch, I divide my analysis of human-like portrayals of God into three types: body, location, interaction.