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Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions April D DeConick, Grant Adamson (Editors), 2013&#160;In Western religious traditions, God is conventionally conceived as a humanlike creator, lawgiver, and king, a being both accessible and actively present in history. Yet there is a concurrent and strong tradition of a God who actively hides. The two traditions have led to a tension between a God who is simultaneously accessible to humanity and yet inaccessible, a God who is both immanent and transcendent, present and absent. Western Gnostic, esoteric, and mystical thinking capitalizes on the hidden and hiding God. He becomes the hallmark of the mystics, Gnostics, sages, and artists who attempt to make accessible to humans the God who is secreted away. ‘Histories of the Hidden God’ explores this tradition from antiquity to today. The essays focus on three essential themes: the concealment of the hidden God; the human quest for the hidden God, and revelations of the hidden God.(Text by the editors)&#160;Contents:Part I - Concealment of the Hidden God1 - Who is hiding in the Gospel of John? Reconceptualizing Johannine theology and the roots of Gnosticism - April D. DeConick, Rice University2 - Adoil outside the cosmos: God before and after Creation in the Enochic tradition - Andrei A. Orlov, Marquette University3 - The old gods of Egypt in lost Hermetica and early Sethianism - Grant Adamson, Rice University4 - Hidden God and hidden self: The emergence of apophatic anthropology in Christian mysticism - Bernard McGinn, University of Chicago5 - God's occulted body: On the hiddenness of Christ in Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus - Claire Fanger, Rice University&#160;Part II - The Human Quest for the Hidden God6 - Obscured by the scriptures, revealed by the prophets: God in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies - Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St Edward's University7 - How hidden was God? Revelation and pedagogy in ancient and medieval Hermetic writings - David Porreca, Rice University8 - From hidden to revealed in Sethian revelation, ritual, and protology - John D. Turner, University of Nebraska9 - Shamanism and the hidden history of modern Kabbalah - Jonathan Garb, Hebrew University10 - Dreaming of paradise: Seeing the hidden God in Islam - David Cook, Rice University&#160;Part III - Revelations of the Hidden God11 - Revealing and concealing God in ancient synagogue art - Shira Lander, Rice University12 - The invisible Christian God in Christian art - Robin M. Jensen, Vanderbilt University13 - On the Mothman, God, and other monsters: The demonology of John A. Keel - Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University14 - Hidden away: Esotericism and Gnosticism in Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam - Stephen C. Finley, Louisiana State University15 - Conscious concealment: The repression and expression of African American Spiritualists - Margarita Simon Guillory, Rochester University16 - Occulture in the academy? The case of Joseph P. Farrell - John Stroup, Rice UniversityAfterword: Mysticism, Gnosticism, and esotericism as entangled discourses - Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen&#160;BibliographyIndex