A Body Unlike Bodies: ‘Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and Early Islam Westy WILLIAMS Mrcwican Stare University INTRODUCTION An taking up and elaborating upon John Wansbrough’s insistence that emergent Islam be seen 88 a continuation of the Near Eastern Semitic monotheistic tradition,' Gerald R. Hawting makes an important obsecvation: That Islam is indeed related to Judaism and Christianity a8 part of the Middle Eastern, Abra- hamic or Semitic tradition of monotheism seems so obvious and is so offen said that it might be wondered why it was thought necessary to repeat it. The reason is that although itis often said, acceptance of Islam as a representative of the monotheist religious tradition is not always accom anied by willingness f0 think through the implications of the statement (emphasis added),? Although both Muslim tradition and Western scholarship articulate a recognition of Islam's place within the Semitic monotheistic tradition, there is not only often an unwillingness to embrace the implications of this recognition, there is also in practice the tendency to distance Islam from that tradition.’ This is particularly the case regarding the Islamic Gorteslehre. Islam is often viewed as the religion par excellence of divine transcendence.* God is khilaf al-Glam—*the absolute divergence from the world”—and this characteristically Islamic doctrine of mukhalafa, “(divine) otherness,” precludes divine corporeality and anthropo- morphism.°> But such a model of divine transcendence is Hellenistic, not Semitic. The Abbreviations below follow the conventions of The Anchor Bible Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition LL See especially his The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978), 2. GR. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (Cambridge, 1999), xi-xii. 3. See Gerald Hawting, “John Wansbrough, Islam, and Monotheism,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 9 (1997), special issue on “Tslaraic Origins Reconsidered: John Wansbrough and the Study of Early Isl 23-38; Chase F. Robinson, "Reconstructing Early Islam: Truth and Consequences,” in Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. Herbert Berg (Leiden, 2003), 101-34, 4, See, ¢.24 William A. Grahara, “Transcendence in Islam,” in Ways of Transcendence: Insights from Major Religions and Modern Though, ed, Edwin Dowdy (Bedford Park, South Australia, 1982), 7-23; Gary Legenhausen, "Is God a Person?” RelS 22 (1986): 307-23; W. M. Waut, "Some Muslim Discussions of Anthropomorphism” yn idem, Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh, 1990), 87 5. Muhammad Ibrshim H. I. Sur, “The Concept of God in Muslim Tradition,” Islamic Quarterly 37 (1993), 127M; J, Windrow Sweetman defined the principle oF mukhalafa, to which “the majority (of Muslims) adhered," as “all that is said of God is said with a difference and it has become proverbial that nothing the mind can devise car convey anything about Allah (. ..] there can be no doubt that the rejection of the corporeality of God is essenta In idem, Islam and Christian Theology. 3 parts, 4 vols, (London, 1947), Lt: 34, 36 6. Herman Gunkel notes: “The notion of God's incosporeality ... was fist attained by the Greek philosophers” On the other hand, "Hebraic antiquity always imagined Yahweh as humanlike. The notion of the deity as a fully spicitual being, without body, would have been totally incomprehensible to the ancient Hebrew” ("Influence of Journal of the American Oriental Society ¥29.\ (2009) 1920 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.1 (2009) very notion of “immateriality,” as well argued by Robert Renehan, seems to have been the brain-child of Plato.’ The Semitic, and the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) models in general, embraced both “otherness” and corporeality/anthropomorphism: the gods were “transcen- dently anthropomorphic,” to use Ronald Hendet’s term.° That is to say, while the gods pos- sessed an anthtopoid or human-like form, this form was also in a fundamental way unlike that of humans in that it was transcendent, either in size, beauty, the substance of which it was composed, or all three. Ancient Israel stood in linguistic, cultural, and religious continuity with her neighbors in the Levant.!° Morton Smith suggested in a classic article that Israel participated in “the Babylonian Mythology Upon the Creation Story,” in Creation in the Old Testament, ed, Bernhard W. Anderson [Philaceiphia, 1984], 29). Daniel Boyarin, “The Eye inthe Torah: Ocular Desite in Midrasic Hermeneutic” Critical Inquiry U6 (1990): 553 argues that “only under Hellenic iafluence do Jewish cultures exhibit any anxiety about the corporeality or visibility of God; the biblical and Rabbinic religions were quite fee of such influences and anxieties” (emphasis original) 7. R. Renehan, “On the Greek Origins of the Concepts Inconnorealty and Immaterial,” in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 21 (1980) 105-38. 8, Ronald §, Hendel, “Aniconisim and Anthropomorphism in Ancient Israel” in The Image and the Book, Ionic Cults, Aniconism, and the Rise of Book Religion i tora and the Ancient Near Eat, e8. Karel van det Toorn, CBET, 21 (Leuven, 1997), 205-28. ‘9. On transcendent anthropomorphism in ancient Near Eastern and Classical tradition, see Hendel, “Aniconism and Aathzopomorphism; Jean-Pierre Vernant, “Dim Body, Dazzling Rody.” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part One, ed. Michel Feher, Ramona Naddaff, and Nadia Taz} (New York, (989), 19-47. On ANE/ Semitic anthropomorphism generally, see Esther J Hamori, “When Gods Were Men” The Ercbodied God in Bib: {ical and Near Eastern Liteaiure, BZAW, 384 (Berlin and New York, 2008); Tallay Ornan, The Triumph of the Symbol: Pictorial Representations of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Bibice! Inage Ban, OBG, 213 (Feboore, 2005); Mark. