I was on my way to TCU and waiting by a bus stop (as usual) when something hit me. I had always been bothered by the name of God from the book of Exodus--"I am". (I mean let's face it--"I am" is one hell of an odd way to present yourself to someone you created, especially if you want him to be your acolyte. :))

In the years since I became a Christian, I've heard two overlapping explanations for God's use of "I am" as the name by which he apparently wants the human race to recognize him:

1. God wanted to establish himself as a person who exists (as opposed to a force or impersonal entity).

I understand why a lot of conservative Christians might believe that--after all, it does serve the conservative Christian movement's fundamental goal of distinguishing itself from other religions and other points of view about the nature of the universe--but ultimately . . . this reasoning is bullshit.

Assuming that the Exodus story was a literal event, neither Moses, nor the Hebrew slaves, nor the people he met in Midian, nor the Egyptian rulers and slave masters themselves would have been able to conceive of a supreme force (or energy) that was not a personal deity. The prevailing religions in Egypt were polytheism and emperor worship--and any Hebrew (slave or free) who did not subscribe to these religions had the ancestral stories of his tribe. None of these faith/belief systems challenged the concept of a personal deity, and I find it unlikely that any of the principles involved in the Exodus--either Hebrew or Egyptian--would have been able to imagine a universe without a personal creator.

Assuming, as I think we can, that the Exodus story was an oral tradition handed down through the centuries and finally written down during the years of Israel's exile in Babylon (or afterward), I think we can safely say that a similar situation existed. The religious environment of the time of the Babylonian exile and the Persian rule offered the same choices--monotheism and polytheism. While Persia and Greece doubtless introduced descendants of the Israeli exile to belief systems comprising agnosticism, pantheism, and Zoroastrianism, the monotheistic traditions (and oral histories) of the time would not have allowed for the acceptance of a divinity without personality or being.

In short . . . this line of reasoning is rooted more in the struggle of 21st century conservative Christianity to maintain its identity in a pluralistic world than in historic and textual fact.

2. God's use of "I am" as a name was intended to establish his superiority over the people who worshipped him.

I can summarize my response to this claim in one word:

Why?

Think about it for a moment. "God". Does that not, in itself, symbolize a degree of superiority?

Prior to this name-change, God (or at least the God of the ancient Hebrews) was simply known as "Elohim" or "God". (Well, actually "Elohim" is literally "Gods" (plural), but we'll talk about that in a later post.:))

So why the hell would "God" need to call himself "I am" in order to prove his superiority? (It certainly seems like a rather ridiculous way to go about it, in my opinion.)



Today, however, as I was waiting for the bus, a third possibility occurred to me:

What if "I am" was a way of reminding the Hebrews of the importance of recognizing and cherishing their identity as a self-sufficient, free people?

Think about it. "I am." It's the most profound (and defiant) statement of the human existence. I am. I exist. I was here. Regardless of what anyone does to me, they cannot erase my existence . . . even if they were to erase the memory of my existence. That I am remembered is not nearly as important as the fact that

I

was

here

at

all.

To have breathed, to have taken space, in a world where people are often ignored, terrorized, or shunned, is the most basic claim that, ultimately, each and every one of us can make--and often, many of us fail to recognize the profound importance of this simple fact. Regardless of what anyone else does to us . . . we are here. Regardless of how we are characterized by others . . . we are here.

Sometimes, to merely exist is, in a small way, an act of defiance--and a sign of freedom.

Perhaps this is what "I am" of Exodus meant to convey to the ancient Israeli people, in a way they would be sure to remember.

Or perhaps (as with many other things) he was simply misquoted.