I am finite, faulty, and frail, just as you made me: Scrupulosity and an unhealthy image of God

Abstract

Against the background of the majority voice in the Hebrew Bible, especially the Psalter, regarding the comforting significance of God’s attention to even the minutiae of an individual’s life and its implications regarding God’s expectation of devotion in every aspect of life, Ps 39:13 [14 Heb] and a handful of texts in Job stand out. They contemplate the specter of an overwhelmingly demanding, perfectionist deity, a God whose tender attention transmogrifies into a probing gaze, even a condemning glare. In so doing, these texts raise the question, not so much of God’s character as God reveals God’s self, but of the destructive power of a distorted image of God.