The God of Old

The God of Old by James L. Kugel

This was one of my “½read before bed” books that although good, took quite awhile to finish, since some nights I felt like I could barely read a page before I fell asleep. But then that is why I read history books and non-fiction before bed, precisely so that it does not keep me awake all night.

The book discusses several things that I have found troublesome about the bible–seeming inconsistencies or contradictions, such as the way that God changes from his interactions with Abraham to interactions with Moses. God shares a meal with Abraham and speaks face to face with him, yet Moses must hide from the presence of God lest he be killed. It didn’t necessarily explain these issues, but it did discuss them.

The following passage is a question in a similar vein:

All this stands in sharp contrast to the writings of later times. People have to seek God out. This might seem counterintuitive, since later thinkers also insisted (as our earliest biblical texts do not) that God is everywhere, omnipresent, and omniscient. If so, why is He so hard to find?

Again, there are no clear answers, but the fact that others have asked the question is somehow reassuring in this time of biblical literalism. It’s good to know that others question, and do not take things at face value.

It also addressed a question that has bothered me for years, that of the validity of other gods and religions:

This Psalm (Psalm 82) addresses a set of problems that must have sorely vexed ancient Israelites. Why should there be only one God–and ours at that!–when there are so many different nations in the world? Should not each nation have its own god or gods (as indeed most other nations believed was the case)? And if the answer is that these other nation’s gods are abominations and utterly false, then why does the one true God allow them to exist? Should He not destroy their images and priests and temples–and at the same time stop being “our” God, and rule over all peoples equally?
…
According to both these texts (Deut. 4:19-20, Deut. 32:8-9), God Himself is responsible for the other gods: He assigned other nations to their care. However, He kept Israel for Himself rather than assigning it to some lesser denizen of heaven: they are His own “allotted property.:

If it sorely vexed the ancient Israelites, then the question continued on to sorely vex me. I too can not comprehend why God would allow false religions to appear; and this becomes all the more confusing when comparative theology shows that so many of the world’s major religions have the same themes, ideas, and morals. Why would the same ideas have sprung up in so many disparate places if they did not have a universal source?

Again, no answers, just more questions, but they are good questions.

There were also asides and things mentioned in passing that were absolutely fascinating:

(I)n Hebrew this word for “sinner” still carries a note of inadvertency connected to its verbal root, which means “to miss the mark.”

This is certainly not the context in which I understood sinner as I grew up. It somehow makes the sin easier to bear, knowing that a sinner is not one who has deliberate chosen to do wrong, but is one who has missed the mark. It means you tried to do good, and failed.

A much more optimistic outlook.

There were passages that at first I agreed with, then I wasn’t sure if I agreed or not, and then I thought perhaps I did agree:

The best way to understand the wisdom world’s view of the meaning of a human life might be to compare an individual life to an artist’s canvas. We all start off with a blank canvas, an ancient sage might have said, and each of is us, at least potentially, a world-class artist. That is, no one is better qualified than anyone else when it comes to painting his or her particular painting; we all have the requisite tools and talents.

If he is, as I think he is, saying that there is no one better qualified to live our life than us. That is an interesting way to say that–rather Zen like–and makes a good deal of sense. We should not live our lives wondering what others would do in our situation, for it is our life and we are better equipped than anyone else to make decisions about how we should live.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed this book. It did not give me the answers I was seeking (but then I didn’t truly expect it to) but the questions were thoroughly enjoyable.

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