Israel and Humanity - The Pentateuch

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III.

Monotheism in the Bible.

§ 1.

The Pentateuch.

There is a distinction between the first four books of the Pentateuch and the fifth, so different that we could see virtually the first monument of tradition. In these four books, the revelation of the unity of God, instead of affecting the form of a doctrinal teaching is deduced rather as a logical consequence of the facts reported and established laws while Deuteronomy less legislative in character, but more moral and theological. Monotheism is not taught formally at least on one side or the other and if the first sacred writings seem to proceed in this regard by innuendo rather than explicit proposals, he should see a process of drafting specific to older ages and this way of presenting the belief in one God as an indisputable and undisputed principle is all the more significant.

Part of the rationalist school sees elsewhere in Leviticus and in some fragments of Exodus and Genesis to Deuteronomy subsequent works, so that a doctrine so plainly expressed therein could not have been foreign in more recent writings. He confirmed simply quote a text which at first sight seems to devote a singular contradiction of faith in God's most exclusive country while he proclaims his unit. When Moses first announced Israel's election, he was careful to declare that such is the will of the God who has the world: "Now if you hear my voice, and if you keep my covenant, you Me above all people: for all the earth is mine" Such a word said without hesitation possible the unity of God, whether we want to see in it the pleasure of a sovereign, master of all nations without exception, chosen arbitrarily among all those that rather, whether we recognize this choice itself the exercise of universal welfare. It can only mean one thing: Israel is elected by God among all peoples of the earth belongs to him entirely. He must also conclude that a God whose empire is universal can never be an exclusively national deity, as claimed by the rationalistic criticism which this single verse overturned thoroughly assertions.

The fourth chapter in the book of Genesis ends with a sentence that the incident was rightly regarded as indicating the beginning of polytheism and idolatry: "Then the men began to call by name the Lord. " If so, we have a clear proof that the author assumes the prior existence of monotheism and he regards as having been generally taught until that time. And is not this same book we find that faith again expressed as a prophecy of the universal reign of God, the God of the Tetragrammaton? The text we are talking about and that is in the Bible as one of the first light messianic, predicted that the Lord God of Shem will be recognized one day as the only true God as well as Ham Japheth

Finally, there are books in which we are witness to monotheism as we have already had occasion to point out and can not be doubted: the prohibition of religious images. We tried, it is true, to avoid this demonstration by saying that this worship was forbidden to be hostile to that of the national god. But why ban unnecessary, since the deities represented by the images themselves could be worshiped? The text of the Pentateuch does not distinguish between the gods and their faces and the history of religion shows that, according to the general belief of fetish, an idol material was the seat of the spirit of god and thus became one same thing with the image. We see further that the prohibition extends even to the figures we have made to represent the true God. Obviously this is not because they were inimical to his faith, but because they were useless and contrary to his spirituality and his infinite perfections. But since the law was absolute, as it identified in all cases the deity with the sensuous form that he wanted to give, he must conclude that the real reason for the prohibition of images is that the gods that they were supposed to perform, do not exist for the legislature of Israel.

Deuteronomy proclaims that none of these gods "work of human hands, wood, stone, who can neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell" , did not report a few lines later that the Lord is a jealous God But this is not contradictory as it might at first sight, because if is true that one can not be jealous of what does not He could, however, that the idols in question might represent, not gods, but the real things and beings and is also the feeling of love and adoration of the sacred author intends to offer the true God and he does allow sharing with anyone, even with imaginary creatures. If nothingness of idols is more explicitly expressed in Deuteronomy in the first books of the Pentateuch, that is, we repeat, to the more rhetorical of this writing. One could say that Moses will give free rein to the movements of his soul by talking with his people paternally, whereas previously it was the legislators who spoke to codify its laws.

Contrary to the opinion reported earlier, which is an earlier book of Deuteronomy to the rest of the Pentateuch, some other critical rationalists explain the more extreme spiritualism that is noticed in this book and give it a date of composition later. But if those same critics say the first four are the work of Ezra and whether monotheism is so foreign to them, they say, how in a short period of time than that, in this case would separate writing these messages, such a change would have happened in the way of conceiving the deity? To avoid this difficulty, the authors refuse to see the same monotheism in Deuteronomy can not find this book to them, however, a simple monolatry recognizing the superiority of the God of Israel on the foreign gods. A similar interpretation can it be sustained in the presence of as formal texts such as "The Lord (Being designated by the Tetragrammaton) is that which is God, there is no other than Him? "Deuteronomy Or the one where Moses, speaking of Israel seduced by the false gods, exclaimed:" They moved me to jealousy with that which is not God, they irritated me with their idols " Translate, as did Mr Havet, what is not God by a god of another nation , c ' is an expedient unacceptable and contrary to sound critical because it is equivalent to give arbitrarily as a profession of faith, expressed in terms as clear a sense that there is nothing to put in the mind of the author and the context is far suggested.

