Israel and Humanity - Jewish proselytism

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III.

Jewish proselytism.

The call of Abraham and his ministry to Gentiles lead us to speak of Jewish proselytism, because if he really existed at different periods of Israel's history, it is evidently a proof of the universality that the Jews would accord to the Act. Without doubt this issue will be better placed in the historical study of Jewish universalism, but we find it helpful to detach this page, the first, which looks at the time prior to Moses.

The title of father of many nations given to Abraham naturally recalls another similar promise made to Jacob. "A people," said the Lord, and a congregation of people shall be of thee ". The divine prediction is repeated by Jacob dying in his will to Joseph . What is that congregation of people to which the Patriarch has to give birth? These words from the previous close, goy , a people, can not mean merely a confederation of tribes, as it would be illogical to give them a more restrictive meaning than the latter. They light up and their true significance appears, when compared to the prophetic words of the blessing given to Abraham. But that's not all. Jacob blesses Judah said, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a stick lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come and meet the people around him or, if we prefer the translation "that the union of the people it belongs . "Any hesitation on the significance of this meeting of people disappear in the presence of the text of Zechariah:" A lot of nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and there shall be my people . So, as in the passage from the book of Genesis, individuality Israelite, God's people, across many nations of the Gentile and completion of promises made to Abraham and Jacob, they must meet in this one. A similar passage of the prophet still expresses the idea of converting the Gentiles: "In those days ten men from all languages of humanity should focus on the garment of every Jew saying, We will go with you, because we have learned that God is with you ".

There is a text of Psalms which casts a bright light on what is the book of Genesis tells us of the apostolate of Abraham, or to all the passages relating to the result of Jewish proselytizing among the Gentiles: "The peoples of good will "or" men of goodwill from the people meet, the people of the God of Abraham ". There is obviously no reason to appoint people of the Gentiles God of Abraham, except the belief that Israel's faith is for all peoples and that the Hebrew patriarch who was the first apostle to the is called. It is vain to seek to discover another reason for this qualification.

Every effort to deflect criticism of these texts, however, so clear in their natural meaning from the bottom of an often unconscious bias, but certain. We refuse to believe that an idea so sublime, that humanity even today, except a tiny minority, is not yet capable, has been loudly proclaimed in a small people of Semitic, there are some thirty or forty centuries. But when once admitted that this view of the accession of all peoples to the God of Israel, even better, a whole humanity became God's people, truly belongs to Judaism, if late, moreover, that we judge the appearance - and there really are limits to which even the most radical criticism - he becomes the highest degree illogical to give a different interpretation of the texts book of Genesis that are obviously the same sense, merely because they back to a more remote antiquity and they therefore contain a more extraordinary prediction. If this is indeed a prediction that is very human, there is not a psychological standpoint, or even according to some critical point of time appreciable difference between the time of writing the book of Genesis and that we assign to the book of Zechariah.

So an unintended consequence, perhaps, but unmistakable, of boldness that will allow critical rationalistic biblical field. In holding as recent as possible the ideas of religious universalism distributed, according to former Canon on a broad scale, it does require that we understand more of the same texts as not only similar, but contemporary and it makes for that reason more arbitrary adoption of different methods when it comes to interpreting them. If instead we consider the scripture is from the point of view of the revolution mosaic antiquity more or less of such or such books should not weigh more for nothing in the question of exegesis. The texts in question can not therefore in any case change direction according to their place in the Bible.

If the apostolate of the figures of Abraham both Biblical and traditional, we can say the same of that of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, at least when we look at the comments of Rabbis. Maimonides summarizing what the ancient doctors had said about it takes about their language. "Never," he said, education did not cease in our Patriarchs. After Abraham, Isaac and Jacob followed his example did the same after Isaac. " About the latter we read in the Pentateuch that he "built an altar and proclaimed the name of the LORD " and everything we said about the scope of this sentence is also its application here. The place in question is Beersheba . Perhaps this is why, when Jacob came around to pass in the same place, the sacred writer tells us "where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac ". This phrase means very likely that the true God was known in this locality as the God of Isaac, through the knowledge that Isaac had spread among the Gentiles.

The idea of the influence exerted by the patriarchs is so ingrained in the minds of doctors they go so far attributed to Jacob a beneficial action on the pagan world, even outside the purely religious interests. It's him, they tell us, who taught Shechemites to strike coins, open baths and markets, in short to develop their civil institutions and trade.

Before concluding, we want to draw attention to a text which, if properly interpreted, proves that the proselytizing of the Patriarchs, Abraham, in particular, is a prelude and a confirmation of his mission which their descendants were later invested in humanity. In this light it is understandable why, at the point of contact for the destiny of Abraham Pentapolis, God says, in a sublime monologue whose every word has its value: "I have elected, that he recommends to his children and his family after him to keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, and so the Lord makes to Abraham that he has made ".

Which is to say that God chose Abraham in order that true religion is perpetuated in him and that he fulfilled God's promise to give birth to a people who would be a blessing for all the earth. Because we must not forget that. Before the words we have heard, there are others who do nothing in their assignor eloquence and sublimity: "How should I conceal from Abraham what I am going to do? ... saith the Lord. Abraham will yet become a great and powerful and he will bless all the nations of the earth . If we depart from the interpretation that is the very subject of this chapter, the universality of the law justifying the apostolate of Abraham and proselytizing of his descendants, we can no longer understand or why this divine communication is made to the patriarch in the terms we have just mentioned, nor how it found its cause in the future greatness of God's chosen, and even less in it would impose an obligation to posterity to persevere in the footsteps of the Lord. These facts have over their ties and everything becomes inexplicable, whereas if you do not lose sight of the religious vocation of Abraham and his descendants, everything in this wonderful page of the book of Genesis, linked together perfectly.