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Moncaheism: orael'sPeytheistc Background and the Ugaritc Tests (Oxford, 2001), 27-35; Georges Roun, Ancien Iraq, 3 ed. (London and New York, 1992), 85-98; Marjo C. A. Korpel, A Rif in the Clouds: Ugariic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine (Minster, 1980); but on Korpel’s forced attempt to impule metaphoric intentions to the Canaanites, see the eview by Marvin H, Pope in i 22 (1980): 497-502; James B. Pritchard, "The Gods and Thee Symbois,"inicem, The Ancient Near Eas ix Pictures Relating tothe Old Testament (Princeton, 1954), 160-85; Stephen Herbert Langéon, Semée Mythology (Boston, 1931), While theriomoephi representation ofthe divine is met within ll perinds of regis history in the ANE, it does not sem tobe the ease that belie in anthropomorphism succeeded! an eater elit intheriomorphism. Already in 1999, Johannes Hemple (“Die Grenzen des Anthropomorphismus Jahwes im Alten Testament," ZAW $7 (1939) 73) was able to dismiss this “naiven entwickiongsgeschichtlichen Aufassung da elwaregehmiBig der Ther ‘morphisms dem Aathzopomerphismus habe vorausgehen mussen” In fact, he pointed out "keine Aufeinanderfolge des Theri- und Anthropomorphismus klar nachweisbar it.” Henei Frankfort hes pointed out that such a theory of Siufenfolge “ignores the fact that she caries divine states which have been preserved represent the god Min in fuman shape, Conversely, we find to the very end of Egypt's independence that gods were believed to be manifest im animals” See Ancient Egyprian Religion: An Interpretation (New York, 1948, 1961), 1. For a balanced state- sent of the situation in Predynastc Egypt, see Gods and Men in Egypl: 3,000 BCE vo 495 CE. ed. Frangoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche (Ithaca, 2004), 16-22; David P. Silverman, “Divinity and Deities in Ancient Egypt,” in Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice, ed. Byron E, Shafer (haca, 1991), 7-87, 3. 9-20. See also Oran, Triumph; W. . Lambert, “Sumerian Gods: Combining the Evidence of Texts and A," in Sumerian Gods and Their Representations, ed. .L. Finkel and MJ. Getier, CM, 7 (Groningen, 1997), 110: idem, “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods: Superstition, Philosophy, Theology.” RHR 20 (1990): 115-30, 10, Mark S, Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh ond the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich,, 2002), 19-31; Michae! David Coogen, "Canaanite Origins and Lineage: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient Israel” in Ancien! Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor af Faank Moore Cross, ed, Patrick D. Mile, J Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride (Philadelphia, 1987), 115-24; John Day, “Ugarit and the Bible: Do They Presuppose the Same Canaanite Mythology and Religion?" in Ugarit and the Bible: Proceedings ofthe International Symposium on Ugarit and the Bile, Manchester, September, 1992, ed, George J. Brooke, Adin H. W. Custis, and John F Healey (Minster, 1994), 35-52,WiLLiams; Transcendent Anthropomorphism 21 ‘common theology of the ancient Near East.” ! However ill-defined this concept of an ANE “common theology.” it is clear that the god(s) of Israel and the gods of the ANE actually differed less than has been supposed." Like the gods of the ANE, the god(s) of Israel and biblical tradition were transcendently anthropomorphic. 2 This ancient Near Eastera/Semitic transcendent anthropomorphism stands in stark contrast to normative Islamic notions of divine transcendence. But the latter, as Fazlur Rahman has pointed out, “does not emerge from the Quran, but from later theological development in Islam.” '# This “later theological development” included the appropriation of Hellenistic concepts and terms in order to in- terpret the Quran and the Sunna, particularly the statements about God. * Early Islam was, among other things, clearly a formulation of ancient Near Eastern mythological tradition. > LU. “The Common Theology of the Ancient Near Bast.” JBL 71 (1952): 135-47 12. Bernhard Lang, The Hebrew God: Portat ofan Ancient Deity (New Haven, 2002), Nicholas Wyatt, “De agrees of Divinity: Some Mythical ang Ritual Aspects of West Semitic Kingship.” UF 3% (1999); 853-87; Edward 1. Greenstein, “The God of Israel and the Gods of Canaan: How Differem Were They?” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerasatem, July 29-August 5, £997, Division A (Jerusalem, 1999), 47— 58,1. . M, Roberts, “Divine Freedom and Cultic Manipulation in Israel and Mesopotamia," in idem, The Bible and the Anctent Near Bast: Collected Essays (Winona Lake, td, 2002), 72-85; B. Theodore Mullen, Jr, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Lierature, Harvard Semitic Monographs, 24 (Chico, Cal. 1980). On biblical monotheism and divine plurality, see Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of “Monotheism” (Tubingen, 2003); Smith, Early History of God; idem, Origins of Biblical Monotheism; Joha Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, ISOT Supplement Series, 265 (Sheffield, 2000); Samuel Shaviv, "The Polyteistc Origins athe Biblical Flood Narrative,” V7 54 (2004): 527-48; David Noel Freedman, “Who is Like Thee Among the Gods?” The Religion of Ancient Israel,” in Ancient Israelite Religion, 315-35. 13. On biblical anthropomorphism and an anthropomorphic deity, see further Frank Michaei, Dew a "image de home, Ende de a notion anthropomorphique de Dien dans UAncien Testamens Neuchitel-aris, 1980); James Barr, “Theophany and Antheopomorphism in the OT," V7Sup 7 (1960): 31-38; Edmon LaB. Cherboanier, “The Logie of Biblical Anthcopomorphism,” HTR 55 (1962): 187-206; Binyamin Uffeaheimer, “Biblical Theology and Monotheistie Myth” Jnmanuel 14 (Spring 1982): 7-25 (= “Myth and Reafty in Ancient Israel," in The Ovigins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. 8. N. Eisenstadt (Albany, 1986], 135-68); Jacob Neusher, “Conversation in Nauvoo about the Corporeality of God.” BYU Studies 36 (1996-1997): 7-30; Stephen Moore, “Gigantic Gost Yahweh's Body.’ JSOT 70 (1996); 87-115; Karet van der Toor, “God (1." in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toor, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Hors, 2nd ed. (Leben, 1999; hereafter DDD), 261-65; J. Andrew Deatman, “Theophany, Anthropomorphisin, and the Imago Dei: Some Observations about the Incarnation in the Light of the Old Testament.” in The dncamation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation ofthe Son of God, e4. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O'Collins (New York, 2002), 31-46; James L. Kugel, The God of Old Inside the Last World of the Bible (New York, 2003), 5-107; Ulieh Mauser, "God in Human Form" Ex Audit 16 (2000) 81-100; idem, “Image of God and Inceration,” fat 24 (1970): 336-56; David J. A. Chines, “Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology.” Theology 83 (1980): 323-30; Hamar: ‘When Gods Were Men.” 14. Fazlue Rubvan, “The QuPnic Coneept of God, the Universe and Man,” Islamic Suutes 6 (1967) 2. 15. Moris S. Seal, Muslim Theology: A Study af Origins with Reference to the Church Fathers (London, 1964); R. M. Frank, “The Neopatonism of Gh Yoa Safwan,” Maséon 78 (1965): 395424; idem, "The Divine Attributes According to the Teachings of Abii |-Hudhayl al-‘Allaf;” Muséon 82 (1969): 451-506; Binyamin Abra- hamov, “ Writing and Authority in Islam's Scripture (Princeton, 2001), 198: “What is often aver. looked in discussing the relationship of Islam to earier religious traditions is that the QuPan in effect chooses co define itself in their terms.” 