Professors of theology are imagined to be dull, gentle souls. “God: An Anatomy”, however, is a great rebel shout
The result of her annoyance is a learned but rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh’s body, from top to bottom and from inside out. The God in whom millions of Christians proclaim their faith each Sunday is firmly placed in a great crowd of other divinities of south-west Asia: Baal, Marduk of Babylon, Ninurta of Mesopotamia, Adad of Assyria, Teshub, Tishpak and Ra. He began life as nothing important, a minor storm god, one of 70 children of El, the Levantine father of the gods.
Feet and legs are followed by genitals. Here Ms Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun. God’s penis becomes the focus of all sorts of divine action: fructifying the world, imposing order on the cosmos, rampaging like a bull, shooting a bow and arrow. Every mention of a bow, she assures readers, really means a penis; even the rainbow is a polychrome heavenly tool.
Rape, in other words. In the book of Hosea it is even more explicit: God takes the teenage Israel walking in the wilderness, “and there she will cry out”. Afterwards, he gives her earrings, bangles, a necklace and a crown, displaying her as his own beautiful property.
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