he was afraid to look at God” (Exod. 3:6). In the New Testament, the disciples fall to the ground in terror when God speaks from heaven, affirming that Jesus is his son (Matt. 17:6). They are also terrified when Jesus reveals his power by stilling the storm (Mark 4:40–41). The point, in all of these texts, is that standing in the presence of God is at once wonderful and terrifying. Religion scholar Rudolf Otto (1958, 12–19) has defined the Holy as the Mysterium Tremendum, Latin for “the terrible