19, FE, Petets, The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, tstam (Princeton, 2904), | See also Sachiko ‘Murata and William C. Chittick, The Vision of Islam (New York, 1994), xvii: “The Koran, the Hadith, and the ‘whole Islamic tadition maintain that the God of the Jews, che Christians, and the Muslims is a single God.” This insistence is, of course, Queanie: see Q 29:46, 42:14, 2:130-36. 20, Encyclopaedia af islam, New Edition (Leiden, 1954-2004): hereafter EP), 10: Q 343 s.x. “Tash wa- ‘Tanzih” (JoseF van Ess). See also EF, 1: 412a., “Allah” (L. Gard); “the Mu‘tezlite schools. wished to justify ialectically the Muslim notion of God, in face of the Greck-inspied ‘God of the philosophers” On the Mustazila and Hellenism, see further Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh, 1973), 249, On Hellenisto and Islam generally, see FE. Peters, “Hellenism and the Near East," 84 (Winter 1983): 33-39; idem, Allah's Commonwealth: A History of Islam in the Near East 600-1200 A.D. (New York, 1973): Wem, “The Origins of Islamic Platonism: The School Tradition," in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz. Morewedge (Albany, 1979). 14-45; Gustave E, vos Grunebaum, “Islam and Hellenism,” in idem, Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and Cultural Perspectives, ed, Dunning S. Wilson (London, 1976), 21-27; Averil Cameron, “The Enstern Provinces in the 7th Century A.D: Hellenism and the Emergence of Islam,” in Hellenismos: Quelques jalons pour ane histoire de Videntté grecque. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 25-27 octobre 1989, ed. 8, Said (Leiden, 1991), 287-313; W. Montgomery Watt, slamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey, 2nd e8. (Edinburgh, 1985), 37-495,WiLLiams: Transcendent Anthropomorphism 23 tury,?! Sunnism held out for considerably longer. Sherman Jackson has pointed out that in early Muslim debates over the divine attributes Rationalist groups such as the Mu‘tazila privileged Aristotelian-Neoplatonic logic and motifs while Traditionalists rejected them, at least ostensibly. It thus should come as no surprise that it is in traditionalist Sunnism that this ancient Semitic transcendent anthropomorphism survived well into the sixth/twelfth cen- tury.?? We will first document this ANE/biblical tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism. and then explore its resonances in Islamic tradition. 2. THE BODY DIVINE IN ANCIENT TRADITION In ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean tradition the divine body was thought to be so sublime it bordered on the non-body.”# One of the distinguishing characteristics of this body divine is its dangerously luminous and fiery nature. ‘The body of the gods shines with such an intense brilliance that no human eye can bear it. Its splendor is blinding . .. if the god chooses to be seen in all his majesty, oaly the tiniest bit of the splendor of the god’s size, stature, beauty and radiance can be allowed to filter through, and this already enough to strike the spectator with thambos, stupefaction, to plunge him into a state of reverential fear... 3 his “awe-inspiring luminosity” of the deities is in Akkadian termed pulhu melammi (Sum. né.me.lém), an hendiadys meaning “fear, glory. This, as A. Leo Oppenheim told us in a seminal article, denotes a dazzling aureole or nimbus surrounding a divinity.2” The pullw or puluhtw is often described as a supernatural garment of fire and flame.?6 The ancient G..W. Bowersock, “Hellenism and Islam," in idem, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, Jerome Lecwres 18 (Ann Arbor, 1990), 71-82; W. F Albright, “Islam ard the Religions of the Ancient Orient,” JAOS 60 (1940): 283-301 21, On Mu‘tazilism and the Shi‘a, see Willerd Madelung, “Imamism and Mu'tazilite Theology.” in idem, Re: ligious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam (London, 1985), VII, 22. Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abii Hamid al-Ghacall's Faysal L-Tafriga (Oxford, 2002), 16-29. On the early orthodox rejection af Greek scientific works thought to be “contami nated” by theotogical error, see Ignaz Golizier, “The Altitude of Ortkadox Islam Towaed the An ” in Studies on Islam, ed. Mest L. Swartz (New York, 1981), 185-215, 23. See Wesley Williams, “Tajalli wa-Ru’ya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Taeaphany and Visio Dei in the Hebzew Bible, the Quen and Early Sunni Islam” (Ph.D. iss., Univ, of Michigan, 2008), On anthropomorphisms Within the Sunna, see also Daniel Gimaret, Dieu d l'image de U-homme: Les anthropomorphismes de la sunna et leur interprétation par les théologiens (Paris, 1997) 24. On the Semitic Near East context of Homeric and Hesiodiec myth, see Carolina Lépe2-Ruiz, “Some Oriental Elements in Hesiod and the Orphie Cosmogonies”" Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 6 (2006): 71104; Walter Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 2004): ‘dem, The Oriemalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cam bridge, Mass., 1992); Robert Mondi, "Greek Mythie Thought in the Light af the Near East.” in Approaches 10 Greek My1h,e8. Lowell Edmunds (Baltimore, 1990), 141-98. 25, Vemant, "Dirt Body,” 37. See also Mahabharata 3.40.49: “Mahadeva (Siva) stacked the afficted [Arjuna] with martial splendor an brilliance, stunning him out of his wits.” Trans. James W, Laine, Visions of God: Narrative af Theophany in the Mahabharata (Vienna, 1989), 71; M. Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Konige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s (Leipzig, \916),2, 8-10; 84-88: “the radiance of A'Sur and IStar overwhelmed him (Lali, king of Sidon) and he went crazy” 26. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1975~; hereafter TDOT), 7: 29-30 s.v, kabdd [V. Divine Glory in the Ancient Near East] (M. Weingeld); E. Cassin, La Splendeur divine (Paris, 1968); 4. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago. 1964), 98: idem, “Akkadian pul(wateu and ‘melammu. JAS 63 (1943): 31-34 27. “Akkadian pul(w)h()u and melamm,” 3 28, Ibid24 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.1 (2009) and ubiquitous garment-as-body metaphor is certainly operative here,”® as pulhu/pulubtu is equated with the Sumerian nf, “body, corporeal shape." The melammé is associated with some sort of sparkling headwear, like a crown or even a luminous mask.?" According to E. Cassin, the melammi is better understood as the expression of a vital force in the form of pulsating light. Thus, pul me‘ammd is the terrible epiphanic glory of the gods.