God's Body
How does the Bible describe the face of God or the hands of God, and what impact does this embodied divine have upon our thinking now and going back to the medieval religious view?
Modern theology often treats God as an abstract principle: a mover that doesn't move. But in the Bible, Abraham walks alongside him, Jacob (arguably) spends a night wrestling with him, Moses talks with him face to face, Ezekiel sees him sitting on a throne, and Amos sees him standing in his temple. Jesus is declared the son of God, and declares in turn that he has sat alongside God at his right hand. Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou joins Matthew Sweet to discuss the embodied divine and what it means for our understanding of God, along with with Hetta Howes, who studies Medieval mystical Christianity, and psychotherapist and former priest Mark Vernon.
On our website you can find a playlist called Free Thinking explores religious belief which includes conversations about Jewish history, Buddhism, interviews with Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins, a discussion of St John Henry Newman and about Islam and Mecca. /programmes/p03mwxlp
You might also be interested in hearing the music picked out by Francesca Stavrakopoulou on Radio 3's Private Passions /programmes/b006tnv3
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Image: a bronze statue of the Greek god Zeus
Last on
Broadcast
- Thu 4 Nov 2021 22:00成人快手 Radio 3
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