Editor’s Desk
by Frank R. Zindler

Jehovah’s Metabolism

It is a well-known fact that, according to the Hebrew bible, Yahweh (Jehovah) had a body. The so-called Old Testament tells us Yahweh looked just like us - although it also tells us that he could take the form of a talking shrub, a burning, talking shrub. Despite this, we were created in his image - both men and women, it is claimed in Gen. 1:27. So Yahweh ought to be an hermaphrodite. But if we are really his image, we too would have to at least look like hermaphrodites. So we have an incoherence here. That the Bible can’t be speaking metaphorically is obvious from the fact that Yahweh clearly is claimed to have body parts just like ours.

He has buttocks, for example. We know this from the quaint story of Yahweh mooning Moses, of which we read in Exod. 33:23: “And I shall take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts [Heb. ’achoray]: but my face shall not be seen.” The deity not only has buttocks, which Moses sees, but he has a hand, which covers Moses, and a face which Moses doesn’t get to see but clearly is implied to exist. That he has legs can be inferred from the fact that, according to Job 22:14, “He walketh on the vault of heaven.” [Since there is no vault of heaven that can be walked upon, we need go no further to see that Yahweh cannot exist - that he is the invention of primitive minds ignorant of the most elementary facts of astronomy. The ancient Hebrews believed the celestial bodies to be attached to the underside of a “firmament” (raqia’), a structure clearly understood as being solid and firm.] He has a nose (’aph) which gets red with anger according to Ezekiel 38:18 (“my fury shall come up in my face/nose”) and Deut.32:22 (lit. “for a fire is kindled in my nose.”

Now it is this nose that makes it clear our irritable god has metabolism like us. A nose, after all, is not just an organ for the sense of smell - although we know from Gen. 8:21 (“And the LORD smelled a sweet savour”) that Yahweh does sometimes use it for that homely purpose. The nose’s primary function is as a channel for the breath. God breathes! Why a god would need to breathe is certainly a mystery, but it implies that Yahweh has some sort of energy metabolism. That Yahweh does in fact breathe is shown in the second version of the creation myth, the one in Genesis chapter 2. There we learn that Yahweh breathed into Adam’s nostrils “the breath of life” - the biblical author mistakenly supposing that it is breath that makes something alive. Indeed, it is probably this biological misunderstanding that caused the biblical writers to suppose that even the gods had breath: if they didn’t breathe, they wouldn’t be alive! The sacred authors, alas, had never had an introductory course in biochemistry or physiology.

So, when the Christian Trinity was invented, one of its members was composed of nothing more than breath. The so-called Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, is literally the ‘holy breath’ (hagion pneuma) in the Greek text. It is both the breath of Yahweh and the breath of Jesus - as seen in John 20:22: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’.”

That Yahweh carries out some sort of metabolism is indicated not only by his having to breathe but also by his possession of bowels (mey’im, ‘intestines’) - structures needed for digesting food that is needed for energy metabolism. We learn in Isaiah 16:11 not only that Yahweh has bowels, but that they make noises: a sure sign of metabolic goings-on! That verse reads: “Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts (kerev, ‘bowels’) for Kirharesh.” From the context of the verse, some scholars have concluded that what this verse really means is that Yahweh is farting at Moab and Kirharesh to show his disdain for them. Colorful as this verse may be, the important point is that it shows that Yahweh carries on digestive metabolism that is assisted by intestinal microbes that produce the gas that he passes so musically. At this point it is clear beyond cavil: Yahweh carries on metabolism and must, therefore, eat in order to sustain himself. If he did, in fact, live a short distance above us at the place where the ‘firmament’ should be, we would definitely have a mess on our hands - or more likely, on our heads.

For an eternity, or for however many billions of years Yahweh has been residing above the earth, he would have been defecating and his intestinal products would be easily observable. If he were high enough up to be above the atmosphere, there should be a god-poop belt orbiting the earth - a sort of cosmic ring-around-the-toilet. But of course, Yahweh wouldn’t be able to breathe if he were above the atmosphere, and so we must suppose he dwells below orbital height, and his excrement is continuously raining down upon the earth. If this were so, we should find great deposits of fossil feces - theoturdite - rivaling the coal deposits of earth. But alas, nearly all our rock deposits can be accounted for by terrestrial sources, and the ones that contain extraterrestrial contamination are not the sort divine intestines might be expected to produce.

Thus, Yahweh must not exist. Nowhere do we find the feces which, if the Bible is to be taken at its word, he should be producing. Nor, as we have noted, do we find any trace of his abode, the firmament. The Jewish god was created in a male human’s image. Adopted by the Christians, he has tended to lose some of his body parts over the course of theological evolution. But he is still a male being - a male imaginary being.

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