* Its radiance overwhelmed enemies on the battlefield:* “The awe-inspiring splendor of Assur, my Lord, overwhelmed the men”; “the effulgence of his surpassing glory consumed them.”3 Even deities seek shelter from the radiant splendor of the greater gods: “O my Lady (Inanna), the Anunna, the great gods,/Fluttering like bats fly off before you to clefts [in the rock],/ ‘They who dare not walk (?] in your terrible glance, who dare not proceed before your ter- rible countenance.”26 Theirs is “{a] body invisible in its radiation, a face that cannot be seen directly.”37 To catch a glimpse of a deity could mean death for a human onlooker, because the mortal constitu- tion is unable to bear it. In order to be seen when such is desired or necessary, of in order to intervene directly in human affairs, the gods must conceal their divine forms. Conceal- ment is achieved either by veiling—enveloping the divine body in a mist, fog or cloud to become invisible””—or by some sort of divine metamorphosis. This latter is usually done by reducing the divine size and splendor and taking on the appearance of a mortal human. 29. On the garment-as-body metaphor, see Jung Hoon Kim, The Signjicance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London, 2004), 44-52; Geo Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God: Studies in Iranian and Manichaean Religion (Uppsala, 1945), 50-55, 76-83; 1. M. Rist, “A Common Metaphor,” in idem, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge, 1967), 188-98. 30, Oppenheim, “Akkadian pul(u)h(e)u and melamma," 33-34; Nahum M. Waldman, “A Note on Ezekiel 1:18." JBL 10% (1984) 615, 31, Oppenheim, "Akkadian pullw)h(ou and melammus” 31-3 32. Splendeur divine, 794. 33. Oppenheim, “Akkadian pul(u)i(}u and meiammu,” 32: “Thus the atte of the gods in their epiphany was composed of a pull (or pulubtu) as garment and of a melammu as head-gear.” 34. CAD sv. melammu; George E, Merdenkall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Bakimore, 1973), 32-56. 35. Assyrian sources quoted from Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, 48 36, Quoted from Weinfeld (TOOT, 7: 29-30 s.v, kabod [V. Divine Glory in the Ancient Near East) who notes: “The terrible countenance is that of the goddess; it beams forth radiance and splendor like that of the god Nanna, whose face is full of radiance (sag-ki-bi me-Lim-gal-gim) 37. Vernant, “Dim Body.” 37. 38. Cf. the well-known story of Semele who wanted to see her lover Zeus in his glory, but when he appeared jn his lightning-like splendor, she could not beay it and was stcuck dead by a thunderbolt: A pollodorus, Libr. 3, 4, 35 Ovid, Met 3, 253-315, See Robin Lane Fox, "Seeing the Gods,” in idem, Pagans and Christians (New York, 1987), 106-10; Gerard Mussies, “Identification and Self-Ientification of Gods in Classical and Hellenistic Greece,” in Knowledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World, ed. R. van den Brock, T. Baarda, and J. Mansfeld (Leiden, 1988), 3. On the lethality of seeing the Egyptian gods, see Dmitri Meeks, “Divine Bodies," in Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods, ed. Dimitri Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks (Ithaca, 1996), 58 39, Vernant, “Dim Body.” 37: “The paradox of the divine body is that in order to appear to mortals, it mus cease to be itself; it must clothe itself in a mist, disguise itself as a mortal, take the form of a bird, asta, a rainbow. 40. Vernant, “Dim Body,” 35; Renehan, "On the Greek Origins,” 108-9; Arthur Stanley Pease, “Some Aspects of Invisibility” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 53 (1942): 8-1 41. On the nature of this metamorphosis, see Vernant, “Dim Body, [Nature of Divine Transformation in Homer,” Hermes [02 (1974): 129-36. 42, Vernant, "Dim Body,” 36; Mussies, “Identification and Self-[dentificaion”; Clay, “Demas and Aude”; H. Versnel, "What Did Ancient Man See When He Saw a God? Some Reftections on Greco-Roman Epiphany,” in Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions, o8. Dirk van der Plas (Leiden, 1987), 45-46; H. J, Rose, “Divine Dispuises,” ATR 49 (1956): 62-72. 32; Jenny Clay, “Demas and Aude: TheWittiams: Transcendent Anthropomorphism 25 The God of ancient Israel, too, was transcendently anthropomorphic, and His transcen- dence was morphic as well Yahweh has a body, clearly anthropomorphic, but too holy for human eyes... Yahweh’s body ‘was believed to be incommensurate with mundane human existence: it has a different degree of being than human bodies... It is a transcendent anthropomorphismn not in form but in its effect, approachable only by the most holy, and absent in material form in the cult ... The body of God was defined in Israelite culture as both like and unlike that of humans. 4 No doubt the signature feature of this Israelite transcendent anthropomorphism is a bril liant luminosity that is the morphic manifestation of God’s signature holiness.*5 It is for this reason, we are given to understand, that humans cannot see God. Not because God is invis- ible, but because humans are unholy, and unholy beings are in great danger in the immediate presence of God’s consuming, morphic holiness.‘ This divine body is also characterized by a divine substance (réh) antithetical to mortal flesh (basar).7 In the biblical canon this luminous divine body has been called in some sources his S122, kabdd.*® In the priestly material (P and Ezekiel) in particular, m7 7133 (kabdd 43. Van der Toorn, “God (1),” 361f: “The Isracite concept of God shares many traits with the beliefs of neighbors. The most fundamental correspondence concerns the anthropomorphic nature ascribed to God. God's anthropomorphism is external. as well as internal (also called anthropopathism) ... God's qualities are human qualities, yet purified from imperfection and amplified to superhuman dimensions, Sincerity and reliability are human virtues—even if only God is wholly sincere and relizble. Strength, 00, is not the exclusive prerogative of God; he is merely incomparably stronger than humans or animals. In view of the passages dwelling upon the con. trast between God and man, the thesis of God’s anthropomorphism should be modified in this sense that God is ‘more than human. Though man has been created in the image of God ... there is a huge difference of degree—yet not of nature. In this respect the view found in the Hebrew Bible does net radically differ from the conviction con- cerning the similarity beween gods and humans in the Babylonian Atrahasis myth. God has human form, but not human size. In visions, God proves to be so high and exalted that the earthly temple can barely contain the fring of his mantel (Isa. 6:1). Gates have to lift their heads when God enters Jerusalem (Ps. 24:79). In addition to his pphysical size (which transcends even the highest heaven, | Kgs 8:27), God surpasses humans in such aspects as ‘wisdom (Tob 32:13) and power (Ezek 28:9). His divine superioriy also has a moral side: God excels in righteous- ress (Job 4:17; 9:2; 25:4), faithfulness e.g., Deut 32:4), and other moral qualities.” 