The common interpretation held by believers of the Bible about God is that he does not have a body. God is a spirit, transcendent of human reality, incorporeal, with no visible and tangible form, and that all depictions of him having a body throughout the Scripture are all metaphors. However, as biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopolou argues in her book entitled “God: An Anatomy”, this god was a god who had a body and a clear image prior to the invention of Judaism and Christianity. The idea of a purely spiritual bodiless god was the result of later theological and philosophical reinterpretation rather than what the Bible itself actually says. In fact, the original form of this God influenced the references to his body in Scripture contrary to the misconception that these where mere imagery that should not be taken literally. The purpose of her book was to dissect the anatomy of God and map each part of his body as he was envisioned by his ancient worshippers. For this article, I write in the same manner as Stavrakopoulou did where I briefly summarize each argument for each part to piece them altogether to show God’s body.

God’s CV

Yahweh, who we know as God the Father, was a god that was drawn from a pantheon of gods; he was not the original god of the Israelites. The original God of the Israelites was the high God El and his wife, Athirat. Yahweh was among their seventy children and he fulfilled the role of being the national God of Israel and Judah; he was not a supreme god but a storm and wilderness deity. Later on, the biblical writers have fused Yahweh and El as one identical god despite them being distinct entities. When Yahweh later absorbed El’s roles, his mother “morphed” into his wife and was renamed Asherah. For the meantime, I shall not further elaborate this polytheistic origin since this is beyond the limits of this article and a topic reserved for another time. If there is one thing that the polytheistic origins Yahweh tells us, this deity was one who had a concrete background that has been washed away by theological reinterpretation.

Part I: Feet and Legs

Biblical passages have described Adam and Eve hearing God’s footsteps (Genesis 3:8), Moses and Israelite elders seeing God’s feet (Ex. 24:9-10). In the Judean desert, at the fortress of Arad, an 8th-century BCE temple dedicated to Yahweh contained a three-foot-tall massebahs – stones that were believed where God could stand (Gen. 28:18–19; Gen. 31:45; Exod. 24:4; Exod. 23:24; Deut. 16:22; 2 Kings 3:2; 2 Kings 10:26; 2 Kings 18:4; Hos. 3:4; Hos. 10:1–2; Mic. 5:13).

The Bible has also described Yahweh crushing sea monsters with his feet (Ps. 74:13–14; Job 26:12–13; Isa. 27:1), standing over floodwaters (Ps. 29:10; Job 9:8; Hab. 3:15), and resting his feet upon sacred structures (Isa. 66:1; Ps. 99:5; Ps. 132:7; Ezek. 43:7; Lam. 2:1). The ark of the covenant served as Yahweh’s footstool (1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; Ps. 132:8). In the Ugaritic religion, when El learns that his son Baal has died and was swallowed by Mot, the god of death,  the distraught El descends from his throne and sits on his footstool, then lowers himself further to the ground in mourning mythology All of these goes on to show that Yahweh had feet.

Part II: Genitals

Both El and Yahweh were also known to have huge penises and engage in sexual activities. In the Baal Cycle, a Ugaritic text, El is seen to offer pleasure to Athirat – “Does the penis of El the king excite you? Does the love-organ of the bull arouse you?” These attributes have also found their way into the biblical texts albeit it has been veiled in euphemistic words such as rod, hand, bow, staff, garde, feet, thigh, etc. For instance, Yahweh promised to Israel through Moses that “Yahweh your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand (penis), in the fruit of your woman’s womb, in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your soil.” (Deu. 30:9). Stavrakopolou also showed that Adam was created circumcised because he was made in God’s image and it symbolized divine perfection and sexual potency which implies that God himself had a circumcised penis. 

Part III: Torso

In Exodus, Moses saw the back of God but not his face (Ex. 33:18-23). The Bible portrays Yahweh as a bodily deity whose radiant physical presence is so powerful that it can kill humans which explains why Moses only saw his back which implies that God had a torso. Ancient surrounding myths describe gods whose hearts dance with joy, insides burn with rage, bodies that tremble with anger, and guts that ache with sorrow. The Bible also does the same with Yahweh as he is depicted to have a sick heart (Gen. 6:6, 1 Sam. 2:35, Hos. 11:8), groaning in his belly (Isa. 42:14), feeling compassion in his bowels (Isa. 63:15), and experiencing emotions of anguish, regret, anger, etc (e.g Isa. 54:7-8, Nah 1:6, etc.). All of these reveals that God had internal organs in which he feels his emotions. 

