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Question: How would a statement that "God is a spirit" be interpreted in ancient Judasism?
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Question: How would a statement that "God is a spirit" be interpreted in ancient Judasism?
The statement that "God is a spirit" does not mean that he has no body - it means that he is the source of life-giving power and energy
Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School (another non-Mormon scholar) explains how a statement that God is spirit would have been interpreted within ancient Judaism:
By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body … but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure. [1]
It may be that Joseph Smith, by revelation, had something like this in mind when he wrote that the Father is "a personage of spirit."
Notes
- ↑ Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 98.