A
Ahimsa
Guest
Literary critic Harold Bloom, whose latest book analyzes Jesus and Yahweh, offers his thoughts on God and faith.
Why did you decide to write a book about Jesus and Yahweh?
I think I’ve always intended to write such a book. When I wrote the first draft of what became, in January 1973, a rather small book called “The Anxiety of Influence,” it had a section on the actual relation, as compared to the stated relation, of Tanakh–the Hebrew Bible–with the New Testament. That section, I remember, went on to a character and personality analysis of both Jesus and Yahweh.
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You mention in the book that Yahweh, because of the huge disparity in the number of Jews and Muslims in the world, mostly lives on in the Muslim Allah.
The closest thing that we have, since the Christian God the Father isn’t even a pale shadow of Yahweh, and Adonai–or whatever you want to call him, the rabbinical, normative God of what is now Judaism–has much more in common with the God of Deuteronomy or of the so-called priestly author strand in the Torah than the original Yahwistic portion. It is a very strange irony, that Allah of the “recital” or Koran has on the whole more features in common with the original Yahweh, though he’s by no means identical with him.
And what are some of those commonalities?
Total authority, total demand for submission. Remember that Islam is a word meaning submission, and the Muslim is one who submits to the supposed will of God. It’s the assumption of total authority.
Why did you decide to write a book about Jesus and Yahweh?
I think I’ve always intended to write such a book. When I wrote the first draft of what became, in January 1973, a rather small book called “The Anxiety of Influence,” it had a section on the actual relation, as compared to the stated relation, of Tanakh–the Hebrew Bible–with the New Testament. That section, I remember, went on to a character and personality analysis of both Jesus and Yahweh.
**…
**
You mention in the book that Yahweh, because of the huge disparity in the number of Jews and Muslims in the world, mostly lives on in the Muslim Allah.
The closest thing that we have, since the Christian God the Father isn’t even a pale shadow of Yahweh, and Adonai–or whatever you want to call him, the rabbinical, normative God of what is now Judaism–has much more in common with the God of Deuteronomy or of the so-called priestly author strand in the Torah than the original Yahwistic portion. It is a very strange irony, that Allah of the “recital” or Koran has on the whole more features in common with the original Yahweh, though he’s by no means identical with him.
And what are some of those commonalities?
Total authority, total demand for submission. Remember that Islam is a word meaning submission, and the Muslim is one who submits to the supposed will of God. It’s the assumption of total authority.