Is God human?

Since we started this class, I have been trying to draw relationships between Classical gods and goddesses and the religious figures we are studying. I am thrilled to see that someone else, Dave Skogen, has also seen the connection and drawn some similarities between the two. I agree with Dave, that God is portrayed as a human and assigned human attributes. It is obvious from our Bible readings that God is portrayed as human. Dave notes that the Greek gods, and the Roman as well, were created as representing the city-state. Later, in the high classical period, particularly Greek gods, acted as representations for abstract concepts such as the goddess of hope, Elpis, and the god of medicine, Asclepios. I think that across the board, gods and goddesses, no matter what religion they come from, are portrayed as inherently human. This happens because people identify with each other and form their personal and cultural identity as being human. God is traditionally represented as being human because people can easier relate to a human God. The Greeks represented their gods in the same way, as do many other cultures with different religions and different deities.

Granted, these gods are not only human, but superhuman, a larger-than-life representation. For the Greeks and Romans, the gods were an extension of humans. They had no consequence for their actions, no regret and no conscience. This made them more liable to act in ways that humans themselves could not act for fear of death or punishment. Gods would throw fits, destroy things, and cause mass pandemonium, sometimes merely because they were bored. I don't want to say that the God in Lamentations destroyed Jerusalem because he was bored, but I do want to draw a similarity between the way Greek and Roman gods acted on a large scale to how God was portrayed as acting in the sack of Babylon. Perhaps this will be something I can expand on further in a later post.