After the founding of the Egyptian state around 3100 BC, the authority to perform these tasks was controlled by the pharaoh, who claimed to be the gods' representative and managed the temples where the rituals were carried out.
Beads adorn the ritual objects and regalia of those gods' earthly representatives: kings and queens, priests, diviners and healers.
"That means we're God's representatives here on Earth, we're God's hands, we're God's feet, we're God's mouthpiece".
Human claims to resource ownership reflect people's presumption to share ownership with God or to displace God's ownership, both comparable to sharing God's identity, a grave error. 7) Even so, God's representatives remain ripe with interpretive power.
Traditions of theocratic kingship, which were based on Roman and Christian precedents, emerged in the early centuries of the period, leading kings to assume their status as God's representatives on earth.
But there is ostensibly a major difference: American presidents are picked by voters driven by pragmatic concerns, while popes — in Catholicism, God's representatives on earth — are picked by cardinals led by the Holy Spirit.
Mr. Wills, whose book "Why I Am a Catholic" is being published soon, said there was no reason to accommodate the sinful actions of God's representatives on earth.
It was enough that they obey them, that they observe the laws in their behaviour, and that they offer them the public deference that was appropriate to their status as God's representatives, worthy or otherwise, on earth.
They were anointed to pray for the people, to offer sacrifices, to care for the temple, to be God's representatives before the people... Kings were anointed to take dominion.
The version of the Hanukkah song that I grew up singing sought to remind Jews of this partnership between the divine and the human by celebrating the achievements of both the Maccabees -- quintessential human actors -- and the rabbis, who served as God's representatives to Israel.
