In The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, Benjamin D. Sommer investigates the notion of a deity's body and self in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. He uncovers a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which an essential difference between gods and humans was that gods had more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts..

Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer Accepts the 2009 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for his book. Watch the video.

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

By Benjamin D. Sommer
Jewish Theological Seminary, New York