43, Hendel, “Aniconism and Anthropomorphism,” 223, 225. 45, Smith, Origins of Biblical Monotheism, 93-97. 46, See Williams, “Tajall war-Ru’ya,” 45-54; George W. Savran, Encountering the Divine= Theophany in Bib- tical Narrative, SSOT Supplement Series, 420 (London, 2005), chap. 6, Christoph Dohmen, «Nicht sieht mich d Mensch wind lebt (Ex 33, 20): Aspekte der Gottesschau im Alten Testament,” Jahrbuch fir biblische Theologie 13 (1998): 36. 47, Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli, Body Symbolism in the Bible (Collegeville, Minn., 2001), 32: "if there was anything with which the divinities of the Ancient Near East, including YHwi, had nothing at all to do and from which they were sharply distinguished, it was human “flesh,” the very essence of vulnerability and mortality,” Also, p. 206: "The substance of the gods is of precious metals rather than “flesh,” and so that word basar (flesh) is the only one among the many Hebrew words for body and its parts that is never applied to God, and is frequently contrasted to Yaw a5 the very symbal ofall that is mortal.” See also H. Wheeler Robinson, “Hebrew Psychology,” in The People and the Book: Essays on the Old Testament, ed. Acthur S. Peake (Oxford, 1925), 367: "Yahweh's body is shaped like man’s, but its substance is not fesh but ‘spirit’ and spirit seen as a blaze of light, It is teue that the imagcless worship of prophetic eligion sepudiates the making of any likeness of God, and no form was seen in the stofm-theophany of Sinai (Deut. iv. 12), But itis one thing to shrink from the vision af the form, and another to deny that a form exists, though a form wrought out of rizack-substance.” On the melallic bodies of the deities, s further Lise Manniche, “The Body Colours of Gods and Man in Inlaid Jewellery and Related Objects from the Tomb of Tutankhamun,” AeOr 43 (1982): 5-12; Meeks, “Divine Bodies,” 57. 48. For a tradition-history of the kabéd in the Hebrew Bible (hereafter HB), see especially Carey C. Newman, Paul's Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (Leiden, 1992), See also TDOT, 7: 23-38 sv. kabid (Weinfeld); Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (hereafter TDNT; Grand Rapids, Mict., 1964-), 2: 238-47 s.v, 8a C. kabod in the OT (G. von Rad).26 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.1 (2009) yhwh) denotes Yahweh's radiant human form, “with the strongest possible emphasis on God as light.”*? The fire that emanates from 737? 7139 is dangerous: it consumes what- ever it touches. Like the pulfu melammd of the Mesopotamian deities, the flames of the ‘AIP Tad can be unleastied on Yabweh’s enemies.5! To look upon AYP 72 was deadly: the brightness was too much for the mortal eye.5? To abide with Israel, but not consume her, Yahweh, like the Homeric and Hesiodic deities, cloaks his fiery 7123 with a black cloud (wn j3¥/>51y).53 When Yahweh wants to visit wrath on an enemy or punish one of his own, he thrusts aside the cloud, exposing them to his undimmed radiance.># The God of Israel, like the deities of the ANE generally, was a divine anthropos whose morphic transcendence imperils man.®5 The best example of transcendent anthropomorphism 49. TONT, 2: 241 s.v. Boba: C. kabOd in the OT (G. von Rad). On the luminous, anthropomorphic kabdd of P and priestly tradition, see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972), 191-209, esp. 200-206, TDOT, 7: 31-33 s.. kabod (Weinfeld) Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (Lund, 1982), chaps. 3 and 4; J. E. Fossum, “Glory.” DDD, 348-52: ‘A. Joseph Everson, “Ezekiel and the Glory of the Lord Tradition.” in Sin, Salvation, and the Spirit, ed. Daniel Durken (Collegeville, Minn., 1979), 163-76; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, The Anchor Bible Garden City, NL, 1983), 52f. idem, “Ezekiel’s Vision: Literary and Iconographic Aspects” in History, Historiography and In- terpretation, ed. H. Tadmor and M, Weinfeld (Jerusalem, 1983), 159-68. ‘A number of scholars have sought to distance Ezekiel's anthropomorphic kbdd from P's “abstract” kahéd (e8.. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School {Minneapolis, 1995], 128-37) Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1961), 2: 32 understood P's kabdd to be “a formless brightness of light” and Jutian Morgenstern, “Biblical Theophanies,” ZA 25 (1911): 154 assumed thatthe ebhod Jahwe of P, other than being “something like fre” enveloped in the “cloud of Jahwe.” has “no particular shape" But these claims are based on the false assumption that Ps theology is anti-anthropomorphist, an assump- tion that is tobe rejected. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 200. is surely correct: “Corporeal representation of the Deity in the Priestly document found its clearest expression in the conception ofthe “Glory of God’, against which the book of Deuteronomy promulgated its doctrine of "God's Name’. The underlying imagery of the concept of God's Glory, the kabod of Yahweh,” embedded in Priestly tradition is drawn from corporeal and not abstract terms”; Smith, Early History of God, 144 (= idem, Origins, 90): “The use of duit, “likeness,” and selem, "image." in Genesis 1:26-28 presupposes the vision of the anthropomorphic god ... Genesis | achieves the opposite effect of Ezekiel 1:26, While Ezekiel 1:26 conveys the propher’s vision of Yatweh inthe likeness of the human person, Genesis | presents a vision ofthe human person in the likeness of the divine,” See also Elliot R Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, 1998), 23 n. 55, 50. Eg, Ley 1O:tF, 51. CF, PS97-36: “fire goes before Him, and burns up his adversaries round about.” On the danger posed by the kabéd of Yahweh to Yahweh's enemies and transgressing Israelites, see TOOT, 7:31 s.. kabdd (Weinfeld); Julian Morgenstern, The Fire Upon the Altar (Chicago, 1963), idem, “Biblical Theophanies,” 144-48. 52, Exod 33:17-23, See also Morgenstern, Fire Upon the Altar, 16. 