[lbo-talk] Re: December column

[C. G. Estabrook]

We're so familiar with it that we sometimes forget that the conception of
deity that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam inherit from the religion of
ancient Israel is rather sharply at odds with the usual way of thinking
about gods.  Yhwh (a form of the verb "to be" with a sense of futurity --
roughly "I am what will be") is not a god in the normal sense of the word,
where gods are at base fertility symbols. Unlike the gods, Yhwh has no sex
and no consort. As the figure in whose name the social revolution of the
Exodus is carried out, Yhwh indicates that in terms of the priest-kings of
the ancient world and the gods who were their guarantors, ancient Israel
begins in atheism and anarchism. (That's what the Hebrew bible is all
about -- an extended multiple mediation on a peculiar way of thinking
about the divine.) --CGE

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, joanna bujes wrote:


> I wrote...
> God has a penis? Then why does he need the holy ghost?
> 
> Jon wrote
> To go "Boo!" and frighten all the little kids.
> 
> Actually, I was thinking more along the lines that it's the holy ghost
> that impregnates Mary...
> 
> ....right? Any catholics out there?
> 
> Joanna
>