Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
It was taken for granted in the Ancient Near East that
gods regularly spoke with people. For example, “Fear not, Esarhaddon (the
king). I, the god Bel, am speaking to you” (ANET, p. 605). Or, “ Be’elshamayn
(the god) (said to me): Do not fear, for I made you king” (ANET, p. 655).
In the Hebrew Bible, too, God verbally spoke to Adam
(Gen. 3:9), to Noah (Gen. 8:15), to Abraham ( Gen. 12: 1), to Moses (Ex.24:12),
and various prophets, like Isaiah (Isa
38:4). God even addressed all the
Israelites before giving the Torah (Ex.20: 1).
The rationalist in me asks: how did God communicate with the
people? In what language? In biblical Hebrew? Did God , through visions, dreams
or angelic messengers, address Daniel in Aramaic? Obviously, the answer is not.
Even though a theist who views God in personal terms may
struggle to understand the means of communication, a religious naturalist like me has no problem saying that these verbal
exchanges cannot be taken literally. No, God does not speak like a person in
human language. These conversations are figurative.
Even Maimonides, the Aristotelian Jewish philosopher of
the medieval times, had to state that when God spoke, the people heard only a
voice, “but not the articulations of speech.” (Guide 2: 33).
WE can be inspired by many things and get insights from
many sources around us: the grandeur of
nature, the generous acts of our fellow human beings, or the wise sayings of
our sages. These are lofty ideas worthy of attribution to the divine.
SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com
