Is Your God My God?

LORD God is an extremely biased figure as he is represented in Genesis. He wouldn’t hesitate to help Noah or Abraham and their breed, but he certainly had a different attitude towards other peoples. Through the passages we see how some characters have a divine advantage because of their ancestors or simply because they are able to satisfy the LORD. He granted gifts and great blessings to Abraham and his family, such as the occasion when he gave them land, “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever (chapter 13)”. This is a reward for their loyalty to him, but couldn’t it be interpreted as some kind of propaganda?

At the beginning God had a few followers, and not many people believed whole heartedly in this one god as Abraham did. The fact that God was so giving and rewarding to his followers could be completely logical, but it could also be a way to attract more people into the religion. When people hear of such a giving and helping figure, the possibilities where that they would look up to the same God, which at the time may have been a little contradicting, but in today’s context it matches perfectly the fact that the church is a powerful institution that uses God to their favor as has happened before in history.

God never physically presents himself to anyone, but he communicates through messengers, visions, and signs. This gives him a mysterious characteristic that helps draw the line between him and his mortal followers. “The word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward (chapter 15)”. This shows how the LORD established communication with Abram, who was probably his most influential follower. He presented himself as protection, as “thy shield”, and all this comes in reward for his loyalty.

In Genesis the figure of God is very similar to gods in polytheistic religions and not much as a monotheistic god should be. The “LORD” intercedes constantly to get things how he wants them to be, which contradicts the logical and natural order of the things. The interpretation of God is very subjective because it is completely based on the moral and values of the person, and of how we understand the text. In my personal case the God described in Genesis has a lot of things strange to the God I follow, who in theory should be the same one according to religion. My visualization of a god has been influenced and shaped by much more than simply a bible or a Sunday mass, I have shaped my beliefs through my personal experiences in my everyday life.