Friday, December 16, 2011

Human anger in Genesis

"While God is portrayed angrily in many books of the Bible, the book of Genesis contains no explicit, actualized references to divine anger. Although some parts of Genesis may imply that God is angry (for example, chaps. 3, 4, 6, 11, 18– 19), none of them explicitly refers to the divine being in this way. The only time Hebrew terminology for anger is used of God in Genesis is in 18:30 and 32, where Abraham, while requesting that innocent people be spared from impending destruction, asks that the deity not become angry with him for making this request. The text suggests that God obliges Abraham and does not become angry. All of the other explicit references to anger in Genesis pertain to humans.”— From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis , page 12

<idle musing>
An interesting observation. I had never noticed that before. God doesn't even get angry in Genesis 3. Does that have ramifications for the theories of atonement?! Just an
</idle musing>

1 comment:

Justin K said...

John Goldingay made this observation in his Pentateuch class. He mentioned that it was one of the things that students were repeatedly most surprised by in his class.