What Rough Beast: Images of God in the Hebrew Bible, by David Penchansky
With provocatively titled chapters such as "YHWH the Monster (Genesis 3)", "The Bloody Bridegroom: The Malevolent God (Exodus 4:24-26)" and "The Mad Prophet and the Abusive God (2 Kings 2:23-25)" Penchansky's startling thesis is that these texts were written by people of faith bearing witness to their experience of God as "rough, violent, unpredictable, liable to break out against even his most faithful believers without warning." (pp. 1-2)
This was one of the most upsetting and disturbing books I've ever read, but I think the author is on to something. He presents a dark view of God very different than the God of sweetness and light espoused by many liberals, yet he is not willing to call evil its opposite when the act is attributed to God, as many fundamentalists will do.
Even if much of Genesis and Exodus is more parabolic than historical (and I think there is a good case to be made for that view) we're still left with the troubling images of God portrayed in the stories. Penchansky challenges us to "look into the very face of the abyss" with intellectual honesty, courage, and wit.
PUBLISHER: Westminster John Knox Press (September 1999); ISBN: 0664256457
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