The Oldest Image of God in the Old Testament Is… (drumroll, please)

Let’s just rip off the bandage: from a historical linguistic point of view, the earliest depiction of God in the Old Testament isn’t the gentle shepherd, the wise king, or the loving parent we tend to emphasize in sermons and children’s books. It’s not even the creation stories in Genesis. The oldest material we have in the Bible depicts God as a warrio…