53, TDOT, 7:31 s.v. kabod (Weinfeld); Gerhard von Rad, “Deuteronomy’s ‘Name’ Theology and the Priestly Document’s *Kabod’ Theology.” in idem, Studies in Dewteronomy (Chicago, 1953), 39. On the enveloping black cloud, see TDOT I: 371 sx. trapel (Mulder), 5: 245-58 s.v. haa (Mitchel et al), 11: 256, sv. “anda (Freedman and Willoughby); Chaim Cohen, "The Basic Meaning of the ‘Term ‘Arapel ‘Darkness’ Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 7-12: J. A. Loader, “The Concept of Darkness in the Hebrew Root ‘RBURP.” in De Fructu Oris Sui. Essays in Honour of Adrianus Van Selms, ed. 1. H. Eybers et al. (Leiden, 1971), 98-107; Forrest Charles Comelius, “The Theological Significance of Darkness in the Old Testament” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Semi- nary, 1990), 12-51, 103-10; Leopold Sabourin, “The Biblical Cloud: Terminology and Traditions.” B7B 4 (1974) 290-312, 54. Eg, Num 16:19, 20:16. See TOOT, 7: 31 s.x. kabod (Weinfeld); Morgenstem, Fire Upon the Altar, U1; idem, “Biblical Theophanies,” 144~48 55. Gethard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1962-65), 1: 14546: “Actually, Israel eon- ceived even Jahweh himself as having human form .. . But the way of putting it which we use runs in precisely the “wrong direction aceording to Old Testament ideas, for, according to the ideas of Jahwism, it cannot be said that Israel regarded God anthropomorphically, but the reverse, that she considered man as theomorphic It has beenWILLiAms: Transcendent Anthropomorphism 2 in the Bible is the inaugural vision of Ezekiel (Ezek, ch. 1). The priest-prophet sees God seated on a glorious throne: and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form. Upward from what appeared like the loins I saw something like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around; and downward from what looked like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was splendor all around. Like a bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh (1:26-27, the New Oxford Annotated Bible translation). After this “emotional” description loaded with qualifiers, indicating that the prophet was searching for the right words to describe the undescribable,* Ezekiel falls to the ground in a faint.5? Yahweh is here seen as an enthroned, transcendent anthropos (Ezek 1:1~28).5* Ezekiel's vision of the deity is at once the most transcendent and the most anthropomorphic of the entire Bible. As Rimmon Kasher observes, “there is perhaps no other biblical prophet whose God is so corporeal as Ezekiel. Anthropomorphism did not, of course, originate with Ezekiel; the Bible offers many anthropomorphic descriptions of the Deity... . The prophet Ezekiel belongs to this general biblical tradition and in fact amplifies it.”5* On the other hand Daniel I. Block notes that Ezekiel’s vision of God is the height of divine transcen- dence as well: ‘Two features of the image are especially significant, First, Ezekiel recognizes the form to be that of a human being (‘adam). Second, this was no ordinary man, What appeared to be his upper body radiated with the brilliance of amber (hasmal); his lower body seemed enveloped in ‘dazzling fiery glow as well. .. . With respect to force and awesomeness, no theophany in the entire OT matches Ezekiel’s inaugural vision... the vision proclaims the transcendent glory of God. Everything about the apparition proclaims his glory: the dazzling brilliance of the entire rightly said that Ezek, 1:26 is the theological prelude to the locus classicus for the tmago doctrine in Gen, 1:26 nevertheless at the same time an infinite difference and distance is tacitly recognized —frst in the matter of mere stature, for Israel conceived Jahweh as gigantic (Mic. | 3; Is. LXIIL 1ff; Ps. XXIV. 9), but also different and dis tant as regards quality, for the kabod which man has cannot, of course, be remotely compared with the fiery, in- tensely radiant light which is the nature of Jahweh ... Jahweh himself was conceived as man." On the epithet ‘man and “mighty man” used of God, see Gen 18: 32:24~30; Ex 15:3; 33:11; Isa 54:4; Hos 2:18; Ps 24:7-10; 78: 65; Isa 42:13; Zeph 1:14, 3:17; Jer 20:11; LQM, xil, 9-10; LM, xix, 2; A. Martnorstein, The Old Rabbinic Doc- trine of God, 2 vols, (New York, 1968), 7A, 65H; J. Massingberg Ford, “The Epithet *Man’ for God,” The Irish ‘Theological Quarterly 38 (1971): 1: 72-76; TDOT U: 230-33 s.v. 16,788 (Bratsiotis and Chernick), 2: 373-77 s.v gabhar V. gibbor (Kosmala). 56. As John F. Kutsko (“Ezekiel’s Anthropology and Its Ethical Implications,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theo: logical and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret S. Odell ané John T. Strong [Attanta, 2000), 132) notes: “Ia 1-26-28, Ezekiel struggles to find appropriate language that indicates both human likeness and divine incompars: bility” See also Daniel 1. Black, “Text and Emotion: A Study in the ‘Corruptions’ in Ezekiel’s Inaugural Vision (Erekiel |-4-28)," CB 50 (1988): 429-30; Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 121; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 52f.. idem, “Ezekiel's Vision;” 199-68; Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London, 1982), 9. 51. Savran, Encountering the Divine, 19: “In the case of Ezekiel one sees the initiate’s fascination in the elab- ‘orately detailed description of the chariot. Yet when he actually sees the Figure on the heavenly chariot he faints, not ‘out of rapture, but out oF fright inthe face of the nurainous.... While elsewhere the phrase (‘I fell on my face’ v. 28) has connotations of prayer, ar dismay, here it indicates physical b Is0 ibid., 116-19; Block, “Text and Emotion,” 430-31, 434, 58. Von Rad, Old Testament Theology, |: 146: “The light-phenomenoa of the ‘glory of God! [in Ezekiel 1 clearly displays human contours... nevertheless at the same time an infinite difference and distance is tacitly recognised.” 59. “Aothropomorphism, Holiness and Cult: A N down.” + Look at Ezekiel 40-48," ZAW 110 (1998): 192,28 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.1 (2009) image, the gleam of the creatures” bronze legs, the jewels on the wheels, the crystalline platform, the lapis lazuli throne, the amberous and fiery form of the “man.” Everything about the vision cries “Glory!” (ef. Ps. 29:9), even the prophet’s frustrating search for adequate forms of ‘expression, .. . Everything about the vision is in the supertative mode, God is alone above the platform, removed from all creatures, and stunning in his radiance.