I'm reading the Bible and I have a question

[WindRavenX]

For most of us reared in this Christian American society, we can remember being taught that God looked like a big, white, semi-elderly man with white facial hair dressed in a long, white, flowing rob.
And as I was reading the Bible (I'm only in Exodus, so maybe I'm jumping to conlusions), all the forms that God appears to people (Abraham, Moses, etc) were non-human forms like clouds, fire, thunderstorms, etc. Is there any place in Bible that God him (herself?) takes a form that resembles the "old white man" image that were taught to us? If no, then where does that image come from?
I distinctly remember asking my Catholic mother when I was around 6, "mom, what does God look like?" And she told me that God can look like anything or everything. But she told me to think of God as an old man in all white.
So, DUers, where do these images come from?
And for the record, I'm an atheist. Reading the Bible is an interesting experience...it's a bloody, sexual book that is just flat out weird most of the times.

[Az]

1. Well theres a problem

The bible is a bit confused on whether god has ever been seen. There is definately no description given but typically the image used for artistic purposes is taken from Zeus.

Here is a link containing the contradictions on whether god has ever been seen. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/seen.html

[WindRavenX]

2. Very good site

Thanks! :hi:

[Yaoi_Huntress_Earth]

3. Michaelangelo

Probably from the Sistine Chapel which has one of the earliest potrays of the old man-type God. As an art major, you learn some interesting things about Christian art such as the real early depictions (back when the Christians were persecuted and a little after) of Christ often potrayed him as a beardless shepherd. These depictions were dropped after the church gained more power in Europe.
Also if you look at the tomb of Pope Julius (aka the Warrior Pope), you will see a statue of Moses (which looks a lot like Julius, himself) with horns. This is due to an old biblical mistranslation that claimed there were horns on Moses' head when it was a halo.
Love,
Yaoi Huntress Earth

[dawgman]

4. it was always taught to me that the reason God is never seen

(even when he is wrestling with jacob) is because the sight of such perfection would kill an imperfect human.

[scarlet_owl]

48. I was taught the same thing

Now I believe that you can see God whenever you see something of beauty. When I go for a walk in the woods, or see the smiling faces on the schoolchildren that visit us, I see God everywhere. I don't think that God hides itself from us anymore. I think God makes it a point to be noticed.

[alcuno]

5. I think the current perception of God came after the time of Jesus.

First of all, I believe that it is in Genesis that is says God made man in his own image. Second of all, Jesus referred to his "father." It's a likely connection for people to make.

On Edit: Genesis 1:26 "God created man in his image."

[ulysses]

6. one take

is that "the word became flesh" in Christ. :shrug:

[Az]

7. Which raises an interesting question

Did Jesus' appearance have any influence from his mom's side of the family. Tossing another pineapple into the mix why was Jesus not a female considering the genetic makeup... unless there is a genetic code for god of course. Just asking..... :evilgrin:

[ulysses]

9. one might guess

that God's genes would be dominant. ;-)

[Az]

11. Its curious actually

The y chromosome is known to be the mutation. That is gender was a later development and the x chromosome is the older structure. So one has to wonder if god's DNA is male or female (assuming he has DNA of course).

[ulysses]

29. my sarcasm aside

and to the extent that I think about what God is if he/she/it does, in fact, exist, I doubt very much that he/she/it takes a human, much less male or female, form. My take anyway.

Interesting point on the mutation. Got a link? I'd like to read more.

[blondeatlast]

25. Nitpicker!

Damn you anti-theists (pun definitely intended)!

Love y'all anyway!

[Kamika]

8. God can infact look like anything

im a christian for what its worth, and God can look like anything he doesnt have any real set image but since Adam was created in Gods image we can conclude God is a male something like 18-50 years old.

The whole nice old santa clause thing is just to make him look like a nice caring protecting "father". So the churches back then said "why not paint him as a big jolly fat white bearded guy in white?"

I mean it will get alot more ppl interested in the religion then a burning bush as God :p

[Az]

10. Speaking of Adam

Ok, this is a nasty question (philosophically speaking) but I am just curious how its being fielded these days. Did Adam have a belly button?

[Kamika]

13. i think so

Since God had it all pretty much planned im sure he had one just for the heck of it.

[dawgman]

14. Sooooooo you believe in Creation then?

Why wasn't Adam created in God's image meaning with the ability of self-determination and a perfection that was lost with the eating of the forbidden fruit? Wouldn't it be a deeper statement for it to be more than a physical resemblence?

[Blue_Chill]

28. If you ask me the fruit is adulthood

Children loose their innocence when they grow up and become jaded by the real world.

[dawgman]

31. I'll buy that. But I won't believe in creation.

Believe in God and evolution and most importantly the philosophy behind the teachings of Christ.

