God's Transcendence Of Art In The Old Testament

I attended Dr. Jeremy Begbie’s lecture on March 13 titled What’s Transcendent about the Arts? A musician Re-thinks a Contemporary Theme. During this presentation, Dr. Begbie drew parallels between various forms of art and how they display God’s transcendence. I will more specifically discuss the topic of God’s uncontainability regarding architecture and other pieces of art in the Old Testament. Through these examples, an individual can identify that there is some kind of order to God’s transcendence but at the same time, this transcendence possesses a trait of uncontainability.

There are four leading assumptions Christians form in the conversation of transcendence in the arts. These four, in an abbreviated manner, are “that divine transcendence

An essential example of this is in 1 Samuel 4 when the Philistines take the Ark from the Israelites. The Israelites were camped in Ebenezer and the Philistines were in Aphek. The Israelites deployed their forces and were defeated by the Philistines. After the defeat, the elders of Israel then asked “Why did the Lord bring defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the Ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that he may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.” (New International Version, 1 Sam, 4.3). Men were then sent to Shiloh where they brought the Ark of the Covenant as they thought it would protect them from the Philistines. When it arrived, the Israelites gave such a great shout that the Philistines became aware that a “god had come into the camp” (New International Version, 1 Sam, 4.7). The Philistines were frightened but attacked anyway and fought harder since there was “a god” with the Israelites. The Philistines defeated the Israelites, killing thirty thousand foot soldiers and taking the Ark in the process. This shows that the Ark was not what was helping the Israelites. They believed that God could only be contained in this “box”. It was a piece of art made of gold that was understandably held as sacred as a result of its history with the high priest and the tabernacle. Masses of Israelites believed that God was contained and ordered

When Solomon brings the Ark to his temple and gives a prayer of dedication, he acknowledges that God cannot be contained within the temple. Solomon’s temple was a holy place where people came to pray, but it is not the only place where God’s presence was abounding. In 1 Kings 8, Solomon prays, “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (New International Version, 1 Kings 8:27). Solomon realizes that God will not be contained inside the Ark or the temple. There is order within the temple, but we cannot forget about the uncontainable nature of God that lives outside of the temple. This piece of architecture could not contain God or God’s love. He worked in numerous ways to assist the Israelites outside of the doors of the temple due to the fact that He did not solely reside inside the temple, his transcendence allows him to reside