Part 3—Ten items of note regarding Jewish history
Israel–First, while Israel was the name of the northern kingdom, after its fall, the name is appropriated by the south as the indicative of its faith and race. The name Israel has an uncertain and muchly debated history. It is first found as a name given Jacob, the father of the twelve sons who are the eponyms of the twelve tribes. It was given him after a rowdy encounter with an angel and has been interpreted as meaning something akin to “Let El (God) rule”.
Judaism–Second, Judaism was not born fully formed. It evolved into the Judaism of today over centuries of reflection, practice, adjustment, reconsideration. In its early centuries it was under constant challenge from the religions of its neighbours. Often, it was submerged by them. At times it was nearly extinguished by them. In the process of finding its own responses to the challenges from outside the cult, the religious ideas and practices of others coloured and textured Judaism. Such, of course, is well said of every religion, every living entity. We mature by finding the effective practices to enunciate who we are, where we are, and where we need go. Such evolution, being dialogical, always involves the incorporation of extraneous materials.
Political Power–Third, while there were times of national strength and independence, both Israel and Judah were minor powers and so usually either in the orbit or vassalage of some major power, and so also its language, its social-political ideals and ideas, its social structures and mores, its creed and its rites. Not every adaptation to these sat well with those great chambers of sober second thought—the prophets.
Religious Reform–Fourth, the reform initiated by King Joshia might be considered akin to the reform undertaken centuries later in another religion by Luther. It was a return to scripture as newly understood, as understood here through the legalistic eyes of a sacerdotal mind in an age of a rising sense of individual social responsibility and moral culpability. After centuries of teetering back and forth under the influence of foreign cults, Judaism was at a juncture of purifying and redefining itself from within.
Exile, Freedom, and Subjugation–Fifth, the destruction of the Solomonic Temple and the exile into Babylon created a crisis of almost incomprehensible proportions. Unlike the Assyrians in the conquest of the north, the Babylonians did not fill the land with new inhabitants. They dispersed the powerful and educated throughout the imperial lands. They left the country under-populated, depleted and desolate. Not only was the land, the government and the cult exenterated, the people and the faith were beleaguered to the brink of extinction. What was the meaning of this exile from the land of promise? What was the meaning of this being flung out all over the world among the gentiles? After centuries of being compressed into a “people”, a sacred people, everything was in jeopardy of falling into meaninglessness. What did it mean to be a Jew without Temple, without cult, without homeland? Such questions fell to the priests and the prophets. Their response was the codification of God’s revelation to the ancestors, his election of the people, his covenant with the people, his Law. Their response was, in brief, the creation of the scriptures, and of the synagogue wherein they were to be studied and prayed.
The Scriptures–Sixth, it was the priesthood that undertook the editing of the various sacred narratives and laws to produce a text today we would recognize as (substantially) the Jewish scriptures. It needs be noted that because this is an editing by priests, cultic law carries a certain primacy. It needs further be noted that these priests were not subject to our contemporary ideas of editing, and that their work values compilation rather than elision. Various extant narratives of the various tribes and traditions are set side by side or intermingled into a new narrative. Thus we have two versions of the creation, one set after the other. There are several versions of the story of the flood intermingled, giving the modern reader a seemingly confusing tale wherein two of every animal are to be gathered, but shortly thereafter two of every unclean animal and seven pairs of every clean animal, even if this distinction does not historically arise until after the exodus from Egypt ages later, and even if here the point is moot, for at this stage in time, man is allowed to eat only of the fruit of the earth, humankind, via Noah, being given permission to become omnivorous only after the flood. Even cultic rules topple in contradiction one over the other. Contrary traditions are not eliminated, simply recorded. Scholars have produced volumes detailing these compilations and conflations. Later traditions will tell of the proto-existence of the sacred texts in heaven and their being given whole, perfect and entire to Moses. Such traditions regarding sacred texts are not unknown in other religions and simply bespeak the intimacy with the Holy these works are reverently accorded.
The Synagogue–Seventh, this sacerdotal enterprise was countered by a lay endeavour, the synagogue. The Temple and its cult were the preserve of the priests. The synagogue was an organization created and run by a lay leadership. It provided the forum for the study of the sacred texts and for prayer. It anchored the community as not only a religion but as a race.
