Where is God? Divine Absence in the Hebrew Bible
"Contrary to prior scholarship, Joel Burnett convincingly demonstrates that divine absence is hardly the exception but a norm attested across a wide span of narrative, poetic, and legal texts in the Hebrew Bible and in Israelite personal names. The idea of divine elusiveness was not unique to ancient Israel but rather marks Israel's commonality with other ancient Near Eastern peoples. God's apparent absence results from the structure of the cosmos as human beings experience it. Contrary to what many readers of the Bible might expect, some forms of divine absence are not a result of human sin or divine neglect but rather are the consequence of God's allowance of human freedom even while guarding the boundaries of divine prerogatives. This fine book covers a vast amount of ancient Near Eastern and biblical religion and literature and is deeply informed by the best scholarship. Thoughtful and judicious, theologically sensitive and deeply aware of the importance of the theme for faith, Where Is God? offers a beautiful probing of the biblical God's absence and presence. For those trying to understand biblical thinking about divine absence, this is it." --Mark S. Smith, Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies"In Where Is God? Joel S. Burnett examines the spatial relationship between deities and humans, particularly the center of divine presence and absence as well as their boundaries. In doing so, he throws dazzling light on the special role of personal names expressing a sense of divine absence and reminds readers that ultimate mystery implies freedom, which in trying times may be seen as distance." --James L. Crenshaw, Robert L. Flowers Professor of Old Testament Emeritus"A deep penetration into biblical ways of thinking about the profound and unavoidable human question where is God? Burnett knows that the experience of the absence of God is inextricably bound up with the ways we also experience and know of God's presence in our midst. His wide-ranging look at the question does much more than take up the most obvious texts. The distinctive contribution of this book is its awareness and investigation of how thoroughly the whole of the Old Testament has to do with this fundamental issue- from personal names to family structures, from creation to wisdom, and from Jerusalem to exile." --Patrick D. Miller, Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary