When you consider the pantheon of gods in the Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies, you see that the nature of these gods tends to be "humanity writ large," like a human, only with more power and fewer consequences. For
When you consider the pantheon of gods in the Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies, you see that the nature of these gods tends to be "humanity writ large," like a human, only with more power and fewer consequences. For example, Zeus was forever seducing women, usually human women (shades of Genesis 6:1-2,4?), and his wife-and-sister Hera was jealous and vengeful toward these women. Zeus could get away with his behavior but his lovers usually suffered, and sometimes his children. In reading these mythologies, the gods often take on qualities almost soap opera-esque in their scheming and pettiness.
Within the Biblical mythos, sometimes we fall into a form of reversed causality: we read in Genesis that God created humanity in His own image:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gensis 1:26-27)*
and we assume that means that God Himself is, in essence, a bigger, better human. We don't generally attribute the petty or wicked qualities to God, as the Greek/Roman and Norse myths did with their gods, but sometimes even that happens. I cringe when I hear Christians refer to "the God of the Old Testament" as if YHWH had somehow changed between Malachi and Matthew. Christians are called to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God Who identifies Himself in a singular plurality ("let us create man..."), hinted at within the Shema ("Hear, O Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4)) and who took on human flesh in the Person of Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah, who walked on the face of the earth and prayed to His heavenly Father. We're not good at grasping the idea of the Trinity (3 Persons, one God) and, personally, I don't think we really can:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)If we can't grasp His thoughts and His ways, we can't grasp the full reality of Who He Is, either. So we inadvertently make God smaller than He is when we project ourselves up onto Him.
This plays out in a lot of different ways: the view of God as an indulgent grandfather who will give you all the goodies you want, if you can just ingratiate yourself and ask him the right way, and the corresponding confusion that God ought to be treating us in that manner; or perhaps the view of God as vengeful, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," not recognizing that God was placing a limitation on vengeance:
Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, Listen to my voice, You wives of Lamech, Give heed to my speech, For I have killed a man for wounding me; And a boy for striking me; If Cain is avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Genesis 4:23-24)The question of why YHWH said that Cain would be avenged sevenfold is an interesting question, but not one I'm pondering this day ('So the LORD said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD fnappointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.' - Genesis 4:15); I rest in the knowledge that God has His reasons (and they may well be beyond me!).
We also err when we assume that God's version of an emotion is the same as our version. For instance, when God says that He is a jealous God, we think of the way we see jealousy exhibited on earth. When a man or woman is jealous, it is usually rooted in possessiveness and inappropriate sense of ownership ("you belong to me!") or the desire to have ownership over someone, like the high school girl who is consumed with an unrequited love and becomes spiteful toward the girl(s) she sees as being the potential object of her object's affections (!! - is that sufficiently convoluted?) or the abusive husband who tells his wife, "if I can't have you, no one can."
‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation...' (Deuteronomy 32:21)The jealousy of YHWH is quite a different thing than that of a possessive spouse: it is the jealousy of the Creator for His creature and His desire to see His creature in right relationship with its Creator. Having made us for Himself, He has a righteous and legitimate call upon us, a hope and an expectation. God has a vision of each of us which He longs to see fulfilled. Your husband or wife may have certain legitimate expectations of you, that you don't play the harlot or engage with prostitutes - these are based upon the marital contract ("forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her") and a re