There's a mysterious unnamed character in the Bible, who seems to be bigger than God; a sort of meta-God. I'm talking about the narrator of the Bible. In the torah portion, "Tzav" (Leviticus 6:1 - 8:36) the first line starts with "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying..."
Who's describing this situation? The narrator of the Bible is unnamed, but seems to have a more comprehensive of view of events than God Himself.
There are only two explanations: either the narrator is a "meta-God", a being outside of God and bigger than God (an impossibility, since God's domain is infinite, in all of time and space), or God likes to talk of Himself in the third person. And I thought that that was a literary innovation devised by Raymond Chandler and all other writer's of tough guy crime fiction where the protagonist was constantly narrating his own tale in the third person voice.
Viewing God as a Being who talks about Himself as being elsewhere, or as if He was someone else ("He", not "I"; "The Lord said to Moses" versus "I said to Moses"...) is at first glance very funny. I suddenly hear echoes of Humphrey Bogart saying "put down the tablet, Moe, or I'll shoot!", but after thinking about this for a moment, I begin to feel that it can't be any other way. For if God were to identify Himself as having a particular identity (that is "I"), then he immediatly becomes diminished. Imagine instead of the Bible reading "The Lord said to Moses..", but rather, "I said to Moses...", that completely changes the relationship to Man and God. God becomes a fellow traveler, rather than a Being lording over us.
This forms a nice segue into a key stylistic choice in my graphic novel version of the Jewish prayerbook, called the "Comic Book Siddur": the choice to keep the tone of the siddur very familar and jocular. By translating the tone of the siddur from it's royal language of "king and servant", into the language of "Superhero and sidekick", our relationship to God changes. There's a link between language and power. The more courtly language signifies an attitude of respect, however, it stifles the more tender emotions. On the other hand, a more familiar tone is an invitation to be "real" and honest (that is, the criteria for intimacy), if more effective to touching peoples hearts, which is what everyone wants when they try to "see God". Can you have an All Powerful God, and still talk to Him like He's your buddy? Should He, in turn, talk to Moses as if He was his buddy?
The answer, in my opinion, is...both.
You want power, and you want tenderness. You want a complete person. And you want God to be a complete God. To be too authoritarian is a problem. But to be too intimate can be a problem too. You want to get close, but you also need some distance. This was nicely illustrated in the scene where Moses receives the tablets from God. He's close to God (and thus his face glows), but he can't get too close, lest he perish.
So who's the disembodied narrator in the torah? It's God. He talks in the third person, because He's simultaneously talking to Himself, and to others, but He wants there to be some distance. Of course talking in the third person is also a symptom of a narcissistic personality disorder, but that seems to make sense too. Witness God's rage! Witnesss His need to feel loved by demanding that sacrifices be made to Him! This is not a socially sanctioned way for people to act. Should we put up with it from the Ruler of the Universe?
God's narcissistic "personality" (as witnessed by his talking in the third person) is easy to excuse on philosophical grounds: God wants to be close, but not too close. We can bring him close by talking with Him with jocular comic-book-styled language. But as the torah makes clear in the first line of Leviticus 6:1, God's penchant for talking in the third reveals His narcissistic tendencies.
But at least we now know who our disembodied narrator is.
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