Presenting the Issue: The Biblical God in Faith and Practice

The Bible and Qur'an—the sacred books of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim peoples—focus on worship of the God of Abraham, variously named but essentially and uniquely one. While historically, the biblical God may have the qualities of an early tribal deity, the biblical prophets hammered home the singularity of God in what James A. Sanders describes as the monotheizing process.

Biblical descriptions of this process carry a variety of foci depending on the context, as for instance the story of the binding of Isaac (or Ishmael in Muslim tradition [Qur'an 37:91–110]) where the focus is on sacrifice as worship, an act of obeisance. The biblical stories of God embody implicit values that challenge the readers through successive generations to infer and convert into practice.

In Genesis 22 God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, a theme that echoes in New Testament author Paul of Tarsus in Romans 4. Paul interprets Abraham's sacrifice as an act of expiatory faith, which renders Abraham righteous. The act of sacrifice renders to God what is precious to humans.

The present issue of BTB offers three articles describing the biblical God and one focused on sacrifice as obeisance.

Frank Adu's article, “The Concepts of Yahweh in the Hymnic Doxologies of Amos 4:14, 5:8–9, and 9:5–6,” explores the expansive qualities of the biblical God as described in the book of the prophet Amos. Amos uses these images of God to judge those present and challenge them to action.

Paul K. Moser, in “God as Righteous Agitator: Grounding Biblical Theology,” argues that biblical theology should be grounded in a broad perspective on the character of God as the main actor in biblical history.

Collin Cornell provides a review article on The Question of God's Perfection: Jewish and Christian Essays on the God of the Bible and Talmud, edited by Yoram Hazony and Dru Johnson (2019). The volume's central question and contents range within the purview of the biblical-theological and theological-interpretive fields.

David J. Zucker completes the issue with the troubling story in Judges 11–12 of “Jephthah: Faithful Fighter, Faithless Father. Ancient and Contemporary Views.” Viewed over time, interpretations of the story range from Jephthah's faithfulness to God in fulfilling his vow to make a sacrifice, to his failure as father of his daughter in the performance of his vow. This conflict raises the question today of how one's characterization and worship of God can conflict with fundamental human rights and responsibilities.

All told, these articles reveal efforts to describe God. They provide insights for understanding the range and contexts of biblical characterizations of God. They also recognize the need to work out an understanding of what it means to worship the biblical God in ways that are true to the texts but at the same time address questions of how best to interpret the texts for present day practice. It is for readers of each generation to infer the values that the characterization of God signify.