Meet The Real God of The Bible | Francesca Stavrakopoulou PhD

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

Here is a portrait — arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible — of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe — and every part of the body in between — this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.


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#God #Bible #MythVision

[rumrunner]

I was a devout Catholic as a young adult and I studied the Bible and where it came from. Yep, I learned too much. This was the kind of stuff that made me leave, not evolution, which I always believed in, and not "the problem of evil" or any such things. It was learning that the entire OT is just rehashed Canaanite mythology that did me in.

[jameskent]

I’m not an atheist but I’m also not a Christian. I think this kind of dialogue is invaluable and fascinating to examine the history of gods and religions.

[oldbiker]

Truth is like Plato's cave, where people inside a cave perceive shadows cast on a wall. They give names to the shadow's, but only those who are free from the cave, and go out into the real world, are really free.

[dontexplode]

Let the blind guide blind, and let the dead burry the dead.

[wingedlion]

As a former SDA, hearing about the Sabbath and how it actually does say God was tired in the Hebrew was eye opening. At church they always stressed that the Sabbath was NOT because God was tired. He rested just as an example for us.

[helenlea]

I love listening to intelligent people talk. I remember thinking it was gold dust every time I attended a lecture from an academic at university, now I get to continue learning with free youtube videos, as I work from
home, do chores, go for walks. Thanks for this xox

[dispatchesfromterminus]

On a flight back from Moab, UT to FL I happened to sit next to an older gentleman who was a physician, had traveled the world providing volunteer medical care for refugees, plus he was an amateur astrophotographer. We engaged in a fascinating conversation which eventually touched on religion and philosophy. During our conversation I pulled out my copy of Dr. Stavrakopoulou's book "God: An Anatomy" from my bookbag and he immediately jotted down the title. I hope it translates into another sale of this amazing book!

[stever.]

Francesca, being so deeply and thoroughly enmeshed in the subject, she doesn't seem to realize how BIG it is to know what she knows.
It's liberating!
I just gave myself a Father's Day gift by ordering her book from Amazon.
Thanks, guys...

[oldowl]

I’ve been heavily researching religion for the last two years. Originally I started with the history of man and our evolution then looked at pre-religious animism and various petroglyphs around the world and traces of possible pre-historic religions through symbology. I then got into the fertile crescent evolution and how it all evolved with the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and slowly kept going forward from there through the Roman age.

Recently I've looked at 19th century occult stuff and also new age "god concepts" like the platonic solids and divinity in nature. For not being Oxford educated I was able to follow along with this talk which was great. It’s amazing how many thousands of years of mythical evolution made its way into the bible. Also amazing is how much has been revealed in the compelling theories about how the Romans wrote the New Testament. Telling literal Christians this, is of course something most do not want to hear! It’s also amazing how they can feel every other religion are myths except their own.

Lastly, "An / Anu" was the original Sumerian / Akkadian god of all gods and therefore I feel could be the original word or an origin for the god of Abraham.

[KitCatStudio]

Brilliant interview Tnx! I’m Israeli and speak Hebrew, so first of all I was wondering if this book is coming out in Hebrew anytime soon? Second of all I want to point out some fascinating facts: when I found about the ancient gods of Canaan and studied their names the experience of reading the bible changes completely- first of all : the Canaanite father of the gods “El” or “El - Elion” : this word is still used today in modern Hebrew to describe “god”. But when you read the text literally with El as a name - you get the whole thing describing an entirely different meaning- with a different god. “El Elion” means the highest (out of many?) god. Then what happens is when you see the name “Yahve” described as the only true god, it usually comes after saying “El Elion Yahve the only god”, almost as if it was edited in the text and combined the two names together unnaturally. Hebrew is a very down to earth language with little double meanings like in English. So this simple exercise strips away the mystery out of archaic texts. Suddenly it reads as clear as f**k: there are two gods : El and Yahve. Sometimes they are described as the same one and sometimes just appear in the same sentence. El is more ancient and is associated with the old kingdom (not the current) of Israel, and Yahve is associated with the later smaller and deeply religious kingdom of Yehuda - Jehudai. There are many more parallels like this you can do- another interesting one is this: the Canaanite god of sunrise is called Shahar- to this day the Hebrew word for sunrise. An other important sun god is Shalem. They are both the sons of El Elion. The city of Shalem is called in shortcut YerShalem or in translation to English - Jerusalem- the city of the sun god. The knowledge of the ancient gods of Canaan strips off the mystery of the holy book and is making the texts pretty clear about who made what editing and when.

