בצלו של אלוהים - פוליטיקה במקרא

by מיכאל וולצר, Yaniv Farkas (Translator)

מה עומד מאחורי הפוליטיקה המקראית? האם המקרא יכול להוות השראה לתכנית פעולה מדינית? האם הוא מצדד במשטר פוליטי כזה או אחר?
הספר בצלו של אלוהים, פרי עטו של מיכאל (מייקל) וולצר, מגדולי הפילוסופים הפוליטיים בימינו מציע קריאה מעוררת מחשבה של המקרא. וולצר מנתח ביד אומן את המשמעויות של המוסדות הפוליטיים והמאבקים הגדולים במקרא. כפי שכותב פרופ' מנחם לורברבוים באחרית דבר לספר: "וולצר מבקש להיענות לצורך הדחוף בקריאה רעננה, ובאופן ספציפי – קריאה המבקשת לפענח את היסודות המדיניים של חיבור שעלילתו אלוהים, עם וארץ".
וולצר מעריץ את המקרא על המגוון העשיר של הקולות והצבעים שהוא פורש בפנינו בלא צנזורה והשתקה; הוא רואה בנביא המשמיע קולו ברחובה של עיר דגם נעלה של דמוקרטיה, ועם זאת הוא מצביע על הבעייתיות הרבה הקיימת במשטרים המתוארים במקרא – המלוכה והכהונה – ומזהיר מפני הניסיון לשאוב השראה מדגמים אלה למציאות הפוליטית בימינו. יותר מכול, העיון במקרא מעלה שאלות על מקומו של האדם ויכולתה של החברה האנושית לנהל את עצמה בצלו של אלוהים, ועל משקלה של האחריות האנושית לצדו של אל כול יכול.
וולצר, ציוני נלהב ומבקר חברתי נועז, מראה עד כמה מסוכן להפוך את המקרא לכלי בוויכוח על אדמה או למסכת טיעונים המצדיקה רדיפות ומלחמה.
זהו ספר רב משמעות הנושא קול צלול של מתינות, בדור שבו חזרה הקנאות הדתית להשמיע את קולה במקומותינו ובמקומות רבים אחרים בעולם.

Genres: Religion, Politics, Philosophy, Judaism

222 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an essential difficulty, and it is notable that the author is aware of it but unable to entirely transcend it.  That difficulty is that the Bible itself does not take a political approach but rather an ethical approach to life.  There is no shortage of people who seek to find support for their own political worldviews in the Bible [1], but this author deserves credit for manfully struggling with the anti-political nature of the Bible even if he ultimately fails to provide the insight he wishes about the subject.  It would appear, moreover, that the anti-political nature of scripture is related to the fact that the Bible entirely denies autonomy to mankind, making the philosophical view of the Greeks unbiblical by definition.  That said, although the author gets a lot right, he gets a lot wrong as well because he approaches from the wrong mindset.  Unfortunately, much of what the author gets wrong he shares with a great many would-be biblical experts, and that makes this book impossible to recommend even if it does have some worthwhile things to say.

This short book of just over 200 pages is divided into 12 chapters.  After a preface and acknowledgements section where the author shows appreciation to some (very) liberal Jewish instructors who helped the writer with his understanding of the Old Testament and various apocryphal material included herein, the author gives some discussion of politics as it relates to the following areas:  the covenants (1) and the legal codes (2).  After this the author discusses issues of conquest and holy war (3), the rule of kings (4), prophets and the audience of their fierce denunciations of immoral conduct (5), the role of prophecy in international politics (6), exile (7), the priestly kingdom (8), and the courtly politics of wisdom (9).  After this the author examines Messianism (10) without even getting into the question of Jesus Christ, before asking the question "Where are the elders?" in the Bible's accounts of leadership (11) and closing with a discussion of how biblical politics operates in a kind of shadow (12) of God's ultimate control over history.  Many readers will note the far greater willingness the author has to deal with questions of Jewish interpretation of  the scriptures than with Christian ones.  How the reader feels about this will depend in large part on their own perspective in such matters.

Amittedly, had the author not gone out of his way to cite imaginary authors like Second Zechariah and Second and Third Isaiah, this book would have been easier to approve of.  The author's adherence to critical theory makes this a tough book to enjoy because one is constantly being interrupted from enjoying a comment the author makes about covenant lawsuits to hear the author's ideas about Job and Ecclesiastes and making speculations about the timing of when books were written by his ideas of the experience of exile and other concerns.  The author's speculations are sometimes quite intriguing but are too unreliable to make this a book worth recommending.  As it is, the author fails to understand that those who do not follow the Bible and do not believe it to be a coherent whole are seriously handicapped in their abilities to draw insight from the scriptures.  To be sure, the Bible is a deeply layered text, but it is not a pluralistic or incoherent text, and to adopt critical and documentary theories about the Bible only makes it more likely as a writer that one will be greatly deceived by one's self-concept of how much honor and respect and understanding one has of the scriptures.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

[Mich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walzer (professor of social science at Princeton) traces the history of the Biblical political system, dealing with the role of kings, priests, judges, and elders. He begins with a discussion of the two covenants that God made--one with Abraham where he promises land and a multitude of direct descendants in return for circumcision. The second covenant is with the people of Israel which is more substantial--it covers following all the laws of daily life, sacrifices, beliefs, commandments. This covenant is renewed every Yom Kippur. It is a voluntary covenant. When God sees the golden calf he threatens to consume the people and Moses reminds him of God's covenant with Abraham. Moses asks God to affirm that this nation is God's nation.