[Blue_Chill]

33. pffft I believe in all of the above

God created 'life'
'life' evolved
Christ paid a visit
We killed him
now we need him
he ain't comin.

Welcome to Christianity.

[FloridaJudy]

42. Snort!

Read *The Life of Pi* recently?

I'm not a Christian, but I'm still a fan of that troublesome Rabbi who dared question conventional wisdom a few thousand years ago.

[Lizz612]

50. Mmm!

Good book. I'm not good at analysis, so I'm not going to try, but man that was a great book.

[noiretextatique]

52. i've heard that the forbiddden fruit is ego

with a small "e."

[rasputin1952]

47. God can indeed look like, feel like or appear...

as anything He wishes.

I too, am a Christian, and was brought up to believe that God could not be looked at directly because mortal man could not withstand the purity. However, God often "walked" through the Garden of Eden, and spoke to Adam and Eve. It was explained that "created in His image", actually meant that Adam was created without sin. But he was certainly no god.

With that said, I tend to look at the Bible, with a curious eye.

For instance, in Genesis, "Let there be light", can actually equate to the Big Bang theory. The problem here is, time. Just what is time?
The only known place in the univertse where there are 24 hour days is here on earth. Yet, one of the more looked over verses in the Bible is, "a moment is God's eyes is a thousand years, and a thousand years is but a moment". That opens a whole new set of theoretical possibilities, but also explains a lot. It explains that the universe is indeed billions of years old, and yes, millions of years ago there were indeed dinosaurs and other itemns long ago lost.

The notion that Adam and Eve were the first two humans, (as we see humans today), comes under scrutiny when we see that Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve; Cain kills Abel. Now if the sequence, as shown in Genesis is to be followed, we don't exist...end of the line. But suddenly, Cain is told to go forth and marry and build cities. Marry who? Build cities for what? There is more to the story than the first few chapters of Genesis tells us. Did God start another society somewhere else on the planet? Or, werre Adam and Eve, the first true Jews, and others were some other form deists, that lost the message somewhere along the line?

I am a Christian, yes, but I also know that we are to search for answers, many of those answers are elusive, but if you put forth time and effort, they can be found.


I need more coffee.

:hi: :donut:

[Blue_Chill]

12. ahem

Adamn and Eve are pictured as white, God created them in his own image, God is old.

There you go. As for me I hope god is a black dude with a mohawk.

[Az]

15. Well seeing as how all evidence

suggests our ancestors came out of Africa. I have been told by some that I look like Jesus (long blonde hair and beard and mustache). I am always curious where they get their ideas of Jesus from. I always figured he was from the MidEast if he existed.

[Blue_Chill]

19. I agree

I've always thought people were crazy to think the characters in the bible were white.

[Kamika]

16. where?

Where are they pictured as white?


See i mean no offence but you are pretty close minded if you think jesus etc are all depicted as white men throughout the world. I go to a pretty much korean only church and all pictures and such of jesus etc are oriental. Ive seen ALOT of african pictures depicting jesus as black.

Nowhere in the bible does it say adam was white.


Considering scientists think the first humans came from Africa odds are adam was black.

[Blue_Chill]

21. calm down

I meant that in the US they are pictured as white. I don't claim to know what the world thinks or does. I also agree that they probably weren't white.

BUT....Who cares where the first people came from, adam and eve weren't the first humans. There were people outside the garden, so the question is what do Adam and Eve represent?

edit: I'm one of those annoying folk that think the bible is not literal history, but often metaphor seeking to convey complex messages to people with all ranges of education and intelligence.

[Kamika]

22. well im in the us

And in my church they are orientals :D

Adam and Eve was most likely the first homo sapiens

[Blue_Chill]

People still say Orientals?

I thought that was a no no.

[Kamika]

26. no its cool

why would it be a nono? oriental or asian is cool for me. Altough i prefer american :p

asian- or korean- american if you want to be uber PC

[Blue_Chill]

24. dupe

duplicate sorry I'm impatient and pushed the mouse button twice. For shame for shame!

[Maddy McCall]

35. Then how do you account for Lillith???

And since Homo sapiens sapiens evolved over 35,000 years ago, how does that jamb with literal biblical time???

And what about those other protohumans from which Homo sapiens sapiens evolved?

[laconicsax]

41. That's all explained away by claiming

that carbon dating is just guessing.

The 6-10 thousand year old earthers say that carbon-14 is based on guesses and is therefore highly innacurate--scientists don't know how much carbon-14 the original life-form had, so they just have to guess.

That of course is a lie. Carbon-14 exists in known ratios and decays at a known rate. It's basic math to calculate the age of something using isotope half-lives.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

54. I went to a college where we were required to take

a religion course every year. My senior course was called Studies in Genesis I-XI.

