Why does the Bible give God human qualities?

Question

And are we to take them so literally?

Answer 1

Actually God gave you His qualities. The ability to love, all the emotions of the heart are from God. Yes, take them literally. It is God's desire to have a relationship with you. Don't you find that awesome. That the creator of the heavens and earth wants to be in fellowship with you.He provided the way by sending Jesus, by accepting Christ you immediately have fellowship with God. That is awesome!

Answer 2

The Bible doesn't give God human qualities, the Bible says that humans were created in the image of God and so we share some of His divine attributes. Animals don't know what it means to demonstrate sacrificial love or to be jealous because someone they love is being seduced by another. When it talks about God being angry and a jealous God that's like a father being angry and jealous because his son has turned away from the father's love and decided to live his life devoted to drugs and prostitutes and crime.

Exodus 34:14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice,

1 Corinthians 10:19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Answer 3

In a book published some time in the 1990s called "Enduring Issues In Philosophy" which deals with several of the most prominant major questions of philosophy, the issue of Universals and Particulars is dealt with; and this gets to the answer to your question. Because you have to understand the definition of God to understand the answer to your question.

You will have to study universals and particulars as a prerequisite to this answer. God is a universal. It it rather asymetrically ignorant to not understand that God who created beings could not himself be a being. When God created man there was a difference between God and man. Man is a god. Man is particular.

So God is universal, god is particular.
This is the same as saying:
God is universal, mankind is particular.

The full answer to your question is bound up in the very mystery of God, which shall be revealed on Judgement Day.

Answer 4

It depends on what you mean by human qualities. Remember the Bible IS divinely inspired. That is, God said to the writers of the various books to WRITE and He said WHAT to write. Verbatim.

Answer 5

It's actually the other way around. We were created in his image.
Under the Kingdom of God they will be well manifested.

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Answer 6

Genesis 1:26: " And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.”

Of course, since God and Jesus were and are spirit, then they must have meant our mental capacity,and our ability to be self aware and having free will, to feel compassion and empathy, and so on...like them.

Maybe it isn't so much that the Bible gives God human qualities, but rather we are given the ability to develop godly qualities when we learn about God from the Bible and apply what we learn to our lives.

And yes, I believe that we should take God's qualities which are set out in the Bible figuratively literally. Ofcourse, the Bible is penned by men so that we can understand it. God's ways are so much higher that ours, but he humbles himself for our benefit. What a wonderful and loving God we have!

Isaiah 55:6-11: "Search for Jehovah, YOU people, while he may be found. Call to him while he proves to be near. 7 Let the wicked man leave his way, and the harmful man his thoughts; and let him return to Jehovah, who will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will forgive in a large way.

8 “For the thoughts of YOU people are not my thoughts, nor are my ways YOUR ways,” is the utterance of Jehovah. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than YOUR ways, and my thoughts than YOUR thoughts. 10 For just as the pouring rain descends, and the snow, from the heavens and does not return to that place, unless it actually saturates the earth and makes it produce and sprout, and seed is actually given to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it."

Answer 7

If the Image of God was created by bears, god would act like them.

Answer 8

More like..the Bible gives us God-like qualities. We were made in -HIS- image.

Answer 9

No. We dont take them literally. We must create something we can associate literally, because no one can fully comprehend God.

Answer 10

maybe they are not human qualities, maybe these qualities are really God's original qualites. I think we were born with some of these qualities, but because of sin we have corrupted these qualities.