[nesanetlehulum]

I always enjoy the interviews with Professor Francesca Stavrakopolou

[matthewsocoollike]

Half way through. Very interesting so far. The relationship between inanna and Jesus, the 7 day cycle and how different ancient cultures used the number 7. The idea that different origin stories had gods making people out of clay. The fact that god “resting” on the 7th day wasn’t metaphorical, it was a literal “I worked hard, I’m tired” kind of resting. And much more than that. Definitely a great guest Derek. Thank you!

[nydaloth]

I was raised as a Catholic with all its associated practices and dogmas. I studied science. I hold a PhD in theoretical physics with specialization in astrophysics, cosmology and high energy physics. My understanding about religion is that religion is a human endeavor to understand or, i dare to say, endure reality. But make no mistakes, myhth and reality are not nessesarily mutually exclusive. Take for example the bible. In the bible Jesus Christ haved power on life and death. He not only survived death but also revived Lazarus. Religion is a way to aproach spiritually that may be different for different people, depending of course on many different factors like education, knowledge, intelligence etc. But it can't be denied that Christ is considered an historical figure. If spiritual matters are "denied" on behalf of science, or well educated arguments, as pure myth, then we enter a state of pure materialism. I have learned, not from religion but from science, that the universe is far more complex than people think. Quantum theory, general relativity, qft, string theory etc, have shown that what we think is reality is just what our observations have created. You can't approach reality only by the kind of historical arguments that for example, are presented here. Most of them are valid, but are also arrogant from the stand point of the limited state of knowledge of the human race. Dont get me wrong, you guys are very knowledgeable academical people, that are making intelligent statements about the historical reality concerning the concept of God, but to conclude that historical facts about religion can be ruled out as myth is, in my opinion as a scientist, a huge oversimplification of reality. After all, according to quantum physics, reality is created by the conscious mind by the process of observation (the collapse of the wave function, Shrodingers cat, etc). Reality is not independent from our believes! So I recommend to mantain an open mind. If everything is denied as "myth" then scientific reality in the form of theories can be also denied as "reality". Today the leading candidate for "physical reality" is on the verge of being abandoned as "myth" by the absencence of experimental evidence of supersymmetry (from LHC). 10 years ago famous scientist will dare to say that reality was String Theory. Today Jesus Christ existance is more "real" than String Theory! If God created reality, as we know it, its probably something entirely different of our limited knowledge as human beigns. Still I think that people should be more educated about history an religion, in order not to be victims of educated ridiculizaton by well educated atheist scholars. This doesn't mean that atheist are nessesary wrong, it just means that in the current state of affairs, concerning the spiritual and the material world, we humans are ignorant but very well motivated to understand our place in the universe. 😊

[bubbercakes]

I follow many theological historians and writers and Ms. Stavrakopoulou is definitely one of the best! I was a Christian for 52 years until I decided to be a “good” Christian and started studying the bible. I now know more about religion than I ever did and I’m now an atheist.

[ThethKind]

Great interview - You should get Paul Wallis on the show :)

[neilcreamer]

There’s a lot of the ‘social texture’ Francesca talks about in the books of the prophets and the Torah. There’s definitely a sense that despite the stories of kings, the Hebrews were on the side of the ‘working man’. One comment I’ve seen on this points out that whereas the code of Hammurabi, differentiated between rich and poor, allowing the rich to pay with money while the poor might pay with life or liberty, the moral code of the commandments was egalitarian: whoever you were the cost was an eye for eye.

[kittyblak]

"Yahweh needs Money because the priest needs money", 😸, Good one Francesca ...🏳️‍🌈🇺🇲

[diaryofnricom]

13:43 "Like I said, there is very little in the Bible that is completely original." She nailed it. 👍

[conniestone]

Fyi: the link to her book is BROKEN on your Amazon list!! I even tried to search your page there. What's up with that?

[DogWalkerBill]

It may have been Joseph W. Campbell, but I heard/read that the resurrection (and reincarnation) myths come out of the agricultural revolution (12, 000 to 10, 000 years ago.) You plant the seed in the ground. It grows up over the growing season. At harvest time you cut it down and eat a lot of it. But you save some of the seeds (the 'head' of the plant) to plant in the ground again during next planting season. Thus the plants are "resurrected" (e.g. "born again"!)