God

The protagonist of the Tanakh and the subject of Miles' biography (better: theography) is a complex character redolent with the traits and temperaments of the Semitic deities that monotheistic Judaism could no longer name. The texts sometimes refer to him as `Elohim, a generic referent to godhead but also a personal name. God creates the world and humankind as his self-image, male and female, with no strings attached; he wants only that they reproduce and prosper. God destroys the first defective attempt with a clear purpose to enter a covenant with the remnant he allows to survive. Yahweh, by contrast, creates a single male whom he restricts from knowledge of good and bad; he curses him (and the woman he creates as an afterthought from Adam's rib) and eventually grows so angry at his descendants that he wishes he had never created them and wipes them out in...