We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine

Peterson uses the story of the prophet Elijah to offer a fundamental characterization of God and a reason for studying biblical narratives. Elijah’s mysterious death (being carried up into heaven) and his appearance with the “transfigured” Christ in the New Testament are emblematic of the human need for self-transformation and moral growth, accompanied by a “high capacity for judgment” (xvi).

The life of Moses depicts more “awe-inducing transformation,” as the prophet’s face shines when he brings the tablet of the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai after his encounter with God. For Peterson, the mountains found in the Bible symbolize peaks of spiritual insight and relate to the upward climb of human life, reaching ever higher in the process of “play, maturation, and growth” (xix).

During Elijah’s lifetime, Israel fell under the corrupt rule of King Ahab and his non-Israelite wife, Jezebel, who influenced him to establish the worship of Baal in place of Yahweh (God). The consequence of this wrong turn is a severe drought in the land—which Peterson presents as a metaphor for the spiritual impoverishment that follows when humans orient themselves around the wrong ideal.