Several books on my bookshelves wrestle with the idea of “a hidden God.” My Amazon wish list contains a few as well. So here we will put the big question earlier than normal:

Question

How can we understand the character of God, who is both the single most important character in the Hebrew Bible and yet absent from the majority of it?

As we read Scripture, we note that God often uses stand-ins for Himself. Why?

Stand-Ins for God:

Angels

Humans

Judges

Kings

Prophets

Humans speak about God:

God’s friends

God’s foes

Narrator

Nature

Animate

Inanimate

Absence

Additional Questions

How many of these stand-ins are created, sin-damaged, or sin-traumatized? The reliability of their witness for/about God is what ...