®° ‘This biblical transcendent anthropomorphism had a long afterlife in post-biblical Jewish (especially apocalyptic and mystical/esoteric"), Christian,°? and, it will be argued, Islamic traditions, 3. THE PROBLEM OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN ISLAMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY ‘And argue not with the People of the Book except by what is best, save such of them as act unjustly. But say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and to you, and our God and your God is One (ilahund wa-ildhukum wahid), and to Him we submit, (Surat al- “Ankabut (29}:46) Itis our claim that Islam, as a formulation of the ANE/Semitic tradition, once possessed @ similar tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism. Now, “transcendent anthropomorphism” presupposes, of course, anthropomorphism and most Muslim scholars assure us that Islam. does not countenance this. Nevertheless, the subject was hotly debated in early Islam. James Pavlin has argued that the “major theological controversies in Islam .. . revolve(d) around the nature of God and His Attributes”® and, according to Richard C, Martin, “the problems of anthropomorphism and coxporealism lay at the heart of the disputes about God in Islamic 60. The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1997), 104, 106, 108. G61. See further Gilles Quispel, “Ezekiel 1:26 in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosis,” VC 34 (1980): 1-13; Martin Samuel Cohen, The Shi‘ur Qomah: Liturey and Theurgy in Pre-Kobbalistic Jewish Mysticiom (Lanham, Md., 1983), 52M; Pieter W, van der Horst, “The Measurement of the Body: A Chapter in the Hisiory of Ancient Jewish Mysticism,” in Effgies Dei, ed, van der Plas, 56-68; Alon Goshen Gotstein, “The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature.” HTR 87 (1994): 171-95 (but ef. the rejoinder by David H. Aaron, “Shedding Light on God's Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of @ Luminous Adam," HTR 90 [1997}: 299-314); Rachel Eliot, “The Concept of God in Hekhalot Literature,” in Binah: Studies in Jewish Though, ed. Joseph Dan (New York, 1989), 97-120; Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines, Andtei A. Orlov, “Ex 33 on God's Face: A Lesson from the Enochie Tradition,” SBL Seminar Papers 39 (2000): 130-47; gem, "Without Measure and With- out Anslogy’: The Tradition ofthe Divine Body in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch" JJS 56 (2005): 224~48,C. R. A, Moreay- Jones, “The Body of Glory: The Shi'ur Goma in Judaism, Gnosticism and the Epistle to the Ephesians.” in The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, ed, Christopher Rowland and C. R. A. Morray~ Jones (Leiden, 2008) 62. Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (Tubingen, 1981), 137-267; Alan F Segal, “Paul and the Be- ginning of Jewish Mysticism” in Deoth, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, ed. John J, Cllins and Michael Fishbane (New York, 1995), 95-122; idem, Paul the Convert. The Apostolate and Apostasy (New Haven, 1990), 35-71; Gedaliahu G, Swoumse, “Form(s} of God: Some Notes on Matron and Christ,” ATR 76 (1983): 269-88; Jarl F Fossum, “Jewish-Chestian Christology and Jewish Mysticism,” VC 37 (1983): 260-87; idem, “The Image ‘of the Invisible God: Colossians 1. 15-18 inthe Light of Jewish Mysticism aed Gnosticism,” in idem, Tae Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology, NTOA, 30 (Fribourg and Gottingen, 1995), 13-39; Markus Bockmuehl, “The Form of God! (Phil. 2:6): Variation on a Theme of Jewish Mysticism" J75 48 (1997): 1-23: Alexander Colitzin, “*The Demons Suggest an Ilusion of God's Glory in a Form: Controversy Over the Divine Body and Vision af Glory in Some Late Fourth, Early Fifth Century Monastic Literature,” Studia Monastica 44 (2002): 13-42; idem, “The Vision of God and the Form of Glory: More Refiec- tions on the Antropomorphite Controversy of aD 399," in Abbar The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: Fest sohrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware} of Dioklia, ed. John Behr, Andrew Louth, and Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood, NY, 2003), 273-97. 63, “Sunbi Kaldon and Theological Controversies” in History of Islamic Philosophy, ed, Seyyed Hossein Nast and Oliver Leaman, 2 vols. London, 1996), 1: 105,WILLIAMS: Transcendent Anthropomorphism 29 theology."* The theological problem has always in some way been related to the scriptural representations of God. As Duncan Black MacDonald observed: “The {Quranic} descrip- tions are at first sight a strange combination of anthropomorphics and metaphysics. . With only a little ingenuity in one-sidedness an absolutely anthropomorphic deity could be put together, or a practically pantheistic, or a coldly and aloofly rationalistic (deity).”6 The Sunna, as Daniel Gimaret noted, “ne se borne pas a reprendre ceux, encore relativement vagues et abstraits, du Coran, elle les amplifie, les précise, les concretize.”6” A Quranic hand becomes a palm with five fingers and fingertips in the Suna, etc.* How is this imagery to be understood? Literally? Metaphorically? This question at times occupied center stage in the theological debate. The teal issue, of course, was the authority of scripture. Studies treating Islamic anthropomorphism and the debates surrounding it are relatively few.” Nor do Western scholars agree on the place of anthropomorphism in the history of Islamic thought, Views range, for example, from the extremes of Helmut Ritter, who claimed that for Muslim orthodoxy the idea of an anthropomorphic deity was nothing less than “ein 64, The Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Leiden, 2001-6; hereafter EQ), {: 106 s.v- Antheopomorphism (Martin) See also Jackson, On the Boundaries, 20. 65. Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3, Jahrhundert Hidschra, 6 vols. (Berlin, 1991-97; hereafter TG), 4: 374. But ef. ibid,, 4 416. 66. Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (Leiden, 1913-1938; hereafter E/!), |: 302, 306a s.x. Allah (Macdonald. 67. Gimaret, Diew a l'image de Uhomme, 14, 68. For references and discussion, see ibid., 189-227. 69. £9, |: 106 s.v. Anthropomorphism (Martin); van Ess, 76, 4: 376m 70. EQ, 1: 106 s.v, Ansthropomorphism (Martin), 2: 316-31 s.v, God and His Auributes (Bowering); Gimaret, Diew é Vimage de U homme; van Ess, TG, particularly vol. 4; idem, “Tashbih wa-Tanzih,” in EP, 10: 34144; idem, ‘The Youthful Ged: Anthropomorphism in Early Islam,” The University Lecture in Religion at Arizona State Uni- versity, March 3, 1988 (Tempe, 1988); Claude Gilliot, “Muga, grand exégere, traditionniste et théologien maudit’ Journal asiatique 279 (1991): 39-92; El!, 4: 685. s.v. Tashi (Strothmann); Michel Allard, Le Probleme des ‘atiributs divins dans la doctrine dal-ASari et de ses premiers grands disciples (Beirut, 1965); Helmut Ritter, Das Meer der Seele (Leiden, 1955), 445-503 (= Helmut Ritter, The Ocean of the Soul: Men, the World and God in the Stories of Farid al-Din ‘arjar, tt. and ed. John O'Kane and Bernd Radtke (Leiden, 2003], 448-519); Keos Waglendonk, “Images in Islam: Discussion of a Paradox.” in Effigies Dei, 112-29; J. M. S. Baljon, “Queanic Anthropomorphisis,” Islamic Studies 27 (1988): 119-27; W, Montgomery Watt, "Some Muslim Discussions of Anthropomorphism” and “Created in His Image: A Study in Islamic Theology.” in idem, Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh, 1990), 86-93, 94-100; Georges C. Anawati, “Attributes of God: Islamic Concepts,” in Ency” clopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. (Dettoit, 2005; hereafter ER), |: 616-22; A. Al-Azmeh, “Orthodoxy and Hanbalite Fideism,” Arabica 35 (1988); 253-66; Robert M. Haddad, “Iconoclasts and Mu‘tazila: ‘The Politics af Anthro pomorphism.” The Greek Orthodox Theologice Review 27 (Summer-Fall 1982); 287-305; W. Madelung, “The Origins of the Controversy Concerning the Creation of the Koran,” in idem, Religious Schools and Sects in Medi- eval Islam (London, 1985), V; Sweetsnan, Islam and Christian Theology, 1.2: 27-87; Binyamin Abrahamov, An thropomorphism and Interpretation of the Qur'an in the Theology of al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim: Kitab al-Mustarshid (Leiden, 1996); idem, Al-Kitsim b, Ibrahim on the Proof of God's Existence: Kitab al-Dalilal-Kabir (Leiden, 1990), 254. Merlin Swartz, A Medieval Critique of Antkropomorphism: Ibn al-Jaw2l's Kitab Akhbar as-Sitst (Leiden, 2002); idem, "A Hanbali Critique of Anthropomorphism,” The Arabist 21-22 (1999): 27-36; ‘Abd al-Rakwn Ibn alJawz\, The Auributes of God, te. “Abdullah bin Hamid ‘Ali (Bristol, 2006): Wesley Williams, “Aspects of the Creed of Imam Ahmad bn Hanbal: A Study of Anthropomorphism in Early Islamic Discourse,” dnternational Joumal of Middle East Suadies 33 (2002): 441-63; idem, “Tajalli wa-Ru’ya"; Mobacomad Hassan Khalil, “A Closer Look at the Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Western Obsession with the Medieval Muslim Theological Obses- sion with Anthropomorphism,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations V7 (2006): 387-401. This isa very short li in comparison to, for example, the amount of ink that has been spilled over Biblical and Jewish anthropomorphism. T thus do not really understand to what Khalil cefers when he speaks of the “modern Western obsession” with the issue of Islamic anthropomorphism and the pre-modern discussion of it,30 Journal of the American Oriental Society 129-1 (2009) Greuel,’7! to the view of Ignaz Goldziker, who claimed that this orthodoxy would accept nothing but a crude anthropomorphism.”? This scholarly ambivalence towards Islamic anthropomorphism is partly the problem of semantics, particularly a much too imprecise use of the term “anthropomorphism,” coupled with an uncritical conflation of this term and the Arabic sashbih, While the former term literally refers to man’s “form” (morphe), it more often than not is made to bear the burden of signifying all ascriptions of human likeness to God. Thus, human emotions, thoughts, and actions, properly anthropopathisms and anthro- popoiesis, are subsumed under the designation anthropomorphism. Because Homeric an- thropomorphism with its repugnant acting deities is usually the standard and no consideration s given to the idea of an “ethical anthropomorphism,” the net effect of this subsumption, if you will, is that discussion of the alleged “form” of God, the main point of the term “anthro- pomorphism,” is often de-emphasized or assumed to be a non-issue:”? certainly the scrip- tures could not have really meant to depict God “as a disarmingly familiar figure who acts in ways that often seem improbable for a divinity if not outrightly inappropriate.” But at least the biblical tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism, articulated as it is in the con- text of an ethical monotheism, should caution us with regard to this line of reasoning. Itis, believe, because of this uncritical and inappropriate conflation of anthropomorphism and tashbih that an accurate account of Islam's theological struggle over the issue of God's attributes has yet to be written, 3.]. Tashbih versus “Anthropomorphism” ‘The verbal form sh-b-h means literally “to liken (s.0. of sth, to s.o/th. else);” thus shibh ‘similar to,” shabah “likeness, resemblance,” and tashbih “assimilation/making similar.” This term is not used in the QuPan except once, in reference to the death of Jesus (4:157) Nevertheless Muslim theologians of all eras and persuasions were unanimous in regarding tashbih, that is to say, “likening God to creation,” as condemnable. The problem is that in many cases tashbih does not mean, and should not be translated as, “anthropomorphism”; some of Islam’s, we would say “crudest,” anthropomorphists have been as adamant against tashbih as the anti-anthropomorphists.’ In fact, taking the history of Islamic discourse on the issue into consideration, it is desirable that scholars discontinue the ready translation of tashbih by anthropomorphism, as such a practice inhibits our understanding of the nuances involved in the discussion. Take, for example, Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855), the “patron saint of the traditionalists” and the Shibboleth of Sunni orthodoxy.” We have elsewhere demonstrated that Ibn flanbal quite unequivocally was an anthropemorphist in the strict sense: he was adamant about God's anthropoid form.” To deny it is tantamount to kufr.7* Ibn Hanbal was, if you will, “a true 71. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, 439 (= The Ocean of the Soul, 453, there translated as “abomination 72. Ignaz Goldziher, Intvoduction to Islamic Theology and Law (New Jersey, 1981), 92 73, See especially Barr, “Theophany and Anthropomorphisin.” 74, David Stem, “Imitatio Hominis: Anthropomorphism and the Character(s) af God in Rabbinic Proofresis 12 (1992): 151 15. See below. 76, On Ibn Hanbal and Sunni orthodoxy, see Christopher Metchert, “Ahmad Ibn Hanbat and the Qur'an! Journat of Quranic Suadies 62 (2004): 22; Tilman Nagel, The History of Islamic Theology from Muhammad tothe Present (Princeton, 2000), 237; Marshall G. §. Hodgson, The Venture of Islan, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1974), I: 391-92 a2. 77. Williams, “Aspects of the Creed” 78, Ibn Abi Ya'la, Tabagat al-Handbila, ed, Muhammad Hamid al-Figi, 2 vols. (Caio, 1952), 1: 308,