"It is, for example, the autonomy of humanity over against God that accounts for one of the most remarkable features of the Hebrew Bible, the possibility that people can argue with God and win. As odd as this may seem in comparison with the New Testament and the Qur'an, for example, it is neither unprecedented in the ancient Near East (where the suasion of one god is usually performed by another) nor without continuation in pos-biblical Judaism. In the Hebrew Bible the most eloquent instance of the justified human challenge to God is to be found in Abraham's response to YHWH's announcement of his imminent overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah."
Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: the Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence, chapter 12, "Argument and Obedience," p. 149
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