In the Mesopotamian age, polytheistic deities were constantly being ascribed to natural processes that baffled the ancient man. Now, when we look over the Bible, we read our monotheistic ideas into the book but historians and archaeologists have been able to find striking similarities between the Hebrew text and culture that are parallel with early polytheistic beliefs, as well as ancient creation myths like Enûma Eliš and Genesis.
Strangely enough, it was once a sign of respect for ancient man to abandon his own beliefs and worship the god of whatever culture he happened to stumble upon during his travels. In the Old Testament the “chosen people” were much more monolatrous than monotheistic, meaning they worshiped one God while other gods were recognized as existing (although much later a shift in this paradigm began to occur once monotheism slowly took shape in the Middle East).
While modern man perceives God elusively, ancient man defined God in the limits of natural processes, showcasing his power through strength and bloodshed similar to the polytheistic gods confined to the limits of their purpose.
That is, until we find a somewhat revolutionary portrayal of God in an encounter with Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-12. Elijah waits on top of Mount Sinai after instructions to stand on the mountain in the “presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by” until he witnesses a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire to discover that God was not in any of them. Then, after the fire, came a “gentle whisper.” Even though the author falls back on a type of “war god” (glorified in his strength) immediately after the gentle whisper when God gives instructions to Elijah on how to kill off all the Baal worshipers in the area, the story is still very counterintuitive to its culture.
While I’m not equipped or wise enough to answer how the ancients would have viewed such an elusive God or how they would’ve read 1 Kings, Elijah’s interaction with God blends perfectly with modern spirituality and the divine hiddenness of God. In my mind, I picture Elijah waiting for God to arise through these great natural processes but then finds God exactly where he least expected: a God counterintuitive to culture, a “great iconoclast” as C.S. Lewis once said. It’s the same with the well-known sufferings of Job who, after losing everything, questions God and his faith. A few friends of Job travel from afar to console him with their wisdom after his great calamity, but Job knows that he can no longer answer the same old questions with dogma and religion anymore; he needs something more than just his beliefs: he needs God. And it’s in his humble questioning rather than strict adherence to religious rites that Job finds peace in spite of great adversity.
Like Elijah, Job found God not in his religion but in his honest and humble searching. In the end, all I hope is that after the hell and chaos of a strong wind, a mighty earthquake, and the raging fires, may we all be consoled by a sweet, gentle whisper whenever and however we least expect it.
