(Belated) thanks Borgia.
A decent Wiki article on the history of atheism at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
On the Jewish side, beside the repressed denial of the "fool," I guess what comes closest is the remote God of Ecclesiastes, who gives the good and the bad in life in a very distant and mysterious way, with whom no "relationship" is really possible (God is in heaven, you are on earth). It is all the more noteworthy that it probably reflects a common view in early Sadducean, i.e. official priestly circles. Job (discounting the prosaic Prologue and happy ending) also violently questions the idea of a moral, just and rewarding God, and Yhwh's concluding discourses do not answer his questions -- instead, offering the picture of a God who doesn't care particularly about humans; a deep criticism of anthropocentrism in sum: mankind's "God" is not the "God of mankind".
I cannot help but wonder why an almighty God imprinting his followers with fear and awe at his might is stuck with people so easily deviated from his ways.......
Leaving aside the obvious anachronism (making the "deviation" a retrospective one, in view of later "reforms), iIt's a striking feature of most Bible texts -- at least if you take into account their probable date of production -- that Yhwh's (or Jesus') "great works" are always situated in the distant past.
E.g.
Isaiah 63:17ff:
Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways
and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?
Turn back for the sake of your servants,
for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.
Your holy people took possession for a little while;
but now our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
We have long been like those whom you do not rule, like those not called by your name.
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence--
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil--
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
Habakkuk 3:1:
O LORD, I have heard of your renown,
and I stand in awe, O LORD, of your work.
In our own time (lit. in the entrails of years) revive it;
in our own time make it known;
Still hoping for some living theists to venture on this topic... not a trap, honest.