How about monolatry yet in Deuteronomy, where we see that the word god is taken as synonymous with vanity, pure nothing, with a concern for monotheism as obvious as in the writings of prophets among the apocryphal Baruch discoursing aberrations of idolatry? This is also a passage that cuts off any discussion in this regard, because the idea of the special election of Israel, and therefore the national religion, it is expressed along the belief in one God, in a perfect synthesis of two concepts: "Behold, the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and everything in it, and it is your fathers only that the Lord has committed to love, and after them, their posterity, that he has chosen you among all peoples " In some way that we hear such a text, it logically excludes any possibility of polytheism.

There we agree, passages in the Pentateuch where the existence of gods, not only not denied, but rather seems to be accepted, as in this verse who knows about the one just quoted: "The Jehovah your God is God of gods, Lord of lords, the great God, strong and adorable ". But can one imagine a more satisfying and energetic sanction the dogma of the unity of God to these beings as gods adored by men as creatures, subjects, servants of God who is high and even higher than the so-called gods that it is the sovereign Lord is more sublime themselves? The gods have a God they are still gods?

Name call the attention of critics on Deuteronomy IV, 35 as we reported earlier: "You have been given control of these things, so you reconnusses that the LORD is God and that there none else. " They confess that it is impossible to be more formal, the incommunicable name to God and to tell them, that would have been the national god of the Hebrews, is expressly designated as One God, in other words, as there can be only one God, God is the tetragrammaton and so have the wonders revealed to Israel he has made and that the list above. "There is no other God but Him," which could even, without strength study in no way ment sense, be translated as "beyond Him there is nothing" professional unity so absolute she would not let an embarrassing, if the general meaning of the Bible and do not specify which limited scope. A little later, another text reproduces the same basic idea: "Know therefore this day and consider it in your heart that the Lord is God up in heaven and on earth beneath, and there is none else" , but we note again that in the Mosaic system, God is on earth as in heaven, it is both transcendent and immanent, which is an expressive way to affirm its unity. How can we not be amazed to see that Moses speaks as Abraham , as well as Deuteronomy employs terms identical to those of Genesis and that these two books agree with the Exodus, where we find in the Decalogue, the statement that nothing in heaven or on earth is worthy of worship but God alone?

In this verse we also read in Deuteronomy: "See now that I am God and there is no god beside me is I who bring both death and life, which I hurt and heal, and nobody saves my hands ", we have previously reported evidence of faith in a God but the belief in one God, is she less clearly expressed? He does not any idea of polytheism? The dualism itself, which is not as Magian might think, we seem only condemned by the grant made to God alone prosperity and misery, death and life. This is perfectly consistent with the spirit of Judaism which, as noted by Spinoza among others, could hesitate to acknowledge God for author of all natural, it is beneficial or injurious, and that without any of the caution that our modern theodicies bring to the study of the problem of evil. This was indeed the ascendancy of monotheism the ancient Jews that they had no idea they could not offend God only by proclaiming author of all things. The Mosaic ritual symbolically expresses this belief in offering the goat for Azazel, which was made in the same temple, by the same Pontiff, and as part of the ceremony as a sacrifice to God himself in the solemn day of Atonement.

It is perhaps surprising that in this examination of the texts of Deuteronomy, we have not yet said anything in verse monotheistic par excellence, has become the creed of Judaism, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God The Lord is One "Ibid., VI 4. </Ref> There are serious reasons to believe that the unity of God considered in His essence we have in view in this passage. But monotheism can not be deduced with equal reason. Precisely because God is the indivisible point towards which everything converges, the universal monad, the center from which radiates all that was, everything, everything that is, it can only be one, is to say that there can be two centers, two outbreaks of life. Besides, a religion that rose to the design of the One God in nature as proclaimed in the famous verse, can not be admitted together with the crude belief in polytheism.

Those who, by unjustifiable prejudices refuse to see the religion of the Hebrews than a simple monolatry later converted into monotheism year contact with Greek philosophy, we confirm, if possible, in our convictions by poverty of their arguments. We are told for example that we must untie the hyperbole of biblical style, and it is said in Isaiah: "There is no other God but me" , the same book told the city of Babylon: "Me and only me! " For this we reply that if the Bible is hyperbolism suspicious when she speaks of the unity of his God, it must also be given when it seems the divinity to other beings, angels , heroes, even abstractions. Regarding the passage on Babylon, who does not see that in this case the hyperbole is precisely intended by the Prophet in order to better reflect the pride and the absurdity of such a language, for all knew that it existed outside of Babylon, other large and powerful cities, while, when the Bible says that God is unique, with the clear intention deny any motion out and reserve to Him in worship. His assertions in this regard are so adamant and repeated with such persistence that the rationalistic objections can not be reasonably argued, at least we do not want to see hyperbole in the Pentateuch uninterrupted whole.