We learned about how the book of Genesis was formed, namely as an interweaving of three distinct oral traditions. That's why there are two creation stories, one in which man and woman are created at the same time, and one in which woman is created out of man.

Obviously, a lot of interesting stuff got left out. I think it's all allegorical, but based on ancestral memories of historical events.

For example, archeologists believe that there was some evolutionary leap that took place I-forget-how-many-thousand years ago that caused humans to have imaginations and become creative. Before that, humanoid cultures remained unchanged for thousands of years and showed no signs of creativity. Then, all of a sudden, you get technological innovation, art, and signs of belief in an afterlife. There must have been a time when both types of humanoids existed, the evolved and the unevolved. Perhaps that event is the basis for the Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden story, the idea that once humans were more or less like animals, just doing what seemed natural or expedient at the time and not having any sense of morality or ethics, nor any sense of guilt. Then at some point, they must have developed the imagination necessary to understand how their actions could hurt others.

There are all kinds of intriguing fragments in Genesis. Now archeologists have found that Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthals coexisted for a time in the Middle East. Skeletal remains indicate that the Neanderthals' average strength was much greater than that of the average human. It has occurred to me that an ancestral memory of this kind of coexistence is the origin of the cryptic line about "there were giants in the earth in those days" and the statement about "the sons of God marrying the daughters of men."

The idea that ancestral memories can persist for thousands of years without being written down may seem strange, but there's a clear case in Oregon. When the first white settlers came upon Crater Lake, the local Indians told them that it had been formed when a mountain blew up. Of course, the settlers dismissed this as an old Indian legend--until geologists discovered that Crater Lake had indeed been formed by the explosion of a mountain, 7,000 years before.

Another example is from the Delaware tribe, who have a tribal origin story that tells of coming from a cold land and passing through mountains where the snow never melted and crossing vast grasslands with no trees, even though their tribal lands were on the East Coast.

So if you look at the strange fragments in the Bible, especially in the early books, remember that none of the books were written by a single author, they were all in the oral tradition for an undetermined period of time before being written down, and they may reflect either distant memories or allegorical reinterpretations of actual events.

On the question of what God looked like, the ancient Hebrews believed that no one could look upon the face of God and live. They also had a strict prohibition against making any images of God. This is why he always appears in some intangible form, such as smoke or fire.

He tells Moses that his name is "I am" in the English translation. In the actual Hebrew, it's not the word "I am," but the letters YHWH, which is the only word in the Hebrew scriptures that is never given vowel markings and never pronounced aloud. (Readers substitute "Adonai," "the Lord.") Some scholars believe that God really tells Moses,"My name is Existence."

By the way, the "Jehovah" of Jehovah's Witnesses comes from a sloppy attempt to make YHWH pronounceable. (All the Biblical words with "J" in English have "Y" in Hebrew.)

While there are pictorial representations of Jesus from early on, there are almost none of God. I think it was Michelangelo who popularized the image of God as an old man with a beard.

But in ancient times, the Jews were unique in having a god who was never represented in painting or sculpture.

So this is a roundabout way of answering your question. I think we can blame Michelangelo for the popular representations of God.

[dawgman]

17. HOw about a Black woman with dreads?

That would rule.

[Blue_Chill]

18. dreads? no no no

mohawk. Orange mohawk. But the female would be cool.

[dawgman]

20. An orange mohawk on a black woman might be a bit

too much like some weird incarnation of Grace Jones.

[Blue_Chill]

23. Yes but it would be

Shocking! And that's what counts.

[dawgman]

27. lol!! works for me.

[blondeatlast]

30. I suspect that God and Jesus (separate entities for me)

would not fall into the popular image we have of them; the point being that I think they would walk this earthly plane incognito.

[Nikia]

32. In God's own image

I also took those words in the Bible to mean that humans were endowed with intellect and spirituality. In this, we were made in the image of God. I believe that in Genesis it has God walking in the garden when he discovered that Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit. I don't think it gave a physical description but it suggests that God can appear as a corpeal being as well as clouds and such. That assumes that of course that Genesis is written as history and not as a parable or allegory to the origin of the Jewish people and the reason for law.

[soothsayer]

34. Sometimes (in the bible!) God is referred to as female

Well, as a mother and as a mother bird, too.

[stopbush]

36. Here's the OFFICIAL pix of God

courtesy of South Park. Hope this settles the issue.

[Blue_Chill]

46. see my vest

see my vest
made of monkey chest!
~Mr. Burns

(err it goes something like that.)