The Dispersion–Eight, unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians did not subjugate the exiles into servitude. Many prospered as merchants and scholars in various lands. Many elected not to return to the homeland. Some fell away from their ancestral religion. Others kept their faith alive and established synagogues that over the centuries preserved not only the Jewish community, but became beacons of monotheism and moral integrity attracting many gentiles, “God-fearers”, whose descendants in faith generations later would be the fertile grounds for the spreading of the gospel among the nations.
The Prophets–Ninth, every religion evidences two aspects, the spiritual and the cultic. The cult ritualizes the code of values, and the spiritual disciplines exercise the mind and heart in the cultivation of those same values. In ancient Judaism, the cult was the preserve of the priests, spiritual development the preserve of the prophets.
There exists a common misconception that the prophets were seers, forecasters of the future. They were not. They were astute men who could effectively read the signs of the times, politically, socially, spiritually. That which to them was the aposematic, was to others the muddled, and so they counselled rulers regarding affairs of state, priests regarding orthodoxy and purity, and the masses regarding the need for heartfelt fidelity to the covenant made with God. They were the social and political conscience of the nation, the spiritual directors of the people. The early prophets were muchly occupied defending monotheism and the orthodox cult of the God of the fathers. By the time of Assyria’s assent, their reflections centre on the cultic infidelities and the moral unworthiness of the masses and their rulers, and on the divine justice in the coming turmoil and destruction. At this time begins a subtle shift in their envisioning of the Holy. The focus begins to move from a legal, contractual relationship between God and Israel to a personal relationship betwixt the two. Such had always been there, but now it begins the move to the foreground. Divine transcendence is coupled more and more with the immanence of the divine. God wants the hearts of men, not sacrifices of cows and sheep. Israel is the chosen, not as an honour unto itself but as a beacon to the world, as a statement that here is to be found the true vision of God, here is the right path to holiness and the fullness of the world’s well-being. This shift carries with it a change in emphasis as to the grounds of culpability and responsibility. Anciently, these had rested on the people as a whole, upon the tribe, the nation. Now the individual, as a member of the Chosen, stands one on one before God. One must act and answer before the Holy not only as a member of the covenanted people, but as oneself. These themes continue to evolve, and the role of the individual and the universality of the divine call in and through Israel culminate in the complex of visionary ideas we know as messianism.
Messianism–Tenth, the term messiah means “one anointed”, one given divine delegation. In ancient Judaism both kings and priests were anointed with oil as a sign of their divine appointment to office. The corresponding Greek term for messiah is christos. While messianism or talk of a messiah is an important vein in prophetic literature, for Christianity, as the name implies, it is the mother-lode.
It must be noted that there are two distinct idealizations colouring the visions of messianism. Time, as indeed in much of the prophetic corpus, is anesthetized. Past, present and future all exist together in an amorphous nearness and idealization. It is impossible to say if the statement refers to now or some distant future. It is both a stylistic and ritualistic devise to present the situation from the perspective of the timeless divine rather than fleeting human history. David, his reign, the Davidic dynasty, Jerusalem, the Temple and the Covenant of Sinai are also idealized, becoming proto-types of the perfection about to descend. The messianic time becomes a restoration of, a re-creation of Davidic sovereignty; the holy city and its Temple are re-newed and eternalized; the covenant is recast in most intimate personal, spiritual terms. In brief, the messianic vision is one wherein heaven comes to earth veiled in the familiar terms of country and cult, and all is well forevermore. It is a vision of a socio-political reality infused with religious orthodoxy and moral rectitude wherein Jerusalem is the heart of a world at peace, enlightened by the God of Israel. Despite our tendency after two millennia of Christianity to totally spiritualize messianism, it was and is about the making of heaven on earth, not the forsaking of earth for “something better” in heaven.
There are later shifts in this paradigm. As history brings forth more and more less than desirable monarchs, the idea of a messianic king tends to morph into the idea of a messianic servant of the people, one who, unlike the great overlords, is at one with God and with the people, one who suffers for the sake of the people, who truly leads them, saves them, and brings them to the new times wherein God and men dwell together. As historical circumstances also befuddle the line of high priestly succession, there enters into the picture some reflection on a sacerdotal messiah beside the royal messiah. Scholars debate if such ideas should be considered as referring to the people of Israel as a whole, to an individual, or to two individuals. Such speculation was extant in Jesus’ day.