Were the Israelites any different from their neighbors in the ways they thought about the nature of deity? Did they think of Yahweh as having an inherent essence or simply as a deity who acted in particular ways? How would we know? Consistency might be one way. Another might be to observe affirmations of character even when actions seemed to suggest otherwise. A third would be to observe whether they show an inclination to deduce abstractions about the deity in a way that is distinct from the others in the ancient Near East.
