Chasing Mystery

Carey Walsh is associate professor of Old Testament at Villanova University. She is the author of Exquisite Desire: Religion, the Erotic, and the Song of Songs and The Fruit of the Vine: Viticulture in Ancient Israel.

• ContentsChapter 1: Where Did God Go?   1The Purpose of This Book   4Biblical Theology   6A Note on Absence   9Methodological Perspectives   14Deuteronomy’s Choice   18In the Beginning   20Chapter 2: Mystery and Modernity   23The Issue of Invisibility   23Modernity’s Worldview   25The Numinous Mystery of the Divine   30Incomprehensibility and Hiddenness of God   35Chapter 3: Holy Text and Revelation   39Access to the Bible   39Jacob Wrestles with the Angel   42Ask and Seek   43Losing Jesus in the Temple   44Wandering in the Desert   45A Hermeneutics of Trust   49Chapter 4: Torah and the Agility of Faith   57Theophany   57The Burning Bush   58Mount Sinai   63The Guidance of a Cloud   66The Death of Moses   74Chapter 5: Angels, Holy Sites, and Prophets   75Angels   76Holy Sites   78Prophets   81Chapter 6: The Problem with Omnipotence   85The Contesting Theophanies of Wisdom   86The Power Theophany of Job   87Ecclesiastes’ Search for the “Vanity of Vanities”   91From Vanity to Vapor   93Chapter 7: The Dilemma of Suffering   101Job in Crisis   101Theodicy in Christian Tradition   111Varieties of Atheism   114Faith after Desolation   120Chapter 8: Jesus   123God Made Visible   123The Father’s Silence   131The Vanishing Jesus   133The Road to Emmaus   138Chapter 9: Real Presence   141Remaining Present with God   141Empirical Bias   143Paradox of Faith   144Real Presence   146Bibliography   151Subject Index   159Scripture Index   161

Carey Walsh takes us into the thicket of Scripture, thorns and all, in order to ‘chase’ the divine mystery. Though trained as a scholar, she is less interested in textual analysis than in exploring those moments of disclosure when the Bible breaks open and breaks in. Reading a quirky Old Testament narrative can be aggravating as well as difficult. But for those who persist, she argues, joy awaits, a journey begins—a bumpy movement from disturbance to awe to contentment. Sharing her own experience, Walsh helps us see where the holy may be lurking unnoticed, waiting to be discovered.Peter S. Hawkins, Yale Divinity School, Author of Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come