"When Gods Were Men"

In the texts of Genesis 18 and 32, God appears to a patriarch in person and is referred to by the narrator as a man, both times by the Hebrew word ī sh . In both texts, God as īsh is described in graphically human terms. This type of divine appearance is identified here as the " ī sh theophany". The phenomenon of God appearing in concrete human form is first distinguished from several other types of anthropomorphism, such as divine appearance in dreams. The ī sh theophany is viewed in relation t