Introduction: In search of the hidden God

Summary

A GOD AT ONCE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN

In Western religious traditions, God is conventionally conceived to be a humanlike creator, lawgiver, and king. In the Hebrew bible, he is not pictured as an incorporeal deity. Rather he has a form – a tselem and a demut – that is humanlike. He possesses body parts: a face, hands, ears, mouth, fingers and feet. He is enthroned in the highest heaven and rules the universe from his celestial temple. So in the scriptures he is lauded as the God of the Heavens. He is the astral Lord, known as the god whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth. He talks to the Israelites out of the heavens and his luminous embodied image, the kavod, can be seen in heaven by visionaries like Ezekiel.

His heavenly presence, however, is not the whole story. This is a god who also was believed to have a physical presence in the sky and on earth. He is the god who manifests himself in the cosmos, riding on the clouds, whose appearances or theophanies are accompanied by thunder, lightning, rain, and earthquake. In the biblical literature, the temple – the replica of his heavenly station – was believed to house God's presence in Jerusalem, although its limited size was such that it could barely contain the fringes of his mantle.