There are three sources of legal code in the bible (Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy). It doesn't matter who wrote the bible--it is a matter of faith--there is coherence in that there jus a diversity of different views of authorship. Everyone, including the most conservative of orthodox Jews are enmeshed is the interpretive process.

Politically, there may have been different hierarchies, but they all had to obey God--even the kings. When Jews were exiled to Babylon, the Israelites who were obeying God in Israel decides to keep worshipping God outside of their country. This meant forming a new community not centered around the temple with priests leading sacrificial worship. Judaism is the product of the diaspora. Israel's "wisdom" is embedded in its laws. Wisdom is an ethic and policy for everyday life.
God's shadow embraces the collective agreement for community responsibility and covenantal acceptance. God is the active sovereign and people consent to be ruled. Obedience to God's law requires moral choice.

To best understand this book it is helpful to have a strong background in the bible and the dynasties of kings and rulers, though it jus not essential.

[B.G. Brainard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waltzer contention is that the Bible needs to be read as it is. I agree with him when he states,"Reading the Bible in pieces makes political understanding, and every other kind of understanding, very difficult. Clearly, that's not the way its writers and editors wanted it to be read." Politics per se is not directly addressed in the Hebrew Bible, but the literature of ancient Israel holds within it political elements that take place in the shadow of an omnipotent God. I found especially interesting his take on priests versus prophets, the politics of wisdom, and the role of the elders. If you have any interest in political theory and religion, this is the book for you.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways, this would make a good book for an Old Testament survey course. By the time you finish, you would have a good understanding of 20th century historical and critical approach to the Hebrew scriptures all contained in a very stimulating thesis about the political dynamics that these ancient texts reveal. If you already are familiar with that scholarship, the book can be slightly tedious as it goes back over stuff that you already learned.
Nevertheless, it helped me read those texts with new eyes. That is say a lot.

[Donald Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who imagine that everything within the biblical corpus or with a singular divine intention, look elsewhere. For those looking for what the writers, schools of thought, etc. thought and wrote "politically" this is a great work that puts the people of Israel and their various representatives in perspective. Walzer does it again.

[Sam Eccleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an odd feel to it; interesting as it is, it seems curiously inconsequential. With scholarly precision, Walzer avoids projecting modern notions, or reading modern ideas back into the Biblical text, and simply states what can be said with confidence about what the authors might have had in mind when writing, compiling, or editing the texts, and what their society was like taken as a whole. I was surprised, perhaps naively, by how little is actually known, both about what a lot of the Bible actually means precisely, and about the political structure of ancient Israel.

There are a number of very interesting discussions of how themes and implied, although undefined, ideas differ between different Biblical authors; ideas such as the nature of kingship, the nature of atonement, the nature of wisdom etc, but I felt that the book would have benefited from the author perhaps setting these ideas in a broader philosophical context, or speculating about how they might have informed later historical developments.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book carries the sub title "Politics in the Hebrew Bible". But the author's argument that politics--the distribution and organization of power in a society--is absent from the Hebrew Bible causes this reader to wonder how one can analyze and describe a non-existent entity. Despite my lack of understanding about the purpose of the book, Walzer's work does provide one way of understanding the world view of the Hebrew prophets and their ideas about living in a theocracy.

[Alexander Velasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main premise of the book lies in its antipolitical thesis: when God is king, there is no need for politics. It's only when the Israelites reject God as their king (1 Samuel 8:7) that there is room made for any political maneuvering in ancient Israel. The Bible has very little to say about politics, as Walzer makes the case that the composers of the biblical text had little to no interest on the subject. Nevertheless, it is an insightful read.

For example, ancient Israel's foreign policy was based solely on its domestic policy: that is, act justly at home, and your home will be secure (i.e. secure against Assyria, the Neo-Babylonians, and all other threatening rival states). God would take care of the Israelites abroad, so long as they follow his commands. Whether the kings chose to follow God's commands, which was given to the kings by the law of Moses and the prophets, was up to them. These are not inherently political commands but have to do issues of obedience to the Lord; but since the command has political consequences, and the king's decide whether to obey them or not, it becomes a political issue. Hence, a good foreign policy depends on a good domestic policy, and a good domestic policy depends on a good king.

If you're into politics and into biblical history, this is a must read.