Description:
This paperback edition brings to a wide audience one of the most innovative and meaningful models of God for this post-Auschwitz era. In a thought-provoking return to the original Hebrew conception of God, which questions accepted conceptions of divine omnipotence, Jon Levenson defines God's authorship of the world as a consequence of his victory in his struggle with evil. He traces a flexible conception of God to the earliest Hebrew sources, arguing, for example, that Genesis 1 does not describe the banishment of evil but the attempt to contain the menace of evil in the world, a struggle that continues today.
Review Quotes: "A doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and a perception of creation as essentially a fait accompli `in the beginning' have stripped much of the drama from the views of creation found in the Hebrew Bible. Levenson seeks--with impressive success--to restore that drama. He provides, thereby, a reflective biblical foundation, based in solid philological and comparative study."---Lee Humphreys, Hebrew Studies