The Ancient Israelites also understood Yahweh as a god with a stomach – he eats, drinks, enjoys the aroma of sacrifices. The religious rituals of sacrificing animals were built on the idea of feeding and satisfying God’s stomach and it originated as a communal meal shared between humans and Gods. The Bible in fact portrays Yahweh as a god who desires the best (and the first) of portions (Ex. 23:19. Num. 18:12), smells burnt offerings (Gen 8:20-21, Lev. 1:9-17, 3:16), rejects improper sacrifices (Isa. 1:11-13. Amo. 5:21-22) and enjoys feasting with priests (Lev 6;16-18, Deu. 18:1) where the altar functioned as his dinner table (Eze. 41:22, Mal 1:7-12).

Part IV: Arms and Hands

Yahweh was a deity who had arms and hands. Yahweh himself was right handed like his father El. He was a deity capable of touch – holding, lifting, and even getting his hands dirty. The Bible portrays Yahweh as a god who taught Israel to walk (Hos. 11:3), carrying people in his arms (Isa. 40:11, Deu 1:31), writing laws with his own finger (Exo. 8:19, 31:18), recording names in the book of life (Exo 32:32-33, Dan. 12:1), and the one who buried Moses (Deu. 34:5-6) although later editors rewrote the verse to avoid portraying God as physically handling a dead body.

As belief in God’s corporeality gradually faded over time, the sacred texts took God’s place as tangible divine objects. Religious communities transferred divine presence and authority to holy books which turned the Scripture as a touchable substitute for God’s body. 

Part V: Head

Across the ancient Near East, it was a custom for worshippers visited temples to see the image of the divine through statues and meeting God face to face was a transformative religious experience. Even kings depicted themselves standing before the visible face of their god. These temples were built so gods could be seen. Yahweh fits the same pattern as neighboring deities, he wanted to be seen and commanded people to seek his face (Psa. 24:6, 27:8, 105:4). The Bible itself presents multiple encounters, Moses sees God and he transformed (Ex.33:11, 34:29-35), Jacob wrestles with God and saw him face to face (Gen. 32:24-30), the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26 express this longing for Yahweh to make his face shine upon the believer. The authors intended readers to believe that these were real bodily encounters and that his face was meant to be visible. Later writers of the New Testament insist that no one has ever seen god or that god himself was an invisible spirit. However, this directly contradicts earlier stories where people clearly see God’s body and face. Even later interpreters sought to replace seeking God’s face to seeking God’s presence which turned concrete corporeality to abstract spirituality. 

In the present day, horns are commonly associated with the devil. But before the Bible was written, Yahweh and El were once conceived to be “horned” deities. The Ancient Israelites believed that having horns was the highest expression of divinity or the crown of godhood.  In fact, the Israelites originally portrayed Yahweh as a bull-like deity with horns like a wild ox. The story about the golden calf likely emerged as propaganda to discredit rival worship centers since Northern Israel’s bull-Yahweh imagery was ridiculed by Judah.

In Ugaritic mythology, El is depicted as gray-bearded, elderly looking in appearance as a symbol of wisdom and divine authority. The Bible later transfers this image to Yahweh by describing Him as the Ancient of Days. Jewish thinkers struggled with questions on God’s appearance whether he looked like a young warrior or an old sage. The Rabbis solved this by arguing that God changes form depending on the revelation. This “Ancient of Days” appearance was later applied to Jesus in Revelation. Christian theology portray Jesus as visually identical to the Father (Yahweh). Christians then struggled to depict a God who was said to be invisible, eternal, unchanging, and incorporeal yet was clearly visually described in Scripture. Different images reflect these different theological anxieties.

