I'm reading Friedman's Disappearance of God (see my Now Reading list) and came across an enlightening discussion of "the still small voice." He suggests on page 23 that the Hebrew words would be better translated as "a sound of thin hush," representing essentially a sound of silence. In other words, the text isn't saying there was a still small voice, it is saying there was no voice and no sound at all following the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Friedman reads I Kings 19, Elijah's encounter with God on Horeb or Sinai, against chapter 18, Elijah calling down fire on Mount Carmel to show up the pagan priests in Israel. Chapter 19 he then reads as God's rejection of such showy displays of divine power and His unwillingness to do that kind of thing anymore. But is chapter 19 then an endorsement of "the still small voice" as an alternative avenue of God's revelation, as Mormons read it? Or is the "sound of thin hush" in chapter 19 part of a retreat from direct revelation altogether (whether by showy displays or quieter voices) in favor of mediation through the person of a prophet, as Friedman appears to suggest?
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