by Phyllis Trible
In recent years literary studies of the Bible have explored all kinds of topics -- save God, the chief protagonist of the narrative. That not insignificant subject has now received its due, a tour de force called "God: A Biography," by Jack Miles.
If some people may find a biography of God an irreverent enterprise, Mr. Miles is not one of them. He says that over centuries the Bible has been the fundamental document for both Jews and Christians. Its stories and characters have permeated the whole of Western culture. To track, then, the stories to their central character is in no way disrespectful. But Mr. Miles does engage in occasional provocation. At the outset he remarks that "God is no saint, strange to say." As the reader will find out, that is true enough, and the fact is not so strange.
Mr. Miles treats the Bible as a literary work. To produce a biography of a literary character is a complicated undertaking, and so in a sometimes amusing introductory chapter he guides the reader through the contrast in approaches taken by scholars and critics. With a light touch he describes his own approach as naive, seeing God as a real person, much the way a theatergoer thinks of Hamlet or a reader perceives Don Quixote. But he also knows there is a difference. "No character . . . on stage, page or screen," he says, "has ever had the reception that God has had."
Mr. Miles is an appropriate biographer. He is now a book columnist for The Los Angeles Times, but was once a member of the Jesuit order and studied at both the Gregorian College in Rome and Hebrew University in Jerusalem before he took his doctoral degree at Harvard University in ancient Near Eastern languages and literatures. His naivete is well-informed.
He wants to get to know God the way people get to know one another, bit by bit, over time. So he chooses to read the Hebrew Bible from the beginning right through. The chief difference between the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament is the ordering of the books, and the ordering affects the way in which God's character develops. Whereas in the Old Testament the prophetic books appear at the end of the sequence, in the Hebrew Bible they appear in the middle. The Hebrew Bible is known by a Hebrew acronym pronounced Tanakh, for the letters "t," "n" and "k," which signify its three major parts: Torah (teaching), Nebi'im (prophets) and Ketubim (writings). Mr. Miles reads the Tanakh as a coherent and integral work, without trying to identify what in it is myth, what is legend and what is history, the way most literary scholars do. He allows himself, however, some forays into historical and theological issues.
Who is the literary character called God? Simply put, a male with multiple personalities, which emerge gradually. At the beginning God creates the world in order to make a self-image, an indication that He does not fully understand who He is but discovers Himself through interaction with humanity. Immediately the focus narrows to the man and the woman in the garden. When they disobey their creator, He responds vindictively and so reveals His own inner conflict. Called God in Genesis 1, he is lofty, powerful and bountiful; called Lord God in Genesis 2 and 3, he is intimate and volatile. Ambivalent about His image, the creator becomes the destroyer: the flood descends. A radical fault runs through the character of God.
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In recent years literary studies of the Bible have explored all kinds of topics -- save God, the chief protagonist of the narrative. That not insignificant subject has now received its due, a tour de force called "God: A Biography," by Jack Miles.
If some people may find a biography of God an irreverent enterprise, Mr. Miles is not one of them. He says that over centuries the Bible has been the fundamental document for both Jews and Christians. Its stories and characters have permeated the whole of Western culture. To track, then, the stories to their central character is in no way disrespectful. But Mr. Miles does engage in occasional provocation. At the outset he remarks that "God is no saint, strange to say." As the reader will find out, that is true enough, and the fact is not so strange.Mr. Miles treats the Bible as a literary work. To produce a biography of a literary character is a complicated undertaking, and so in a sometimes amusing introductory chapter he guides the reader through the contrast in approaches taken by scholars and critics. With a light touch he describes his own approach as naive, seeing God as a real person, much the way a theatergoer thinks of Hamlet or a reader perceives Don Quixote. But he also knows there is a difference. "No character . . . on stage, page or screen," he says, "has ever had the reception that God has had."
Mr. Miles is an appropriate biographer. He is now a book columnist for The Los Angeles Times, but was once a member of the Jesuit order and studied at both the Gregorian College in Rome and Hebrew University in Jerusalem before he took his doctoral degree at Harvard University in ancient Near Eastern languages and literatures. His naivete is well-informed.
He wants to get to know God the way people get to know one another, bit by bit, over time. So he chooses to read the Hebrew Bible from the beginning right through. The chief difference between the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament is the ordering of the books, and the ordering affects the way in which God's character develops. Whereas in the Old Testament the prophetic books appear at the end of the sequence, in the Hebrew Bible they appear in the middle. The Hebrew Bible is known by a Hebrew acronym pronounced Tanakh, for the letters "t," "n" and "k," which signify its three major parts: Torah (teaching), Nebi'im (prophets) and Ketubim (writings). Mr. Miles reads the Tanakh as a coherent and integral work, without trying to identify what in it is myth, what is legend and what is history, the way most literary scholars do. He allows himself, however, some forays into historical and theological issues.
Who is the literary character called God? Simply put, a male with multiple personalities, which emerge gradually. At the beginning God creates the world in order to make a self-image, an indication that He does not fully understand who He is but discovers Himself through interaction with humanity. Immediately the focus narrows to the man and the woman in the garden. When they disobey their creator, He responds vindictively and so reveals His own inner conflict. Called God in Genesis 1, he is lofty, powerful and bountiful; called Lord God in Genesis 2 and 3, he is intimate and volatile. Ambivalent about His image, the creator becomes the destroyer: the flood descends. A radical fault runs through the character of God.
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