Finally, ancient Israelites understood Yahweh as a fully sensory being – one that could hear, a mouth that speaks with thunder, and eyes whose gaze could bless or destroy – which shows that divine perception in ancient religion was fully physical. The Bible portrays God as a selective listener; he hears prayers (Ps. 34:15), ignores certain cries (Isa 1:15, Mic. 3:4, Jer. 11:11, Zech 7:11-13), covers his ears (Isa 59:1-2, Amo 5:23), refuses to listen to petitions or chooses which voices deserve attention (Lam 3:8). The same went for his voice which flashes fire (Deu. 5:24-26), breaks cedars (Ps 29:3-9) and roars over the waters (Jo. 3:16). Within the same pantheon Yahweh belonged to, his sibling, Baal’s voice was understood to bring thunders and shake mountains. In the surrounding religions in the Levant, the god Marduk kindles fire with his lips. Across the ancient world, people feared what was called the evil eye since it could attract the destructive gaze of hostile deities which is the reason why for instance, the Eye of Horus is worn to deflect it. Yahweh functioned in the same manner, his gaze could serve as a blessing and protection towards believers (Ps 32:8, 33:18, 34:15, 2 Chron. 16:9, Prov. 15:3, Job 34:21) while also simultaneously serving as a gaze of destruction (Amo. 9:4, Eze. 5:11, 7:4) especially towards the enemies of the believer.

Conclusion : An Autopsy

Here was a god who had every part that literally makes a human – he had feet, a huge penis, internal organs (such as heart, guts, bowels) a stomach/belly, a torso, arms and hands, a face, a beard (though he had a horn), mouth, ears, eyes, nose, a voice and capable of the five senses – he was a projection of human imagination created in the image of man. Whether we’re talking about El or Yahweh, this was a god who had a historically traceable polytheistic origin and a concrete body. The biblical references to his body are 1) too abundant to be ignored, 2) his polytheistic origins are too concrete, and 3) the parallels with myths from surrounding religions are too apparent that it would be too intellectually dishonest to dismiss and reduce bodily portrayals of God as purely symbolic or metaphorical. In doing so, we are compromising the context in which the ancient worshippers and biblical writers saw the God that they were reworking. His original corporeality influenced how the Scriptures and the so called metaphors about his body would be written. Contrary to biblical portrayal, the ancient Israelites did not create idols and worshipped them, they selected Yahweh as their idol and turned him into a god.

“Here was a deity just like those I’d visited in museums as a child. A god of ancient myths, fantastic stories, and long-lost rituals; a god from the distant past, from a society utterly unlike our own… not as a distant and abstract being but a god who was the product of a particular culture, a  particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then; a god shaped by their own physical circumstances, their own view of the world and their own imaginations.” – Francesca Stavrakopoulou

In essence, the biblical God did not start as an abstract spirit; he existed as a fully embodied, local physical deity. But over centuries he was gradually dismantled or killed through political catastrophe, religious reform, and philosophical abstraction by the biblical writers and theologians to fit certain ideologies and narratives that was favorable to their circumstances… until his bodily nature was effectively erased and replaced by an invisible, transcendent, and distorted version of the original God. 

Perhaps, God’s concrete origin is also the most concrete and apparent evidence that the whole monotheistic Abrahamic religions were fabricated and drawn from the polytheistic Levantine-Ugaritic myths. What later believers came to call revelation is, in fact, a reconfiguration of earlier stories, symbols, and gods whose names and attributes were inherited and ‘edited.’

These myths were once the faith that was sustained by ancient worshippers of the Levantine/Ugaritic religion communities who prayed to their gods with the same sincerity later reserved for Yahweh. They did not begin as “myths,” they became myths only when their believers disappeared. In this sense, a myth is not defined by falsehood but by abandonment and religion is not defined by truth but by survival and the continued investment of belief.

What we call religion, whether Christianity or Judaism, may simply be myth that has not yet lost its audience. And what we dismiss as “ancient myth” may be nothing more than religion that ran out of worshippers. The difference between myth and religion is not its truth but its cultural persistence. Seen this way, the Abrahamic God is not an exception to humanity’s myth-making impulse; he is one of its most successful products.