Mark Twain on God

on Sep 25 in Essays & Reviews by Don Silver

“It is most difficult to understand the disposition of the Bible God. However, when after much puzzling you get at the key to his disposition, you do at last arrive at a sort of understanding of it. With a most quaint and juvenile and astonishing frankness he has furnished that key himself. It is jealousy!

I expect that to take your breath away. You are aware that among human beings jealousy ranks distinctly as a weakness; a trademark of small minds, yet a property which even the smallest is ashamed of; and when accused of its possession will lyingly deny it and resent the accusation as an insult.

[Nevertheless, God] says, naively, outspokenly and without suggestion of embarrassment: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God™.

You see, it is only another way of saying, I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things.”

[Letters from the Earth]