The Hebrew God : Portrait of an Ancient Deity

Originally worshipped by the people of a small and politically insignificant eastern Mediterranean community, the Hebrew God rose to become the monotheistic deity of the entire Western tradition.

Indeed, the God of Israel ranks as the most distinguished deity in human history.

In this text, biblical scholar Bernhard Lang draws upon the available evidence, including ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian texts and art, to provide a portrait of the ancient Hebrew God.

Lang's portrait shows the Hebrew God in five images.

He appears as lord of wisdom, lord of war, lord of the animals, lord of the individual, and lord of the harvest - a God whose rule extends to all areas of life.

Lang illuminates the completeness of this God's leadership with insights derived from modern religious, anthropological and cultural studies, and he argues that Israel's monotheistic God, far from being simply opposed to other gods, actually echoes and incorporates much of the ancient polytheistic experience of the divine.

The worldview of the ancient Semites did not differ from that of the Indo-European peoples as dramatically as others have assumed, Lang contends. Written in a non-technical style, this volume should be suitable for the general reader and religious historian alike.