Holy, Holiness

One does not define God. Similarly, the idea of holiness is at once understandable and elusive. Nevertheless, there is not term equal to the fullness inherent in holiness. All of heaven's hosts, Israel, and the church ascribe praise to a holy God because that idea sets him apart from everything else ( Exod 15:11 ; Isa 6:3 ; Rev 4:8 ). Holiness is what God is. Holiness also comprises his plan for his people.

In Genesis we read that the seventh day is "holy" ( Gen 2:3 ). In the same book Tamar is referred to by the Hebrew term, qadesa [h'ved.q] ( Genesis 38:15 Genesis 38:21 ). The latter is highly instructive at this point. In Old Testament times what was holy belonged to the gods in an absolute way. Judah's misperception of Tamar was based on awareness of how people viewed the holy. If the gods were sexed and needed sex, then it is no shock that those who served in the temple should be set apart for similar activity.

In the first clear biblical usage of the term that introduces a human to the character of God as holy, there are both similarities to and differences from pagan attempts to define holiness. It is intriguing to ponder the possible theological and religious categories that may have prepared Moses to hear Yahweh's command to remove his shoes because the ground on which he stood was "holy" ( Exod 3:5 ). The universal description of the holy is that which is separated from the normal in a conceptual way. Yet through revelatory instruction Moses taught Israel that their conception of the holy affirmed an essential difference between themselves and deity. Pagan worshipers in that region could not have reflected on the nature of the holy with that sort of clarity. What was "other" than the normal for them was distinct in Israel as a personal "Other."

Moses recognized, as others would have, a difference that meant that the one addressing him had special rights to determine the sanctity of the place where he was present. It was the content of the term to come that was to set Israel apart. These ideas, apparent in the pagan religions, were incorporated and then transformed by the Israelites in light of the Holy One who revealed his nature by word and action. The concepts that replaced the typical understanding of the holy were to revolutionize the history of Israel and, consequently, the world.

Holiness in the Ancient Near East: Fear and Manipulation. Although the terms from the root qds, holy or holiness, used in the cultures surrounding Israel do not appear in the extant texts as often as one might expect, there remains enough textual evidence to conclude basic agreement on meaning. Recent scholarship in a variety of disciplines has confirmed that holiness pertains primarily to that which is recognized as divine. Rudolf Otto's ground-breaking work on this issue set a trajectory for much of the discussion of the phenomenon of the holy in this century. Apparently, when it comes to ancient Near Eastern views of holiness, similarities in general emphases are profound enough to outweigh the differences in deity names and the cultic practices instituted in relation to them.

Without the concept of a personal God to discern the meaning of existence, the pagan mind formulated a variety of interpretive tools to express reality. Awe, dread, unapproachability, vitality, and mystery are the most common atttributes indicated in texts that reveal how the ancients perceived the holy. The aspect of separation between the sacred and the profane can be seen in each of these. The inherent presupposition was that the holy elicited the irrational responses of humans. People knew their place in relation to the holy. When confronted with something other than themselves, the immediate response was fear mixed, as Otto indicates, with fascination.

Several notes of contrast with Israel's faith highlight what continually occurred in the absence of biblical revelation in minds that were confronted with the unknown. It is evident that the religions that intersected Israel's history found their predominant motivation in existence to be servile fear. Fear of the fickle actions of nature and spirit was projected onto the gods they made and worshiped as holy. Human worth was exhausted in the sole purpose of serving the basic need of the gods, in order to escape impending judgment. That dread of the holy was dealt with by a complex system of cultic appeasement that was, in essence, the attempt to manipulate the "gods, " which were personified spiritual and natural forces. Response to the "holy" resulted in the complex system of polytheistic pantheons of ancient cultures. They were similar in one regard: what was holy could never be trusted, only feared.

Though religion was recognized as the central issue of life, its connection to the holy reveals rigorous attempts to bring what was feared (e.g., dead crops, dry riverbeds, rainless clouds) into alignment with the wishes of the worshiper. Morality was connected to a notion of the holy only in the slightest of ways. At best, contractual social agreements were made and kept for the sole purpose of insuring personal safety and success. Both gods and humans had to be viewed with mistrust.