[Lizz612]

51. See my vest (tangent)

Made of real gorilla chest.
My hat?
Twas my cat.
My evenign wear?
Vampire bat.
Try my red robin suit,
Comes one breast or two.
My slippers are albino
African endangered Rino.
Like my loafers?
Former gophers,
It was that
or skin my chaufers.
(not in order, from memory, my father would be proud, real he would its his fav. song on his fav. show)

[Maddy McCall]

37. No, God looks like Red Green from PBS's "Red Green Show"

and he has his temperment too. And have we any doubt that God invented duct tape? Red Green swears by it, so I think the mystery has been solved. :-)

[KittyWampus]

38. Adam Kadmon

Adam is Symbolic. And those places in the Bible where there are many names listed are meant to be understood using gematria. Like reading an equation.

There are many Faces of God.

I like the fact that you pointed out that God only physically appears in a medium... not directly.
That is the essence of Symbolic Truth.

"Adam Kadmon" can be translated as "The Projection of Man." Because man is made in God's likeness, the
symbol of the Tree of Life is also understood to represent the spiritual projection/emanation of YHWH Elohénu.
Very ancient, the symbol stands at the core of Jewish mysticism. Its dynamics therefore underlie the Hebrew, the
Christian, and the Muslim scriptures. Understanding its logic is fundamental to study of the Crown Diamond
display.

[LynneSin]

39. I think it's good for athiests to read the bible

Because it's the best way to deal with those who commit bible abuse like the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell's of the world.

To be honest, there are no pictures of God in Christian history since he/she/that which is greater than all isn't really a human.

Jesus was the human form of God, which he tends to get WASPized. Kinda funny that a Fair-hair blue-eyed WASP lived in the Middle East.

[regnaD kciN]

40. In a word, no.

It has been long established in Christianity (see Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologicae) that God didn't have a body. And Jewish notions of seeing "the glory of God" were of God's power, not a physical manifestation of YHWH.

[stlsaxman]

43. Check in Revelations... John describes God in his vision as

having "woolen" hair... or hair "like a lamb". What people have that type of hair?
Africans? So, if that's true then God IS black!

If anyone has the verse numbers handy... please post.

[Az]

44. Actually thats the description of Jesus

1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

Now I don't know about you but I am going to chalk this one up as metaphorical. The tongue/sword thing is a bit over the top to expect the people of Bethlehem to have missed in the early days.

[stlsaxman]

45. thanks for clarifying that....

That's right....the Son of man.

This whole thread keeps reminding me of scenes in Dogma... lol
"So that would make Bethany... part black?" And Chris Rock in his
greatest roll yet as Rufus, the 13th Apostle... Allen Rickman as The Voice
Of God... Bud Cort AND Allanis Morresette as God.... oh and George Carlin
as Cardinal Glick...

got to view it again today... thanks.

[Aristus]

49. In addition to the burning bush on Mt. Sinai, Exodus describes

God as showing himself to Moses in physical form, but He can only reveal his back to Moses. To show more would be to overwhelm Moses to the point where it would kill him. As it was, the image was so powerful that Moses' whole face glowed when he came down from the mountain. The same thing happened to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. His whole body glowed after his personal meeting with God. So, the answer is 'yes', God does appear in physical form, but Moses only sees His back.

[noiretextatique]

53. these are cultural images...images of the dominant culture

who are assumed (by some) to be "supreme." it would follow that the ultimate supreme being would look like the supreme ones.

[rasputin1952]

55. Want to have some fun?...

As I've said before, I am a Christian, but not a Biblical literalist.

So as some fundies:

Where did all of the water go after the flood?
If the worlds mountains were all covered in water some 12-30 thousand years ago, where is all of the water, where did it go?

Who did Cain marry, and why was he sent out to build cities?
there was no one to marry if you are a literalist, and why build a city if there was no one to live in them?

Why does the original Commandment read, "you shall not murder"?
And when did that change to "Thou shalt not kill"? There is an immense difference between the two, although the end result is the same, death.

How do you explain dinosaur fossils, and all of the other fossils that exist?

Why is the universe expanding still?

Why is a "day" 24 hours? That is something that only happens on earth, no where else in the universe is there a know 24 hour day.

Seek, and you shall find. As Christians we are required to ask questions, that is how we get answers. But there are those who pick and choose what they want to believe, and then force feed the lazy and ignorant the trash THEY want people to believe.

It is not a horrible thing to follow the teaching of Jesus, ion fact, He was an exceptionally liberal individual for his time. Take a look in the Gospels, He preaches love, compassion and justice. He is vehemently against hypocrisy; things most progressives also believe in.

Just take a look, from a point of view where you neither reject nor automatically accept what is written, make up your own mind. But make up your own mind after research, and not the illusions of fundies and televangelists. I'm betting, you will find many common threads, to what you already believe in.