The Origin and Character of God

Few topics are as broad or as daunting as the God of Israel, that deity of the world's three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who has been worshiped over millennia. In the Hebrew Bible, God is characterized variously as militant, beneficent, inscrutable, loving, and judicious. Who is this divinity that has been represented as masculine and feminine, mythic and real, transcendent and intimate?

The Origin and Character of God is Theodore J. Lewis's monumental study of the vast subject that is the God of Israel. In it, he explores questions of historical origin, how God was characterized in literature, and how he was represented in archaeology and iconography. He also brings us into the lived reality of religious experience. Using the window of divinity to peer into the varieties of religious experience in ancient Israel, Lewis explores the royal use of religion for power, prestige, and control; the intimacy of family and household religion; priestly prerogatives and cultic status; prophetic challenges to injustice; and the pondering of theodicy by poetic sages.

A volume that is encyclopedic in scope but accessible in tone and was honored with all three of the major awards in the field in three seperate disciplines (American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) 2020 Frank Moore Cross Award, 2021 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, 2021 Biblical Archaeology Society Biennial Publication Award for the Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible), The Origin and Character of God is an essential addition to the growing scholarship of one of humanity's most enduring concepts.

Theodore J. Lewis (PhD Harvard University) is the Blum-Iwry Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Origin and Character of God: The Religion of Ancient Israel through the Lens of Divinity (Oxford University Press), Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (Harvard Semitic Monographs), and co-author of Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (SBL Press). He is General Editor of the multi-volume Writings from the Ancient World translation series and the co-editor with Gary Beckman of Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion. He is former editor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Hebrew Annual Review. His research has received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Lewis's multidisciplinary The Origin and Character of God has received the Frank Moore Cross Award from the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) for “the most substantial volume related to the history and/or religion of the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean,” the 2021 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion, and the 2021 Biblical Archaeology Society Biennial Publication Award for the Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible.

Chapter One: Introductory Matters

Chapter Two: The History of Scholarship on Ancient Israelite Religion - A Brief Sketch

Chapter Three: Methodology

Chapter Four: El Worship

Chapter Five: The Iconography of Divinity - El

Section I: Methodology and Iconography
Section II: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and Divine Images
Section III: The Iconography of Ugaritic 'Ilu
Section IV: The Iconography of Israelite El

Chapter Six: The Origin of Yahweh

Section I: The Meaning and Revelation of the Name Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible
Section II: The Name Yahweh in Extra-Biblical and Epigraphic Sources
Section III: The Geographic Origins of Yahwistic Traditions and the Debate Concerning

Chapter Seven: The Iconography of Divinity - Yahweh

Section I: The Iconography of Yahweh: Anthropomorphic and Theriomorphic Traditions
Section II: The Iconography of Yahweh: Aniconic and Abstract Traditions

Chapter Eight: The Characterization of the Deity Yahweh
Part One: Yahweh as Warrior and Family God

Section I: Yahweh as Divine Warrior
Section II: Yahweh the Compassionate and Family Religion

Chapter Nine: The Characterization of the Deity Yahweh
Part Two: Yahweh as King and Yahweh as Judge

Section I: Yahweh as King
Section II: Yahweh as Judge

Chapter Ten: The Characterization of the Deity Yahweh
Part Three: Yahweh as Holy

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index