| Abstract: | This article argues that animal imagery – in combination with personal images of the deity – must be taken more seriously in studies of Old Testament theology. Bernhard Lang and Tryggve Mettinger are introduced as examples of scholars who distance themselves from the idea that the Israelites conceived of Yahweh in the figure of an animal. They have thereby contributed to the majority view among scholars that only the personal metaphors for Yahweh are worth taking seriously. As a counterweight to this, other scholars are quoted who have shown how the combination of human and animal, familiar from Egyptian religion, also appears in the Old Testament. This leads to the conclusion that through a dialogue between animal and personal images, it was possible for the biblical writers to formulate theologies in which God is not reduced to human imagery alone, as we can see among other things from the continued use in the New Testament of the lion image as well as the lamb image in Revelations. |
