Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Israel and the Cosmological Empires of the Ancient Orient
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 193–222
Keywords:
Voegelin, Eric, Criticism and interpretation
;
Bible. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Monotheism Biblical teaching
;
Monotheism History
;
Jewish law Biblical teaching
Abstract:
Starting from Eric Voegelin’s view of the decisive importance of Deuteronomy in the development from Israelite to Early Jewish religion, I shall concentrate on an issue that has been vibrantly discussed in Hebrew Bible scholarship since Voegelin’s times: the emergence of monotheism. In recent decades we have become aware that monotheism does not predate exilic times, that is, the sixth century BCE. The decisive texts in the Hebrew Bible that explicitely negate the existence of other gods besides Yhwh, thus pointing the way to ‘monotheistic’ thought, are found in Deuteronomy (cf. especially 4:35, 39) and in Deutero-Isaiah. This paper will focus on the interplay between this idea and the conception of divine law in Deuteronomy, suggesting that the ultimate authorization of divine law by negating the existence of other gods may have been one of the motivating factors in the emergence of monotheism. If this is the case, Deuteronomy’s role in the history of monotheistic religions may be even more decisive than Voegelin thought.
DOI:
10.30965/9783846764879_009
URL:
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